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Carl Lefkowitz

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Many of us who hung around Scaife Hall at Carnegie-Mellon University in the late 1960's knew Carl Lefkowitz. Carl was a real whiz. He bought the CIT G-21 when CMU wanted to get rid of it. Carl planned on operating it as a time-sharing service since it had a functioning teletype remote job entry (RJE) system.

In 2007, we had started on-line discussions about the Athena computer which many of us used as our personal computer in the late 1960's. Discussions followed about other computers at CMU and those discussions included the CIT G-21.  Carl's name came up many times.

Date:            Sat, 22 Sep 2007 11:57:44 -0400
From:            jchausler <jchauslerearthlink.net>
Subject:         Re: Details on Website

Hi All,

I'm not 100% sure but I believe the G-20's were removed in summer 68. 

Speaking of the G-20's, in the early 90's there was a 25th anniversary of the CS department.  I could not attend but was later told by someone who attended that he heard that that the G-20's still existed at that time at least, in private hands. Originally they had been sold to an individual, Carl Lefkowitz (and I may be mangling his name).  In fall 1976, Pat Stakem, Russ Moore and I first came back for homecoming.  We learned where Carl had the machines (in an old Bank building) and were staring through the front door at the machine when Carl showed up and invited us in.  The big disks were there but he was trying to interface the machine to a pack drive which looked much like an IBM 2311 type.  I think he was intending to try and sell time on the machine.  For the last dozen years or so I have maybe attended about 1/3 of the homecomings and on a couple of these occasions in the late 90's tried to locate Carl or the machine with no luck. Anybody know anything?

Chris
AN GETTO$;DUMP;RUN,ALGOL,TAPE
$$
Date:    Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:11:20 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From:    "J. Chris Hausler" <jchauslerearthlink.net>
Subject:    Re: Jesse Quatse

Hi All,

Somewhere I have some slides taken of the G-20's that day in 1976 I previously mentioned when Pat, Russ Moore and I found them in an old bank building being maintained by Carl Lefkowitz.  As I recall Carl was not too happy that I was taking pictures but I did get a few.  One of these days I'll have to locate them and get digital copies made.  I don't have any photos of the G-20's made while they were at CMU. 

Regards,
Chris Hausler
From:            "David Chou" <dchouu.washington.edu>
Subject:         RE: CIT/CMU Comp Center
Date:            Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:30:03 -0700

Mark,

The G21 was purchased for very few dollars by, I believe, Carl Lefkowitz, who was a director of the Comp Center at one point.  CMU tried to sell the machine, but there were no takers (surprise).  This is consistent with the comments made by one of the others in your blog on the Athena.  There were several others who programmed the G21 who joined him in supporting it and getting it going.  I heard that they were trying to sell computer time, but personally I doubt that they made any money and I don't know who would buy time.

Dave

Cris Hausler sent me these photos of the G-21 after it was moved to Carl's shop.

Hi All,

Well, Mark's fine effort in putting together that information on Carl has shamed me into action.

I went slide mining and found those Ektachrome slides I took during the 1976 CMU homecoming when Pat, Russ Moore and I visited the campus and visited with Carl.

73,
Chris Hausler


This photo was taken at Carl's.  It shows from left to right, Pat  (Stakem), Russ (Moore) and Carl.  Unfortunately, it is very dark.  I did not have flash and this part of the room was too dark even for the high speed Ektachrome I was using.  The "window" in the back center of this photo is the door to the building out onto Penn Avenue.  But the left side of the photo shows one of those big G-20 disk drives :-)

I received this from the Moore family on 13 Feb 2013:  "We are saddened to report that Russ Moore passed away on February 12 after a long illness."


