Computer Pioneer and Entrepreneur Bill Godbout Has Died in the California Wildfires

[cageymaru]

Bill Godbout was a pioneer in the early personal computer days before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were famous. He was known for streamlining the S-100 bus, a communication system that transferred data between components inside computers, including the Altair and other homebrew machines. He sold parts to enthusiasts and corporations alike such as Lee Felsenstein (designer of Processor Technology Sol), Adam Osborne (Osborne Computers), George Morrow (Thinker Toys, Morrow Design), and Mark Greenberg (NorthStar Computers). He started Gobout Electronics which he would later rename CompuPro. When he decided to get into networking, he renamed his business to Viasyn. He was a victim of Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history. More than 1,300 people are still missing.

"He provided a service, a business through which other people who could design things could bring products to market, and where they could get the parts they needed, to build the products they were designing," said personal computer pioneer and inventor Lee Felsenstein, who worked with Godbout in the early days of Silicon Valley. Felsenstein added: "He was the best example of the kind of hobbyist business person that built the industry for the first several years, that set the direction of the industry."

 

[{NG}Fidel]

That fire is fucking awful

 

[Glock24]

That's horrible news, not just because of Godbout's death, but because of all that fell victims to the fire and the missing ones.

My father had a Sol computer with a nice wooden chassis/case. He also had a Tandy TRS-80 which I got to tinker with as a little kid (I remember playing lunar lander). Both of those used the S100, and my dad talked about the how it connected things in the computers. That got me interested in computers at an early age.

 

[TordanGow]

NOT ON MY WATCH!!!

 

[DocNo]

I remember watching him on the computer chronicles all the time.

CA better kick the stupid ass environmentalists to the curb and start tending to their forests and woodlands or the whole freaking state is going to go up. You'd have thought that the utter disaster of the Yosemite fires would have been enough of a wake up call to replace "environmentalist" emotion and sentimentality with reason but apparently not.

And why are we not building houses that are fit for the environments they will be in? Especially if federal dollars are going to be used to rebuild in CA they should require highly fire resistant building techniques to be used. Like the guy in Florida who spent about 20% more and his was the only house that didn't get swept away in the recent hurricane. And the insanity of building tall, wood framed buildings in tornado alley when partially buried earth homes make far more sense for not only tornado resistance but overall energy savings.

 

[Brian_B]

They do require highly fire resistant construction material.... on new construction.

 

[tunatime]

Why do they not have pre made fire breaks cut into woods/Forest every x miles or acres? All they would have to do is clear cut them into zones bam problem 95% solved. Probably be cheaper in the long run then fighting fires all the time.

It's the same way we in the south have flood protection levees

 

[freeloader1969]

1300 people missing? Speechless.

 

[Exavior]

Why do they not have pre made fire breaks cut into woods/Forest every x miles or acres? All they would have to do is clear cut them into zones bam problem 95% solved. Probably be cheaper in the long run then fighting fires all the time.

It's the same way we in the south have flood protection levees

because of tree hugger. You can't cut down a path because you might destroy the home of a dung beetle or kill off some weed that mostly grows just in that mile stretch.

 

[workshop35]

because of tree hugger. You can't cut down a path because you might destroy the home of a dung beetle or kill off some weed that mostly grows just in that mile stretch.

That and because of private land. People dont clear underbrush or make proper defensible space.

 

[Teenk9]

I don’t understand why people don’t get as far away as humanly possible from these fires until they have it under control. Maybe they don’t have anyone to stay with or don’t have the finances to hole up somewhere for a while. Or they’re too old to do something about it. But doing anything would be better than choking to death from smoke inhalation or being burned alive. It’s depressing. My childhood home burned to the ground in the last fire. Really hope this thing ends soon.

It is a very fast moving fire. When it started in just under four hours it had spread to 5000 acres. The town of Paradise was ordered to evacuate but you can't just move 20K people in a few hours. By the next morning Paradise was gone.

