Lynn Conway's Story (2000)

https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/LynnsStory.html

by panic • 3 years ago

171 34 3 years ago

ai.eecs.umich.edu

As a trans kid on the "early" (early-2000s) Internet, Lynn Conway and Wendy Carlos were the first trans people I was aware of who were not movie jokes or villains. I owe a lot to the handful of trans folks who were among the first people to have a web presence at all.

finite_depth• 3 years ago

No kidding. It's a shame so many of that "old guard" are married to some...pretty outdated ideas of what being trans is, but they still had to fight a lot of shit we don't.

jacquesm3• 3 years ago

Nobody's perfect. if they hadn't had those fights then you'd be having more of them. Besides, your ideas are most likely going to be looked at as pretty outdated by the generations that follow, that's pretty much the expected thing.

sverona5• 3 years ago

Mercifully we don't have to be stealth anymore. I can't imagine being so strong.

dang• 3 years ago

Lynn Conway's Retrospective (2003) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24312700 - Aug 2020 (8 comments)

Syzygies• 3 years ago

https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/visionary-engineer...

"Inspired by her interdisciplinary studies in history, anthropology, and sociology at Columbia, Conway sought, as an engineer, not only to ride a wave of innovation in computing but to spark maximal diffusion of her open-ended method for better VLSI chips by empowering more researchers to advance the field."

Lynn Conway gave the most amazing talk I'd seen up to that point in my life, in the 1980's at Columbia. (Whitfield Diffie would be the other.) She opened with graphs of how birds in England had learned to poke the foil on milk deliveries, and drink the cream. She generalized this to describing how she deliberately used her training in anthropology to accelerate the spread of her new approach to VSLI chip design.

I had no idea she was trans, though the only way it could matter would be as another data point for how being at odds with the conventional world so often boosts creative thinking. And I've encouraged many students since, "To be a revolutionary, first embrace that you want to be a revolutionary."

1attice• 3 years ago

Sometimes folks look at me askance when I talk about my pride in 'my people' -- I get eyeball rolls now and then. But stories like these remind me that I'm from a psychosocial lineage that is strength and brilliance incarnate.

Power to us all. <3

sverona5• 3 years ago

I needed to hear this. Thank you.

Kosecant• 3 years ago

That would have been an impressive career whether she was trans or not.

DonHopkins3• 3 years ago

Not just one but TWO impressive careers. She invented superscalar CPUs in her first career, was brutally fired by IBM for being trans, then rebooted her life in stealth from scratch, and not only invented but wrote the book on and taught VLSI design to a whole generation of designers, including industry giants like Guy L Steele and James H Clark (among many others).

She serves as incontrovertible proof of how utterly vile and wrong and morally and intellectually bankrupt the conservative transphobic bigots who abuse the technology Lynn invented to spread their hatred and mendacious political attacks are, who don't deserve to use any of the technology she created and shared for their hate mongering and bullying to destroy other people's lives that are none of their business.

IBM made a HUGE mistake firing her, but 52 years later finally sincerely turned the ship around, reformed, and apologized for their mistake and honored her.

How much longer will it take the rest of the transphobic assholes in the world, especially the Republican party and MAGA Cult who are divisively and diabolically trying to grab power by running this election on the abuse of trans and LGBTQA+ children and adults, even to the point of beclowning themselves by waging a pathetic losing Jihad against Mickey Mouse, to realize how fucking EVIL and WRONG they are, and finally shut the fuck up with the hate speech and whining about how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity, and simply treating other human beings with respect, is so inconvenient for their chosen lifestyles of bible thumping, bigotry, insurrection, and hatred, to finally apologize for being such bullying sociopathic jackasses, and beg their make-believe gods and the rest of actual humanity for forgiveness.

IBM Issues an Apology for Firing a Transgender Woman

https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/events/ibm-a...

IBM Apologizes For Firing Computer Pioneer For Being Transgender...52 Years Later

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremyalicandri/2020/11/18/ibm-...

This HR Executive of the Year is Transforming IBM

https://hrexecutive.com/this-hr-executive-of-the-year-is-tra...

52 Years Later, IBM Apologizes for Firing Transgender Woman

Lynn Conway was one of the company’s most promising young computer engineers but after confiding to supervisors that she was transgender, they fired her.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/21/business/lynn-conway-ibm-...

Column: IBM apologizes for firing a transgender pioneer, 52 years late

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-11-23/ibm-apolog...

IBM fired U-M professor Lynn Conway for coming out as trans in 1968. 52 years later, the company apologized

https://michigan.it.umich.edu/news/2020/12/02/ibm-fired-u-m-...

