[LINK] RIP Sandy Douglas

[Pilcher, Fred]

Roger wrote:
> Despite being in the computer/IT industry for 40 years, I have to
> admit that I had to look him up.  The Wikipedia article is a bit
> scatty, but I didn't locate anything better:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.S._Douglas

"Professor Alexander "Sandy" Shafto Douglas CBE (born May 21, 1921) is a
British professor of computer science, credited with creating the first
graphical Computer game OXO (also known as Noughts and Crosses) a
tic-tac-toe  computer game in 1952 on the EDSAC computer at University
of Cambridge."

Goodness.

When I were a lad I used to love going into Sydney on the bus with my
father to spend a few hours at the (then) Technological Museum in Harris
Street, later the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and, more
recently, something else whose name escapes me (undoubtedly reflecting
its interactivity) because it's lost all the wonder that I felt as a
small boy peering with quiet reverence into the ancient glass-topped
wooden display cases full of fluorescent minerals and insects and
stuffed animals and other wonderful things. "Interactive" wasn't in our
vocabulary then.

One of the displays was a computer (it had a name - damned if I can
remember what it was, though I knew it well then) which ran OXO. I'm
sure I wasn't the only small child to get a thrill on the rare occasion
that I beat it. 

It may be overstating the case to suggest that that was the trigger for
my lifelong interest in computing, but it was certainly a factor.
 
I have to go now and tell those kids to get off my lawn.

Fred 
  
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