 

[DocNo]

\[]'[=

I don’t understand why people don’t get as far away as humanly possible from these fires until they have it under control.

Wind. I was watching one couple the other night talk about their experience. Wife comments about suspicious looking rain cloud. Husband exclaims "that's not a raincloud" and within minutes basket ball sized embers were raining down on them (!!)

They grabbed a few things and barely got out alive.

There's way, WAY too much fuel and eventually Mother Nature is going to win. Forest fires are natural and renewing. Many species of pine trees require fire to open the pinecones to release seeds so new trees can come into being. If we aren't going to let fire do it's job then we have to do the fire's job ourselves (i.e. clear the dead wood and overgrowth) or eventually nature will win with fire.

Someone is going to do the job - with or without us.

 

[DocNo]

Why do they not have pre made fire breaks cut into woods/Forest every x miles or acres? All they would have to do is clear cut them into zones bam problem 95% solved. Probably be cheaper in the long run then fighting fires all the time.

When the wind is up firebreaks are not enough. There's too much fuel in the environment, period.

https://www.livescience.com/26257-fighting-chaparral-fires-myths-busted.html

 

[Deleted member 245375]

I built an Altair 8800 at a wee young age back around 1975 or so, my first real actual "personal computer" and it's been a long long journey since. While I didn't know much about this person, his contributions made magic happen and that Altair provided me with a lot of fond memories to this day.

 

[Red Falcon]

I didn't even realize he was, along with George Morrow, one of the makers of the S-100 bus and IEEE-696 standard.
Damn, this sucks - hope he can rest in peace, he definitely earned it.

Just found out he was friends with Gary Kildall, too.
All three of these guys' passing is very sad, even decades apart.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Why do they not have pre made fire breaks cut into woods/Forest every x miles or acres? All they would have to do is clear cut them into zones bam problem 95% solved. Probably be cheaper in the long run then fighting fires all the time.

It's the same way we in the south have flood protection levees

unlike floods fires are a lot more complicated.. fire breaks are mostly used to slow down a fire so that fire fighters can try to get ahead of it but once you mix the unpredictable winds into that then they don't really work.

i remember when i was a kid and we were driving up to Oregon we watched a massive grass fire completely skip over a 6 lane section of I-5 like it was nothing and there was barely any wind that day.

 

[theBrownLlama]

should have spent the money to setup a perimeter firebreak miles away from the city. A concentric grazing ground or something akin to that.

That way homeowners still get their greenery, but also a wide expanse for security far away from eyes.

and whose idea was it to make clearance so narrow between fire-risk utilities and forest ....(yea, guess you can blame treehuggers on this one)

 

[Dead Parrot]

A sad and IMO, preventable death. During my early years of computer interest, always wanted a S-100 bus computer. It was fun imagining what boards to install and doing the research. By the time I had money to spend on one, the IBM PC/ISA bus had won the battle.

Hopefully, the leadership of Cali and US will quit the damn twitter war and come up with better codes, forest management and evacuation plans. OK had our wake up call a few years ago when an F5 tornado scraped several miles of Moore off the earth and a few years later a couple more repeated the feat. Now new schools have shelters and new codes have improved home and office construction. There are Incentives for folks with older homes to install shelters.

 

[HeadRusch]

Holy Crap...The Computer Chronicles!!!! Sad Day.

 

[Chadem311]

A lot of misinformed opinions here. First of all, Paradise has a pretty conservative population and it’s in an even redder county, not filled with tree huggers. That area of the state is also heavily logged, with clear cuts all over (take a look in Google Earth). Most of the forest land in and around Paradise was either private or federal. So I’m not sure how tree-hugging Californian’s could be to blame here.

This fire was literally unstoppable once it began. The only way it could have been prevented would be if there was no ignition. The conditions for wildfire could not have been better. We haven’t gotten a drop of water in over four months (that’s only kind-of normal; we typically start getting rain in October), on top of a severe multi-year drought and an usually warm fall. Everything is tinder, not just the underbrush. You’d have to literally clear-cut many miles of continuous forest, which probably still wouldn’t do the trick in an area like that.