IBM fired U-M professor Lynn Conway for coming out as trans in 1968. 52 years later, the company apologized

At the University of Michigan’s 2018 Winter Commencement, Lynn Conway, professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science, encouraged the graduating class to embrace changes and transitions as an inevitable part of their future adventures.

https://www.michigandaily.com/news/academics/ibm-fired-u-m-p...

deepspace• 3 years ago

Some people, who do not normally pay attention to this kind of issue, are shocked when they learn the extent of the knuckle-draggers' abuse. It is worthwhile noting that in 2023, in the US alone, no less than 566 anti-trans bills have been proposed in 49 states.

This goes far beyond hate speech, actively criminalizing the existence of trans people.

DonHopkins3• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31758139

Lynn Conway, co-author along with Carver Mead of "the textbook" on VLSI design, "Introduction to VLSI Systems", created and taught this historic VLSI Design Course in 1978, which was the first time students designed and fabricated their own integrated circuits:

"Importantly, these weren’t just any designs, for many pushed the envelope of system architecture. Jim Clark, for instance, prototyped the Geometry Engine and went on to launch Silicon Graphics Incorporated based on that work (see Fig. 16). Guy Steele, Gerry Sussman, Jack Holloway and Alan Bell created the follow-on ‘Scheme’ (a dialect of LISP) microprocessor, another stunning design."

THE M.I.T. 1978 VLSI SYSTEM DESIGN COURSE:

https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/MIT78.htm...

A Guidebook for the Instructor of VLSI System Design:

https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/InstGuide/InstG...

That book and course catalyzed the "Mead–Conway VLSI chip design revolution":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead%E2%80%93Conway_VLSI_chip_...

https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/conway.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carver_Mead

Lynn Conway's "Reminiscences of the VLSI Revolution: How a series of failures triggered a paradigm shift in digital design":

https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/Memoirs/VLSI/Lynn_Co...

Also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25964865

Here's some historic Vintage VLSI Porn that I posted 6 years ago, from Lynn Conway's famous VLSI Design course at MIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway

https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/conway.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8860722

DonHopkins on Jan 9, 2015 | on: Design of Lisp-Based Processors Or, LAMBDA: The Ul...

I believe this is about the Lisp Microprocessor that Guy Steele created in Lynn Conway's groundbreaking 1978 MIT VLSI System Design Course:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/MIT78.html

My friend David Levitt is crouching down in this class photo so his big 1978 hair doesn't block Guy Steele's face:

The class photo is in two parts, left and right:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Class2s.jp...

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Class3s.jp...

Here are hires images of the two halves of the chip the class made:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/InstGuide/MIT78c...

The Great Quux's Lisp Microprocessor is the big one on the left of the second image, and you can see his name "(C) 1978 GUY L STEELE JR" if you zoom in. David's project is in the lower right corner of the first image, and you can see his name "LEVITT" if you zoom way in.

Here is a photo of a chalkboard with status of the various projects:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Status%20E...

The final sanity check before maskmaking: A wall-sized overall check plot made at Xerox PARC from Arpanet-transmitted design files, showing the student design projects merged into multiproject chip set.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Checkplot%...

One of the wafers just off the HP fab line containing the MIT'78 VLSI design projects: Wafers were then diced into chips, and the chips packaged and wire bonded to specific projects, which were then tested back at M.I.T.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MIT78/Wafer%20s....

Design of a LISP-based microprocessor

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359031

ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-514.pdf

Page 22 has a map of the processor layout:

http://i.imgur.com/zwaJMQC.jpg

We present a design for a class of computers whose “instruction sets” are based on LISP. LISP, like traditional stored-program machine languages and unlike most high-level languages, conceptually stores programs and data in the same way and explicitly allows programs to be manipulated as data, and so is a suitable basis for a stored-program computer architecture. LISP differs from traditional machine languages in that the program/data storage is conceptually an unordered set of linked record structures of various sizes, rather than an ordered, indexable vector of integers or bit fields of fixed size. An instruction set can be designed for programs expressed as trees of record structures. A processor can interpret these program trees in a recursive fashion and provide automatic storage management for the record structures. We discuss a small-scale prototype VLSI microprocessor which has been designed and fabricated, containing a sufficiently complete instruction interpreter to execute small programs and a rudimentary storage allocator.

Here's a map of the projects on that chip, and a list of the people who made them and what they did:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPCAdv/SU-BK1.jp...

1. Sandra Azoury, N. Lynn Bowen Jorge Rubenstein: Charge flow transistors (moisture sensors) integrated into digital subsystem for testing.