The photos in this first email are the best three I have of the G-20's at Carl's.  In two of them you can see the PT-10, the paper tape reader punch unit which Dave Vavra used to punch the output of his Athena Cross Assembler which ran on the G-20. Recently I sent a photo to you all showing the front cover of the maintenance manual for that unit (along with that "Ma Bell is a Cheap Mother" bumper sticker :-)  Unfortunately, when I finished exposing this roll, I violated one of my standard practices when finishing a roll of film.  I forgot to immediately rewind it into the 33mm cartridge.  When I got the camera back home I forgot that I had not done this and momentarily opened the back.  Thus the last several photos were light damaged and I have not included any of those photos.  In that data Mark put together, it is mentioned that Carl was building an electric car. One of the badly damaged photos was of that car.  Carl had taken the three of us out behind the building after we had seen the machine and showed us the car.  This was very early in his efforts on the car.

To the left of the processor is shown a small line printer with the window in the front.  I never saw this in use when it was at Tech, it was only 80 columns and I think called an LP-10.  The two big printers I believe were called LP-12's but it doesn't appear that Carl has those.  The taller box to the left of it is I believe the CDC controller for the big disks.  Some years ago I tried to find out a part number for this disk from an ex CDC employee but all he remembered was a large disk system where the disks rotated in a vertical plane (shaft horizontal) not a horizontal plane like the those on the G-20's.  I don't believe this was a Bendix product but am not sure it was a CDC product either, but that's what I would suspect.  Just I've never found any evidence.


You can also see two of the scopes in one of the photos included.[in the anteroom] If you look look above the TTY just to the left of the red wall.  You should see two of the scopes screens in the back.

Also in this same photo, to the right of the bank of tape drives, I believe that is one of the G-20 processors, note the width of the box and that it has the lamp (plasma tubes ?) display on the folded up top

Forever being the computer sleuth, Chris Hausler sent me this in Feb of 2023:

From:    "J. Chris Hausler" <jchauslerearthlink.net>
Subject:    G-20 disk drive
Date sent:    Thu, 23 Feb 2023 18:36:32 +0000

Hi All,

I've always wondered who manufactured the large disk drive that was on the G-20's  The cabinets don't match the G-20 cabinets and some years ago I communicated with a man who was involved of disk drive development for CDC in the mid 60's and he had no memory of anything resembling the G-20 drive.  Well, on my way to something else I came across a photo of a drive manufactured by GE in that time frame which looks a lot like the G-20 dirve.  Here's a link to the photo:  http://www.ed-thelen.org/GE-MassRandomAccessDataStorage-.jpg . 

If you look at the Carl Lefkowitz page on the Athena web site (  http://www.silogic.com/Athena/Carl%20Lefkowitz.html ), the first photo on that page shows the drive on the left and the second a better shot showing the disk controller rack on the left of the string.  It certainly well matches the below image.  Mystery solved?  You be the judge...

73, Chris






Since my main 'job' now-a-days is genealogy, I thought that I would try to find Carl.

An on-line search at Google and Google Newspaper Archives turned up this article from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 5 Dec 1996:

Then I found this on ancestry.com:

U.S. Public Records Index
Name:     Carl L Lefkowitz
Address:    5440 Penn Av, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15206-0401 (1993)
[Pob, Pgh, Pennsylvania 15206-1001 (1981)]

U.S. Phone and Address Directories, 1993-2002
Name: Carl L Electronics Lefkowitz
Address: 5440 Penn Av
City:  Pittsburgh
State:  Pennsylvania
Zip Code:  15123
Phone Number:  412-362-5900
Residence Years:  1995

Social Security Death Index
Name:  Carl L. Lefkowitz
SSN:  193-34-1409
Born:  2 Aug 1942
Died:  13 May 1995
State (Year) SSN issued:  Pennsylvania (1960-1962)

This information shocked all of us. Carl had died 15 years ago. None of knew about it.

