Lauren WeinsteinI used to hang around the Bell Labs Murray Hill 1127 lab -- where UNIX originated -- sometimes when I was in the area. A fond memory is sitting at a terminal in there (probably a Blit) working on a program back on my L.A. system over the Net. I ran into a complicated C declaration issue. Sitting a few feet away at the next terminal was Dennis Ritchie (dmr) -- a wonderful guy. Well hell, since he created C, who better to ask about this. So I did, and he instantly offered me an elegant solution I would never have thought of. Years later, it occurred to me that this was the closest I'd ever be to getting advice directly from a god.
I can't overemphasize the comradery back then. On one of my trips out to New Jersey, Dennis and (I believe) Brian Kernighan picked me up at the airport. The UNIX/ARPANET/Internet world was relatively tiny compared with what it would grow to be. An entirely different age. And this isn't just some old guy looking through rose-tinted hindsight talking now. Trust me on this.
PhosphenesWow. Was this in the 1970s?
@Phosphenes Most of my trips East for this stuff were probably in the late 70s to mid-80s period. That's also when I had my experience at the World Trade Center when I was presenting at an early Usenix conference at CUNY.