1956

There is an odd temporal coincidence that I hit while working on SIA 2008, but haven't written about. It's the year 1956 that ties together several different threads from SIA 2008. (No, don't bother calling Scully...)

In 1956, Fairchild Semiconductor was founded by former employees of Schockley Semiconductor who balked at William Schockley's management. (He called them "The Traitorous Eight", which stuck, they were amused...) A huge chunk of the semiconductor industry was founded by "Fairchildren", folks who had worked at Fairchild and went on to start their own companies. We drove by several of them, and stopped at the Intel museum.

In 1956 IBM shipped the first disk drive, invented by Rey Johnson and a team of researchers at 99 Notre Dame in San Jose. The Computer History Museum has one of these RAMAC disk drives in a restoration shop. Many of the SIA 2008 tours departed on paths close to 99 Notre Dame, and the site was a Treasure Hunt stop.

In 1956 Malcom McLean converted a WWII T2 Tanker into the first container ship. I don't know where that ship, recristened the IDEAL-X, was built, but T2's were built at Bay Area shipyards like the Kaiser complex in Richmond. Container ships now dominate shipping. Our visit to the Port of Oakland put folks right next to the Hanjin Lines container port.

If only I could find a 1956 connection for the Over the Hill tour!

jay