sandman said:
http://news.com.com/Librarians+fumi...+bounty/2100-1006_3-5671169.html?tag=nefd.top
day after Intel said it would offer $10,000 for a copy of a magazine in
which Moore's Law was first announced, a University of Illinois
engineering library noticed that one of its two copies had disappeared.
There was a glaring space on the shelf where the bound volume containing
the April 19, 1965, edition of Electronics Magazine sat for years, said
Mary Schlembach, assistant engineering librarian at the Grainger
Engineering Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Another librarian heard a student talking on a cell phone about the
volume the same day, Schlembach said. Ordinarily, the magazine is not a
popular item.
"We don't know when it walked, but it walked," she said. "A lot of
copies will go missing."
Librarians at Stanford University, the University of Washington and
other universities say they are angry at Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel
for posting on eBay a $10,000 bounty for a copy of the magazine. The
bounty went up on April 11. Since then, others have posted bounties too.
Although Intel specifically said it would only buy library copies from
libraries, the situation is creating problems. Stanford has pulled its
copy off the shelves, said Karen Greig, head of reference at the
engineering library at Stanford.
Hunt nearly over for Intel
A second copy owned by the University of Illinois is under lock and key.
The school has no intention of selling it. "We want to keep the original
for historical and archiving purposes," Schlembach said. "This is not a
good idea."
The April 19, 1965, issue of the magazine contained an article by Intel
co-founder Gordon Moore that described how the number of components on
integrated circuits was doubling every year. The article became the
foundation for Moore's famed dictum and has been a cornerstone of the
entire IT industry for decades.
Making sense of Wi-Fi's alphabet soup
Intel, which has now spoken with several people or institutions that
have copies of the magazine, will close down its eBay listing on
Thursday night, a company spokesman said.
"We feel we have enough candidates for this," said Manny Vara, a company
spokesman. "The people we're talking to are individuals that have been
engineers for a long time and who seem to have (copies) in their
collections. We're also talking to libraries who might want to sell"
their copies.
The most likely candidates are magazines that would come from outside of
the United States, Vara said.
However, "we certainly were not looking to cause any problems for any of
the libraries out there, and we did go out of or way in our posting to
point that out," Vara said. "We actually have in our posting that we
will not buy library or museum copies from anyone other than those
organizations themselves."
If Intel got any indication that an individual was attempting to sell a
poached university copy, such as the one from the University of
Illinois, the company would contact that university, Vara said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4472549.stm
Moore's Law original issue found
The original Electronics magazine which published Moore's Law
Engineer David Clark had the prized magazine under his floorboards
A copy of the original Electronics magazine in which Moore's Law was
first published has turned up under the floorboards of a Surrey engineer.
David Clark had kept copies of the magazine for years, despite pleas
from his wife to throw them away.
Now the couple are celebrating after collecting the $10,000 reward which
was offered on eBay by chip maker Intel.
Moore's Law, the principle that has driven the computer chip industry,
celebrated 40 years this week.
"I am totally astonished. It is the most bizarre thing that has ever
happened to me," Mr Clark told the BBC News website.
"I am really pleased about it because I studied physics and have always
had interest in electronics. I could see the next 30 years were going to
go like Moore's Law said, so I decided to go into electronics."
The "law" was adopted after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore wrote in the
1965 Electronics magazine article that the number of transistors on a
chip would double every 24 months.
Read about the impact of Moore's Law
Chips that can work faster and faster have driven the technological and
digital revolution so far.
Desperately wanted
"We're delighted to at last have an original copy of the April 1965
edition of Electronics Magazine," said an Intel spokesperson.
"Dr Moore's article established a theory that has underpinned
advancements in the semiconductor industry over the past 40 years and is
the basis of our continued research and development at Intel.
"We are delighted to have a copy of the article back in the home of
Intel in Santa Clara and are extremely grateful to Mr Clark for making
this possible."
The publication is now defunct, but neither Dr Moore, who is now
retired, nor Intel had a mint condition original of the magazine.
Intel posted the reward on online auction site eBay in the run-up to the
40-year anniversary of the article on 19 April, in the hope that someone
would have a copy for posterity.
Since the offer was posted, the search has been on all around the world
to find an original.
Mr Clark, who admits he is "a bit of a hoarder", collected the
Electronics magazine issues, as well as others, after the Philips
Central Library in the UK - now closed - started to clean them out.
I could feel the hairs standing up on my arms. I think I've got that, I
thought - although I wasn't sure
David Clark
"In the 70s, they started throwing out large quantities of these
magazines," he said.
"I was in my 20s at the time and thought you shouldn't throw them out
because they are recording the golden age of electronics."
He gave several hundreds of them a home first in his loft, then under
the floorboards and had not looked at them since.
Until last Wednesday, when his RSS news reader popped up with headlines
from various websites with the news of the reward.
"I could feel the hairs standing up on my arms. I think I've got that, I
thought - although I wasn't sure.
"I took the rest of morning off, and pulled the furniture back; I hadn't
seen them for 15 years. I started sorting through them."
The first pile he looked at only went as far back as 1970. It was not
until he looked at another hidden and securely wrapped pile that he
found the issue at the very top of the stack.
Part of history
When he contacted Intel, he thought they would not know what he was
talking about.
He was officially told he was the "winner" two days ago. Intel had had
hundreds of e-mails claiming to have an original copy, but Mr Clark's
was the first authentic claim.
Dr Gordon Moore
Neither Dr Moore nor Intel had an original of the magazine
A bound copy of the volume of Electronics which contained the issue
disappeared, soon after the reward was publicised, from the University
of Illinois' engineering library.
Mr Clark now intends to use the money to help pay for his daughters'
weddings. His wife also has some plans for the cash.
He did offer to hand over the copy himself to Dr Moore, who now lives in
Hawaii.
"I feel quite fond of the law, so feel like a bit of history and pride
in returning it to him," said Mr Clark.
In an interview with the Associated Press agency recently, Dr Moore
said: "Electronics was one of the trade magazines that you read and
throw away. It wasn't an archival journal."
