Time log of the questions in the 2007-10-27 interview of Bob Stewart

The questions as listed below are sketches of the actual questions by
interviewer Steve Diamond, along with the start time (minute and seconds) of
the question. In some cases there are hints at topics covered in the answers.

The recording begins with 12 seconds of silence.

:13 Introduction by Steve

1:15 How did you first become involved with the IEEE standards activities?

- it started with the origins of the microprocessor standards committee in the
Home Brew Computer Club

- Dr. Feng became involved

4:19 Dr. Feng went on in the Computer Society, did he not?

4:39 What became of S100 after the initial announcement of your interest in
creating it?

6:37 How did the IEEE standards operating react to creation of the MSC and 696
bus?

7:40 Were there companies implementing the S100 bus in the days before that
standard was approved or extended?

8:39 How interested was Intel in the S100 standard?

9:27 Of the standards MSC did, what are the most important standards you worked
on and when did they begin?

11:37 When did that floating point standard begin?

- how Intel got involved

16:07 I remember attending a meeting of the 754 committee at which DEC was not
cooperative.

- involvement of Professor Kahan from Berkeley

21:40 How involved was IBM in the development of 754

23:35 Did your involvement extend from the 754 standard to the 854 standard?

23:18 You also were involved in creation of the 802 standard.

- about the initial 802 committee meeting

- about a 15 minute phone call the created the dot notation, e.g., 802.1,
802.2, ... 802.11N, ...

- the insight avoiding bifurcation of standards

37:02 What happened next in the early days of 802?

- Bob got more involved in other parts of the Society and was less in touch
with the standards activity

38:02 Were the standards activities aligned with the Technical Activity Board
(they are now separate)?

- it was better to have them be together; lots of back-and-forth between strong
technical people

39:51 About the Society's involvement in Firewire (1394).

- Bob wasn't heavily involved

- he finds it interesting that 1394 is fast than Intel's universal serial bus

- USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 are still playing catch-up

43:23 You mentioned people from the early days of standards; tell me more.

- involvement of Tom Pittman

- if you want to get things done, it's better to get the people together over
pizza and beer than to exchange draft documents

46:52 About Tom Pittman and Tiny Basic

-4004 and 8080

48:24 Are ther others we should talk about ... Dave James, Mike Teener, Dave
Gustafson?

- a bit about Gustafson

49:29: Do you still have your MITS Altair that led to your interest in S100
that in turn led to your standards efforts?

51:07 Assembly language standards and the interest (or disinterest) of various
companies.

- some people were interested, but the companies not so much

- the object code standard

- future bus and the importance of setting standards early

54:30 As a standards pioneer, what thoughts do you have about the development
IEEE standards over the years and advice for the History Committee for
preserving history?

- standards workers don't get much glory

- the committee should make stuff like this interview available to the
membership as a whole and eventually get a historian involved to produce a book

56:49 Thanks and appreciation.

58:03 End of recording.



21:40