"Computing.... There I was!"

"Computing.... There I was!"

by Richard Bielak
HistoryTechnology
Season 1
Adam Liss - from electrical engineer to software engineer; adventures on the hardware/software boundary,
One story summarizes Adam's career - when he was asked in an intro to engineering class "Why do you want to be an electrical engineer?", he replied "Because it's fun!". While he started as an electrical engineer, he quickly moved into programing of the devices he worked on. As a requirement for a job he read the classic "C Language" book over a weekend to learn C. Eventually he landed at Google, where - among other things - he build testing harnesses for Android devices. If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E10
Jun 26, 2026
56:30
Steven Fortune - researcher at IBM and Bell Labs. and then software engineer at Google.
Steven Fortune began programming while still in High School - in FORTRAN on punch cards. One of his ambitious projects was a program to play chess (in batch mode!). After obtaining his Ph.D., he went to work at IBM Research Labs in Yorktown Heights. Later, he moved on to Bell Labs research, where he worked in the group that included the creators of UNIX. While working on graph algorithms he developed what is now called Fortune's algorithm. After a long career at Bell Labs, Steve was hired at Google where he spent his time working on algorithms to improve search results. He retired from Google in 2022. If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E9
May 25, 2026
49:21
David Windmueller - from peek and poke, to operating nuclear reactors, to NASA and Google
David Windmueller had an unusually varied career. Although he started playing with computers in elementary school, he started his working life as operator of nuclear reactors in the US Navy. Once he became a software engineer he worked at NASA, some startups and eventually landed at Google. Today he teaches computer science and physics to high school students. If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E8
Apr 24, 2026
1:00:42
John Cordell - from writing low level code for microprocessor designers to patenting the IFRAME tag.
John Cordell had an impressive career. As a teenager he worked along engineers who designed early micro processors at Datapoint. After a stint in NY finance sector, John landed at Microsoft where he was one of the initial developers of the first Internet Explorer. He is responsible for the IFRAME tag in HTML. He also worked at several startups, including an early AI one. If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E7
Mar 6, 2026
58:31
Barbara Gilman - from early system engineer at IBM to a career as independent consultant.
Barbara Gilman started her career as a Systems Engineer at IBM in 1962. She first wired control panels on IBM accounting machines, such as the 407, then moved on to programming 1401 computers. She first coded in machine language, then used Autocoder and others, including Assembly language on the IBM 360/370. After leaving IBM, Barbara worked as an independent software developer, working on many small and mid-range systems, from PCs to 1440s to AS400s, for a wide range of companies. She ended her career working for The Coca-Cola Company. If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E6
Feb 1, 2026
44:49
Kitty Munson-Cooper - system programmer at DEC. programmer at many financial institutions and world champion Contract Bridge player
Kitty started her career as a system programmer at Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), working on the MUMPS system, then worked at number of financial institutions and eventually ran her own web design business (see https://www.openskywebdesign.com). While doing all that she was also a world class bridge player and genealogist. You can visit her web site: http://kittycooper.com/ If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E5
Jan 3, 2026
51:47
Marc Cohen - from Bell Labs and Lucent to Google, to becoming an educator.
Marc Cohen is a software engineer who worked for many years at Google, Bell Labs and Lucent. He left Google in 2024 and now is a part time teacher in London - teaching Python and AI. Marc writes a regular blog, which you can fine here: https://mco.dev/. For future software engineers Marc gave a talk on how to handle a technical interview, as he was an interviewer at Google. Check it out: Tech Interviews: What to Expect Tips and Tricks If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E4
Dec 1, 2025
56:32
David Lampell - from Olivetti calculators, to medical devices to Google.
As mentioned in the episode, David learned to program as a teenager on a Olivetti programable calculator. Take a look at this page to see what it looked like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_101 If you have any questions or suggestions please email the host: richieb@gmail.com
S1 · E3
Nov 17, 2025
56:29
Eric Mintz - from teenage programmer at Cornell, to software engineer at Google.
This is the first episode of "Computing... There I was". It's a conversation Eric Mintz, a software engineer recently retired from Google. Turns out Eric made a small mistake, the language he first programmed in was called CORC - Cornell Computing Language. For those that would like see what keypunch looked and sounded like check out this video. Finally, any questions or suggestions pleas email me at richieb@gmail.com with subject "Computing... There I Was".
S1 · E2
Oct 14, 2025
1:08:15
Richie Bielak - Introduction to the podcast
This is a short introduction to the podcast by your host. You can always write me at richieb@gmail.com. Please include "Computing...There I was" in the subject line.
S1 · E1
Oct 12, 2025
5:04