Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Matthew Lyon Page A

build Taylor’s confidence and convince both himself and Herzfeld that a slightly more intricate network was feasible. And Roberts’s knowledge of computers went deep. The son of Yale chemists, Roberts had attended MIT and received his introduction to computers on the TX-0. Although it was the first transistorized digital computer, the TX-0 was limited (subtraction was not in its repertoire; it could subtract only by adding a negative number). Using the TX-0, Roberts taught himself the basics of computer design and operation. Roberts, in fact, had written the entire operating system for its successor, the TX-2 computer at Lincoln, which Wes Clark (who built the TX-0 with Ken Olsen) had fatefully shown off to Licklider. When Clark left Lincoln in 1964, the job of overseeing the TX-2 had fallen to Roberts.
    Taylor didn’t know Roberts very well. No one, it seemed, knew Roberts very well. He was as reserved in his manner as Taylor was open in his. The people with whom Roberts worked most closely knew almost nothing about his personal life. What was known about him was that in addition to computing and telecommunications expertise, he had a knack for management. Roberts’s style was simple, direct, unambiguous, and terribly effective.
    Roberts had a reputation for being something of a genius. At twenty-eight, he had done more in the field of computing than many scientists were to achieve in a lifetime. Blessed with incredible stamina, he worked inordinately late hours. He was also a quick study: More than a few people had had the experience of explaining to Roberts something they had been working on intensively for years, and finding that within a few minutes he had grasped it, turned it around in his head a couple of times, and offered trenchant comments of his own. Roberts reminded Taylor of Licklider a little—but without Lick’s sense of humor.
    Roberts was also known for his nearly obsessive ability to immerse himself in a challenge, pouring intense powers of concentration into a problem. A colleague once recalled the time Roberts took a speed-reading course. He quickly doubled his already rapid reading rate, but he didn’t stop there. He delved into the professional literature of speed-reading and kept pushing himself until he was reading at the phenomenal rate of about thirty thousand words a minute with 10 percent “selective comprehension,” as Roberts described it. After a few months, Roberts’s limiting factor had nothing to do with his eyes or his brain but with the speed at which he could turn the pages. ”He’d pick up a paperback and be through with it in ten minutes,” the friend observed. “It was typical Larry.”
    Taylor called Roberts and told him he’d like to come to Boston to see him. A few days later Taylor was sitting in Roberts’s office at Lincoln Lab, telling him about the experiment he had in mind. As Taylor talked, Roberts murmured a nasal “hmm-hmm” as if to say, “please go on.” Taylor outlined not just the project but a job offer. Roberts would be hired as program director for the experimental network, with the understanding that he would be next in line for the IPTO directorship. Taylor made it clear that this project had the full support of ARPA’s director and that Roberts would be given ample latitude to design and build the network however he saw fit. Taylor waited for an answer. “I’ll think about it,” Roberts said flatly.
    Taylor read this as Roberts’s polite way of saying no, and he left Boston discouraged. Under any other circumstances, he’d have simply crossed Roberts off the list and called his second choice. But he didn’t have a second choice. Not only did Roberts have the necessary technical understanding, but Taylor knew he would listen to Licklider and Wes Clark, both of whom were supporting Taylor’s idea.
    A few weeks later Taylor made a second trip to Lincoln.