2. Andy Boughton, J. Dean Brock, Randy Bryant, Clement Leung: Serial data manipulator subsystem for searching and sorting data base operations.

3. Jim Cherry: Graphics memory subsystem for mirroring/rotating image data.

4. Mike Coln: Switched capacitor, serial quantizing D/A converter.

5. Steve Frank: Writeable PLA project, based on the 3-transistor ram cell.

6. Jim Frankel: Data path portion of a bit-slice microprocessor.

7. Nelson Goldikener, Scott Westbrook: Electrical test patterns for chip set.

8. Tak Hiratsuka: Subsystem for data base operations.

9. Siu Ho Lam: Autocorrelator subsystem.

10. Dave Levitt: Synchronously timed FIFO.

11. Craig Olson: Bus interface for 7-segment display data.

12. Dave Otten: Bus interfaceable real time clock/calendar.

13. Ernesto Perea: 4-Bit slice microprogram sequencer.

14. Gerald Roylance: LRU virtual memory paging subsystem.

15. Dave Shaver Multi-function smart memory.

16. Alan Snyder Associative memory.

17. Guy Steele: LISP microprocessor (LISP expression evaluator and associated memory manager; operates directly on LISP expressions stored in memory).

18. Richard Stern: Finite impulse response digital filter.

19. Runchan Yang: Armstrong type bubble sorting memory.

The following projects were completed but not quite in time for inclusion in the project set:

20. Sandra Azoury, N. Lynn Bowen, Jorge Rubenstein: In addition to project 1 above, this team completed a CRT controller project.

21. Martin Fraeman: Programmable interval clock.

22. Bob Baldwin: LCS net nametable project.

23. Moshe Bain: Programmable word generator.

24. Rae McLellan: Chaos net address matcher.

25. Robert Reynolds: Digital Subsystem to be used with project 4.

Also, Jim Clark (SGI, Netscape) was one of Lynn Conway's students, and she taught him how to make his first prototype "Geometry Engine"!

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPCAdv/MPCAdv.ht...

Just 29 days after the design deadline time at the end of the courses, packaged custom wire-bonded chips were shipped back to all the MPC79 designers. Many of these worked as planned, and the overall activity was a great success. I'll now project photos of several interesting MPC79 projects. First is one of the multiproject chips produced by students and faculty researchers at Stanford University (Fig. 5). Among these is the first prototype of the "Geometry Engine", a high performance computer graphics image-generation system, designed by Jim Clark. That project has since evolved into a very interesting architectural exploration and development project.[9]

Figure 5. Photo of MPC79 Die-Type BK (containing projects from Stanford University):

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPCAdv/SU-BK1.jp...

[...]

The text itself passed through drafts, became a manuscript, went on to become a published text. Design environments evolved from primitive CIF editors and CIF plotting software on to include all sorts of advanced symbolic layout generators and analysis aids. Some new architectural paradigms have begun to similarly evolve. An example is the series of designs produced by the OM project here at Caltech. At MIT there has been the work on evolving the LISP microprocessors [3,10]. At Stanford, Jim Clark's prototype geometry engine, done as a project for MPC79, has gone on to become the basis of a very powerful graphics processing system architecture [9], involving a later iteration of his prototype plus new work by Marc Hannah on an image memory processor [20].

[...]

For example, the early circuit extractor work done by Clark Baker [16] at MIT became very widely known because Clark made access to the program available to a number of people in the network community. From Clark's viewpoint, this further tested the program and validated the concepts involved. But Clark's use of the network made many, many people aware of what the concept was about. The extractor proved so useful that knowledge about it propagated very rapidly through the community. (Another factor may have been the clever and often bizarre error-messages that Clark's program generated when it found an error in a user's design!)

9. J. Clark, "A VLSI Geometry Processor for Graphics", Computer, Vol. 13, No. 7, July, 1980.

[...]

The above is all from Lynn Conway's fascinating web site, which includes her great book "VLSI Reminiscence" available for free:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/

These photos look very beautiful to me, and it's interesting to scroll around the hires image of the Quux's Lisp Microprocessor while looking at the map from page 22 that I linked to above. There really isn't that much too it, so even though it's the biggest one, it really isn't all that complicated, so I'd say that "SIMPLE" graffiti is not totally inappropriate. (It's microcoded, and you can actually see the rough but semi-regular "texture" of the code!)

This paper has lots more beautiful Vintage VLSI Porn, if you're into that kind of stuff like I am:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/MPC79/Photos/PDF...

A full color hires image of the chip including James Clark's Geometry Engine is on page 23, model "MPC79BK", upside down in the upper right corner, "Geometry Engine (C) 1979 James Clark", with a close-up "centerfold spread" on page 27.