As for evacuation, the town had been doing practice evacuations for years because they knew this was only a matter of time. However, know one in their right mind could have ever imagined a scenario like this. Part of my job is to monitor fires in the state, and I’ve never seen a fire grow as fast as this one. The fire was spotting 1-2 miles every few minutes, propelled by 35mph katabatic (read hot & dry) winds.

Are there things we can do better going forward? Probably. But the main driver here is a sever lack of moisture. That’s worth repeating: An unprecedented lack of moisture in the ground, air, and vegetation. We’ll adapt as best we can, but it won’t be easy. Just don’t be so quick to blame tree huggers. There are a lot more smart and reasonable people in this state than a lot of you give us less credit for.

 

[Ironchef3500]

I love old video like this.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

Can we stop trying to make the fire a tree hugger thing? People are quite literally talking out their ass on that.

 

[Letti]

If you watch news clips and personally made video clips of this fire, you'll notice the houses burn down to a charcoal but the trees around the houses remain untouched.

I watched a video entitled : Plan to Burn up Northern California Disclosed - on our favorite tube site. The video was posted on Feb, 2018. Interesting thing is what's happening today was talked about back in February of 2018.

 

[Hatriot]

A lot of misinformed opinions here. First of all, Paradise has a pretty conservative population and it’s in an even redder county, not filled with tree huggers. That area of the state is also heavily logged, with clear cuts all over (take a look in Google Earth). Most of the forest land in and around Paradise was either private or federal. So I’m not sure how tree-hugging Californian’s could be to blame here.

This fire was literally unstoppable once it began. The only way it could have been prevented would be if there was no ignition. The conditions for wildfire could not have been better. We haven’t gotten a drop of water in over four months (that’s only kind-of normal; we typically start getting rain in October), on top of a severe multi-year drought and an usually warm fall. Everything is tinder, not just the underbrush. You’d have to literally clear-cut many miles of continuous forest, which probably still wouldn’t do the trick in an area like that.

As for evacuation, the town had been doing practice evacuations for years because they knew this was only a matter of time. However, know one in their right mind could have ever imagined a scenario like this. Part of my job is to monitor fires in the state, and I’ve never seen a fire grow as fast as this one. The fire was spotting 1-2 miles every few minutes, propelled by 35mph katabatic (read hot & dry) winds.

Are there things we can do better going forward? Probably. But the main driver here is a sever lack of moisture. That’s worth repeating: An unprecedented lack of moisture in the ground, air, and vegetation. We’ll adapt as best we can, but it won’t be easy. Just don’t be so quick to blame tree huggers. There are a lot more smart and reasonable people in this state than a lot of you give us less credit for.

I was waiting on the treehugger to blame the fake "climate change". Sorry, but this is 100% the fault of typical Cali left wing emotions before results environmental policy. The "conservative" county is overruled by left wing loon Jerry Browns state policy. The risk of fires in California is a known threat, much like hurricanes on the coast. You either account for it or pay the price. If you don't build a hurricane rated building then you risk losing it. Wildfires are a normal aspect of nature doing housecleaning so you either have to subvert it or take the risk. It is truly horrible how the people that vote for this suicide pact are suffering and wish everyone the best outcome.

 

[Kongar]

CA better kick the stupid ass environmentalists to the curb and start tending to their forests and woodlands or the whole freaking state is going to go up.

And why are we not building houses that are fit for the environments they will be in?

Having lived through a few CA wildfires - I'll say sure, go ahead and kick the environmentalists in the nutz, but I don't think it'll make much difference. It rains in the winter, and when it does - there's this explosion of green. It's all scrub brushes between 2 and 10 feet tall. Then the 2% humidity, 110+ degree, no rain at all thing happens - and well, it turns into hundreds of thousands of acres of a matchbox/tinderbox. You can't clear it all out, there's just too much of it, and it can spring up in one year. For the record, they already do clear it all away from all the houses. But to see those fires in person - the TV doesn't do them justice. They move fast, they are bigger than they look, and they are scary as hell. I'm not sure there are even appropriate building materials to survive such apocalyptic events.

