I posted this to LINUX-390 and to IBMVM. Please pardon the duplication
(and the length).
Neale Ferguson shared about David's passing and gave the link.
In case you missed it, tomorrow (Saturday, October 4) there will be a
celebration of his life which I plan to join via Zoom. See the SNA* page
...
*https://sinenomine.net/index.php/davidboyesscholarshipfund/*
So many people have blessed my life and my career, and Dave is
significant on that front.
We shared an office for four years in the early 1990s when we were both
working for Rice University.
Oh those were heady days! It was before consumer Internet, though Rice
was a hub for all networking in Texas: Internet, DECNET, and of course
BITNET. Our manager was none other than Richard Schafer, creator of
Ricemail, later Mailbook, which (if I am remembering correctly) was
later picked up by SNA* (but I cannot find it on their web site).
Richard also left us earlier this year.
Glenn Vanderburg and I had been working at Texas A&M (TAMCBA, and
sometimes TAMVM1) and had become familiar with that Boyes fellow on
BITNET up in Oregon. Suddenly he disappeared, only to show-up again at
Rice in Houston. Interesting. I myself was looking for a job change
(long story!) and soon after that snagged an interview with Richard.
Glenn sounded impressed: "YOU have an interview with RICHARD SCHAFER?".
I mentioned Dave during the interview, that we had seen him relocate to
Rice, mispronouncing his name. (boyz)
I got the job, told my (late) wife Marilyn, "we're moving to Houston!",
and then met Dave on my first day. Trying to give full disclosure (Jesus
is a big deal), I introduced myself as a fundamentalist Christian.
Oooooopppsss!! It must have scared the crap out of David because word
got around the office. Weeks later, one of the operators (remember
operators?) pulled me aside, "You are a fundamental BELIEVER. Don't say
'fundamentalist Christian' or people will get the wrong idea.". Point
taken. But Boyes and I had some alignment already because he was a
serious student of church history. The workstation naming theme was
early church fathers, names I learned from Dave. Bede and Anselm come to
mind. Possibly also Athanasius.
Rice had two mainframes, both running VM: a 4381 and a "National
[Semiconductor] Advanced Systems" AS/9000. NAS was later acquired by
Hitachi. David observed that Hitachi really missed an opportunity: call
themselves "Hitachi America Limited" and re-brand that old NAS machine
HAL/9000. Few others would have seen that on their own, but it's exactly
the kind of thing Mr. Boyes would notice and point out. Hitachi probably
never heard of him, but conspiracy theorists might suspect that they did
hear and simply said, "We're sorry Dave. We're afraid we can't do that.".
Rice later got a new primary VM system, an ES/9000. (There's that "9000"
again!) Somewhere there's a photo (this is pre-CCD, so we're talking
35mm) of David walking around the machine room with a gleam in his eye,
a clenched fist, and an expression saying "GOOD S**T!" on his face.
One thing David clearly understood, that I quite agree with, is that VM
can do anything. We ran multiple AIX/370 guests and had high hopes that
the university would embrace it. But *officially* we were the VM guys.
The Unix team gave us a big yawn. (Even though the Unix lead had earned
his Unix stripes on Amdahl's UTS. Go figure!)
But Dave knew Unix. He gave me lots of pointers. (I had already learned
C from Glenn.) David got me started with X windows and introduced me to
UWM, the "ugly window manager". Things took off from there. We had the
best of both worlds: we supported VM while we ran Unix on our
workstations. Hah! And in our office, which Dave outed had originally
been a storage closet, we had a regular supply of David's Monty Python
cassettes.
Rice had previously also run MVS. Dave and I both missed the handwriting
on the wall. They dropped MVS (before we got there) and eventually also
dropped VM (after we left, thankfully).
He could be generous (like another Dave the VMers will remember). He
cooked a large pot of stew for Marilyn and me. She was expecting our
first child and went into labor the next day. This is NOT a milkman
story; it was just dinner! But that kid grew up to work in two American
embassies, which would have impressed David, given his simultaneous
/loathing of/ and /obsession with/ American politics. He referred to his
project proposals as "manifestos". When mainframe Linux came on the
scene, he called his project "Test Plan Charlie", named for the obvious,
"Checkpoint Charlie". 41,000 penguins on one hypervisor! Even after all
these years, the others can't come close.
David had begun pursuing his PhD. In those days, I only attended >one<
VM Workshop. It was Fayetteville. But I told the community that I was
driving and "the Doctor is flying, literally" (because Dave-o was taking
commercial air, duh). No one got it. Dr. Who? [sigh] I'll out that his
doctorate is history, not tech. But that's fitting for the man, to those
who know him. And it does make for a "well rounded individual" as the
academics are always telling us we should be. Bravo, Dr. Boyes. Nicely
done, sir.
We continued to cross paths after we both left Rice: South Bend,
Leesburg, conferences.
*about SNA
I've mentioned SNA at least twice already. For those who don't know,
that's Sine Nomine Associates.
That's the company David founded, along with Margarete and also Adam
Thornton. If you don't know latin, it means "nameless". I can just see
the three of them sitting around struggling to think-up a name for their
venture, and finally (as if surrendering) "sine nomine".
Speaking of Margarete, what a gem! I was so happy for Dave to find her.
(Genesis 2:18, etc.) One thing I remember fondly when I first met her is
her saying, "If we ever split-up, I get the cats!". What a gem, and what
an amazing job she has done caring for him as well as for SNA. You go,
girl! Well done.
I'm leaving out a lot. I just never expected to lose him this soon.
My wife Susan and I, both widowed, have taken on helping friends and
family going through loss.
Reflecting on this is bittersweet. We have had (and still DO have) a lot
of really amazing people in this community.
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-- R; <><
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-- R; <><
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