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.
Ralph Brandi@lauren I worked in a peripheral organization at Bell Labs (BL Tech Pubs), not the Murray Hill lab, but every time I needed to talk to someone from MH they were incredibly helpful. And it happened more often than you would think, because I was one of the people running www.bell-labs.com. Love your story.