Is the "document chip" on page 20, model "MPC79AH", a hardware implementation of Literate Programming?

If somebody catches you looking at page 27, you can quickly flip to page 20, and tell them that you only look at Vintage VLSI Porn Magazines for the articles!

There is quite literally a Playboy Bunny logo on page 21, model "MPC79B1", so who knows what else you might find in there by zooming in and scrolling around stuff like the "infamous buffalo chip"?

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSIarchive.html

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSI.archive.spr...

DonHopkins3• 3 years ago

A shout-out and thank-you to the transphobes who downvoted this without replying and explaining why they hate trans people so much, proving my point that they know they're wrong and don't have a leg to stand on to justify their bigotry, because their arguments and justifications for their hatred won't withstand scrutiny. If I've convinced them to finally shut the fuck up and instead just silently downvote in shame without commenting, then at least that's a step in the right direction.

dxdm• 3 years ago

I didn't downvote, but your original comment is (to me at least) an unreadable, massive wall of links and quotes, that's hard to scan visually for a hint of its content, taking up unusually many screen-fuls on my mobile client.

This is only conjecture, but maybe some people who downvoted wanted to signal that they would have preferred a contribution that is more inviting and accessible to the reader.

bigbillheck• 3 years ago

Downvotes are meaningless internet points and it's always a mistake to worry about them.

woolen• 3 years ago

Actually it's because your style of commenting is only a small step away from that of the TempleOS guy. Maybe calm down a bit, be a bit more concise instead of subjecting us to walls of yawn and then going off on one ranting about it when other users signal their disinterest. I mean come on man, no-one wants to read all this.

check89• 3 years ago

You're deranged.

spiritplumber• 3 years ago

Reading this literally kept me alive a few times, half a lifetime ago.

misswaterfairy• 3 years ago

It kept me alive too. Lynn's website helped me see that I was not a freak and that I could grow into someone who is happy and successful. I'm now quite the trailblazer in my own field too.

Lynn's tireless efforts to carve a path forward for inclusion and acceptance, despite the thorny thickets of bigotry and transphobia, allow us to walk in her footsteps.

"If you want to change the future, start living as if you're already there" – Lynn Conway

nyanpasu643• 3 years ago

At the same time, Lynn was dismayed that transsexual women are still treated so inhumanely by parents, relatives, employers, the legal system and society at large. The total rejection of teenage transgender and transsexual girls-to-be by their families is especially tragic, since it often happens just as they first cry out for help, and can doom them to years of marginalized existence.

In addition to intolerant families and workplaces, transgender people still face a Kafkaesque battle to change their legal names to one which doesn't cause dysphoria on every interaction with government, financial, and healthcare institutions (in the US, it requires deadname-filled forms with conflicting instructions to obtain a court order and change your birth certificate, passport, social security database, and ID/license, followed by bringing these documents to banking, medical, and insurance providers), difficulties accessing medical care (in some states, even bigots creating laws specifically to deny them treatment), some doctors following outdated or inaccurate practices resulting in ineffective treatment or dangerous side effects (blood clots or prolactinoma), and increased unemployment rates (for one reason or another). I hope things get better, for the sake of my own survival and future.

sverona5• 3 years ago

I'm working on something to make this a little easier.

nyanpasu643• 3 years ago

Do you have information on what you're working on? It might help me or my friends (though I don't know if it would also help with trauma and running into hurtful roadblocks and struggling just trying to function at a basic adult level).

lambdaloop• 3 years ago

I read her whole retrospective last summer and it was the story that made me feel like I not only had a place as a trans woman in science, but could be ambitious as well! Retrospective: https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/RetrospectiveT.html

It also so charming to see other trans people here on hacker news celebrating Lynn Conway. I didn't know there were so many of us here!

Ibethewalrus2• 3 years ago

Small joke:

- Q: What do you call a group of trans people

- A: The IT team

Yes there are many of us

fmajid• 3 years ago

Sophie Wilson, the designer of the ARM architecture, is also a trans woman.

zoenolan• 3 years ago

She has a lovely cameo at the end of Micro Men as the land lady of the pub

https://youtu.be/XXBxV6-zamM

mjw1007• 3 years ago

https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/Retrospective2.html#... has a more technical description of her work on (ie, invention of) out-of-order execution, including a link to this very readable paper: https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/ACS/DIS/DIS.pdf

Ibethewalrus2• 3 years ago

Dating a transfemme, lovely lovely person., she will appreciate if I send this her way to show strength and pioneer paths of previous generations, and that there are no limits to what she can aspire to be!

Lynn Conway's Story (2000)

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