Finally, I found this:

SUKOLSKY
FRANCES LEFKOWITZ
On Sunday, May 8, 2005, of Pittsburgh; beloved wife of the late Paul Lefkowitz and Nathan Sukolsky; loving mother of Suzan Kupperman of Oregon and the late Carl L. Lefkowitz; adoring grandmother of Mathew P. Kupperman and Jeffrey S. Kupperman; great-grandmother of Michael and Evan Kupperman; sister of the late Sarah Rankle and Cecelia Leonard; also survived by many cousins. Service will be held on Wednesday at 11am at BURTON L. HIRSCH FUNERAL HOME, INC., 2704 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill (412-521-2600). Memorial contributions may be made to the Shepherd's Wellness Community, 4800 Sciota St., Pittsburgh, PA 15224.

On the Internet, I found an address for Suzan Kupperman and I wrote her a letter.

9 Jan 2010
Ms. Suzan Kupperman

Dear Ms. Kupperman,

You don’t know me but I knew your brother, Carl, back at Carnegie Tech in the 1960's.

A group of us self-described computer nerds who went to school at Tech recently got back together and have been talking about those days. We were, probably like Carl, always hanging around the computer center in Scaife Hall. Many of us worked there while attending Tech.

The ‘we’ are David Vavra, Patrick Stakem, Chris Hausler, David Chou, Dale Dewey, Dave Rodgers, Glenn Sembroski, Lauston Shephens, Roy Engehausen, John Yurkon, Charlie Putney, Bob McFarland and me, Mark DiVecchio. I don’t know if you would have known any of us or not.

The main computer there at the time was the Bendix G-21 which we recall was bought by Carl when Tech no longer wanted it.

One of us, Chris Hausler, met with Carl in the late 1970's and that was the last time any of us saw him. This was at Carl’s office where the G-21 was moved. Everyone of us spoke very highly of Carl and we wondered about him.

I am an amateur genealogist so I made an attempt to locate him. On the Internet, I quickly found a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 1996 which described how your mother, Frances Sukolsky, had made an AIDS quilt in his memory. We were all saddened to learn from that article that he had died. I then found the 2005 obituary of your mother which contained your name and that you lived in Oregon. A further Internet search turned up this address for you.

I created a web page to document the computer that this group of students used for student projects. It was called the Athena. The discussions covered that computer but then grew to talk about all the computers at Tech in the 1960's and that could not happen without Carl’s name coming up. 

The web page:  http://www.silogic.com/Athena/Athena.html

I know that this is an odd request but we are wondering, if it is not too much to ask, if you could share some of Carl’s life with us. Maybe some photos of him, photos of his computer the G-21, or his obituary. Anything that you would care to share.

You can email me, write or call. My personal web page is: http://www.silogic.com/genealogy/Mark_Camillo_DiVecchio.html

Mark DiVecchio


Suzan sent me this letter and photos.


1972 Nov
Carl with his godson, Suzan's older son, Matthew

1985 Carl at his godson's Bar Mitzvah

Date:            Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:22:20 -0500 (EST)
From:            "J. Chris Hausler" <jchauslerearthlink.net>
Subject:         RE: Carl Lefkowitz

Hi All,

This could explain why I was unable to find any trace of him when I went looking during several visits to Pittsburgh in the late 1990's.  Again it had been rumored out of an early 1990's "25th Anniversary Party" for the CMU CS department that the G-20's then still existed.  I doubt they survived Carl.  It was my understanding that Carl had designed the SE-10 which was the unit which connected all the 103A modems on that shelf I mentioned in the post about Yvonne to the G-20's allowing for RJE access, one of the things which to me made the CMU computer environment when we first arrived, "special".  I will have to renew my efforts to dig up those photos made in 1976 showing the G-20's and Carl.

Regards,
Chris Hausler
Reply to:        <dchou@u.washington.edu>
From:            "David Chou" <dchouu.washington.edu>
Subject:         RE: Carl Lefkowitz
Date:            Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:23:54 -0800

Mark,

Thanks.  This is a very nice rememberance of Carl.  I can easily identify the G20 tape drives and CPU units in the truck.

Dave


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