Gordon Bell wins S. Cray Award

So I was originally going to post that while I whole-heartedly agree that he deserved the award, I was a bit dubious about the 'Father of the Minicomputer' thing, because the only early minicomputer I knew of associated with him was the PDP-11 (which really made minicomputers a Really Big Deal, and is clearly significant); however, the grouping had attained takeoff speed before it appeared. It's a good question which minicomputer was really the first and/or really set the grouping going. Among the claimants would be the PDP-8 (the detailed designer of the original PDP-8 being Edson deCastro), which was surely the first extremely successful minicomputer, and the CDC 160 (designed by Seymour Cray). Another possibility would be the LINC, designed by Wes Clark (whose other big claim to fame was suggesting the ARPANET IMP), and Charles Molnar. Then there's the PDP-5, which was a success, but nowhere near as big a hit as the PDP-8, although it was the inspiration for the PDP-8. I wasn't sure if I class the PDP-5 as a minicomputer, though; it was a bit too big (physically) and expensive. But its architect was.... Gordon Bell! (See Glenn Rifkin, "Ultimate Entrepreneur", pg. 55.) Edson deCastro was apparently the detail designer of this one too. Bell was apparently also the architect of the PDP-8. So it sounds like the title is merited... (And Wikipedia really needs a PDP-5 page. Maybe I'll whip one up...) Noel