No, I think this falls squarely into "if you build your house on a box of matches, you have to understand you're running a serious risk of getting burned." One of a few reasons I never purchased a home in CA and instead choose to rent. Sux to hear that good people are getting killed this year, despite their efforts otherwise.

Props to the firefighters...

 

[Hatriot]

Can we stop trying to make the fire a tree hugger thing? People are quite literally talking out their ass on that.

Sorry but it is. Part of being an adult is facing consequences of your ideas. Much like the immigration disaster that is murdering American citizens on a daily basis thanks to left wing policy.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

Sorry but it is. Part of being an adult is facing consequences of your ideas. Much like the immigration disaster that is murdering American citizens on a daily basis thanks to left wing policy.

Ok Im glad you feel that way but you are not being honest, try being an adult and reading some things other than your idols opinion. Part of being an adult is getting all sides of the story and not just the one you like.

"Moreover, nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and another two-thirds under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California."

Thats from a firefighter but im sure its all BS because you have a political point you need to push as people burn to death.

“These fires aren’t even in forests,” said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Rather, the Camp and Woolsey fires, which are ripping through Northern and Southern California, began in areas known as the wildland-urban interface: places where communities are close to undeveloped areas, making it easier for fire to move from forests or grasslands into neighborhoods.


A 2015 report by the United States Department of Agriculture found that between 2000 and 2010 (the last year for which data was available), the number of people moving into the wildland-urban interface had increased by 5 percent. According to the report, 44 million houses, equivalent to one in every three houses in the country, are in the wildland-urban interface. The highest concentrations are in Florida, Texas and, yes, California.

It is true that California wildfires are getting larger and that most of the state’s largest wildfires have happened this century. The Mendocino Complex Fire, earlier this year, was the biggest California fire on record, as measured by acres burned. The Camp Fire is already the most destructive in state history, having razed more than 6,000 homes.

In an opinion piece published this year in USA Today, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed California’s wildfires on environmentalists who oppose logging. He wrote:

Every year we watch our forests burn, and every year there is a call for action. Yet, when action comes, and we try to thin forests of dead and dying timber, or we try to sustainably harvest timber from dense and fire-prone areas, we are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods.

It is true that California has a lot of dead timber — 129 million trees spread across 8.9 million acres, according to a Forest Service estimate.

But the dead trees themselves do not catch fire easily, because they are too big, said Chad T. Hanson, the principal ecologist at the John Muir Project of the nonprofit Earth Island Institute.

“It’s like starting a campfire,” he said. “You don’t put a big log on the fire and put a match to it and expect it to burn — it’s not going to happen. Fires are driven by kindle.”

Logging gets rid of trees, but it does not get rid of the kindling — brush, bushes and twigs. Logging does, however, enable the spread of cheatgrass, a highly combustible weed, which makes a forest more likely to burn.

In fact, the wooded land that abuts Paradise, Calif., the community so badly damaged by the Camp Fire, underwent the kind of post-fire logging that Mr. Trump’s tweet and Mr. Zinke’s article suggested. That was just under a decade ago, Dr. Hanson said, but the city is now in ashes.

 

[ROCKFISH]

Why do they not have pre made fire breaks cut into woods/Forest every x miles or acres? All they would have to do is clear cut them into zones bam problem 95% solved. Probably be cheaper in the long run then fighting fires all the time.

It's the same way we in the south have flood protection levees

This is a very I have no idea what I'm talking about but I'm still going to act like I do post.

 

[Biznatch]

This is a very I have no idea what I'm talking about but I'm still going to act like I do post.

Seriously.... The winds were 20-40+mph when the fire started..... It hopped an 8 lane freeway like nothing, and this guy thinks a fire break would magically solve everything?......

And the people blaming environmentalists like we should just concrete the entire fucking state and live like that shit hole NYC..... Really, that's the solution? I'm sure there would be no unforeseen consequences from that kind of a change right, just stopping fires and nothing else....

 

[Fix Me]

Sorry but it is. Part of being an adult is facing consequences of your ideas. Much like the immigration disaster that is murdering American citizens on a daily basis thanks to left wing policy.

You've been blinded by your hatred of the "other side". The logic presented is sound, I'm sorry your don't want to hear it because it doesn't condemn "the left".

 

[Doc Doc]

I remember watching him on the computer chronicles all the time.

CA better kick the stupid ass environmentalists to the curb and start tending to their forests and woodlands or the whole freaking state is going to go up. You'd have thought that the utter disaster of the Yosemite fires would have been enough of a wake up call to replace "environmentalist" emotion and sentimentality with reason but apparently not.

People in Paradise wanted to live in a forest- their private forest. California is going to burn - we can just try to manage where and when. The two season rain pattern, combined with very dry summers and wind patterns between the cold Pacific and the hot interior, results in heavy fuel loads and ideal burn conditions.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

You've been blinded by your hatred of the "other side". The logic presented is sound, I'm sorry your don't want to hear it because it doesn't condemn "the left".

This this fucking this.
This fire wasn't made by the right or the left it's just a fucking fire. Pay your respects, wish them luck, but don't grandstand.

 

[Draax]

So everything is the fault of liberals and tree huggers ... fuck this forum gets worse by the day.

 

[DocNo]

People in Paradise wanted to live in a forest- their private forest. California is going to burn - we can just try to manage where and when. The two season rain pattern, combined with very dry summers and wind patterns between the cold Pacific and the hot interior, results in heavy fuel loads and ideal burn conditions.

100 years of fire suppression with little else didn't have anything to do with it either

 

[Deleted member 204526]

This this fucking this.
This fire wasn't made by the right or the left it's just a fucking fire. Pay your respects, wish them luck, but don't grandstand.

Didn't you know? Everything is to be used as a political cudgel these days.

 

[cyclone3d]

Having lived through a few CA wildfires - I'll say sure, go ahead and kick the environmentalists in the nutz, but I don't think it'll make much difference. It rains in the winter, and when it does - there's this explosion of green. It's all scrub brushes between 2 and 10 feet tall. Then the 2% humidity, 110+ degree, no rain at all thing happens - and well, it turns into hundreds of thousands of acres of a matchbox/tinderbox. You can't clear it all out, there's just too much of it, and it can spring up in one year. For the record, they already do clear it all away from all the houses. But to see those fires in person - the TV doesn't do them justice. They move fast, they are bigger than they look, and they are scary as hell. I'm not sure there are even appropriate building materials to survive such apocalyptic events.

No, I think this falls squarely into "if you build your house on a box of matches, you have to understand you're running a serious risk of getting burned." One of a few reasons I never purchased a home in CA and instead choose to rent. Sux to hear that good people are getting killed this year, despite their efforts otherwise.

Props to the firefighters...

Thick concrete walled and ceiling-ed basements. And for more shielding, use the same type that they use on the space shuttles. If a forest fire gets over 3,000F, you have got other problems.

 

[Xrave]

I don’t understand why people don’t get as far away as humanly possible from these fires until they have it under control. Maybe they don’t have anyone to stay with or don’t have the finances to hole up somewhere for a while. Or they’re too old to do something about it. But doing anything would be better than choking to death from smoke inhalation or being burned alive. It’s depressing. My childhood home burned to the ground in the last fire. Really hope this thing ends soon.

The entire city was gone in a day. Lots of the dead were elderly who couldn't escape, as well as people who died in their cars trying to escape. Have read accounts that there are only a few roads out of these cities and traffic was preventing people from getting out with the fire moving faster than the escaping people.