This week, I discussed my obsessive need to leave no gaps in these stories. I discovered some additional information that should’ve been in the previous episode, and I just couldn’t proceed without filling in the extra details. I also tried creating some illustrations using ChatGPT in this episode, so I highly recommend that you watch the YouTube version rather than listen to this episode.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to a special episode of Contemplating Life. Although I tried to keep these episodes completely listenable, you might want to check out the YouTube version because it focuses heavily on images I found of the old computer we used in the Genetics Department.

I’ve also included some ChatGPT-generated images to illustrate a story. So, I really recommend you watch the YouTube version if you can.

Because I consider it an addendum to episode 76, I’m calling this one Episode 76a, titled “There is Always More to Learn.”

I heard a parable once about a man who had spent his entire lifetime collecting knowledge. One day, he realized that all that knowledge would be lost when his life was over. So he set about the task of trying to write down everything he knew so that he could share it with the world and leave a legacy. He ascended the steps of his ivory tower, where, surrounded by his hundreds of books, he would write his magnum opus.

As he wrote, he realized there were gaps in his knowledge, so he set about doing more research to fill those gaps so that his work would be complete. He became so processed with his work that he slept little and often forgot to eat. He ignored such niceties as taking care of personal hygiene. Eventually, his obsession got the better of him. He was discovered one day slumped over his desk, deceased.

The person who found him gave him a respectable burial and then set about cleaning up the mess in the ivory tower. Over 1,000 pages of handwritten manuscript were scattered about the room, but the material was so disorganized that he could not make any sense of it. He gathered it up, disposed of it, and sold off the vast library to pay for the deceased’s expenses.

I felt convicted when I heard this story because, at the time, I was keeping an extensive personal journal about my life. But I shared it with only a small handful of people.

I would have some experience in my life and then spend days and days chronicling it for the journal. I realized I was spending more time writing about my life than I was living it. As a result of this epiphany, I pledged to share my work with a wider audience. The result was a publication of my award-winning article “The Reunion,” which I shared here in Episode 22.

I learned the lesson of the parable well: You have to share your knowledge and cannot be so obsessed with its mere collection.

Unfortunately, I still suffer from the concept that my work has to be 100% complete. I have not yet fully embraced the realization that such 100% completion is impossible. You have seen this obsession at work in me because I often have to tell a lengthy backstory before I can tell the story I really want to tell. As I write this podcast and share it with the world, I’m continually troubled by the gaps I have left in the story and still am obsessed with filling those gaps.

For example, in our next episode, I wanted to tell about the work we did in the genetics lab. However, I realized that I had to give some background on basic genetics for you to understand it. As I was explaining the genetics, I discovered gaps in my knowledge. And like the man in the ivory tower, I had to fill those gaps before I could proceed. Episode 77 will be titled “Genetics 101.” After hearing the episode, you may think it was more of a 300 or 400-level course, but I still call it Genetics 101. When I was finally sufficiently satisfied that I had covered the topic well enough, I started work on episodes 78 and 79.

Episode 79 will discuss the consequences of the departure of the department chairman, Dr. Donald Merritt, who had hired me. I couldn’t recall the name of the guy who took over as acting chair. A Google search for chairpersons of the Indiana University Department of Medical Genetics led me to a photograph of Dr. Merritt and another of the other geneticists who worked on the project and was my supervisor, Dr. Kewon Kang. They were posing, looking at a computer printout, and were seated in front of our department’s PDP 11/70 minicomputer.

As I write this episode, I published episode 76 just four days ago. In the YouTube version, I included many photos of other people’s PDP 11/70 machines because I thought there was no way on earth I would ever have a photo of the machine I used. I was so angry I had not discovered this photo earlier so that it could be included in episode 76.

Furthermore, that episode included extensive technical details about the hardware, especially as it was configured in our department. However, the photo refreshed my memory about a piece of hardware I had forgotten about and another minor piece of hardware I chose not to write about.

Well hell… What to do about that? Just include the new photo in episode 79 identifying the two men and saying, “By the way, that’s our actual machine in the background.” I could do that. But what about that hardware in the photo that I didn’t describe when I talked about the machine in the last episode? It’s just sitting there in the background, screaming at me, “Chris! You didn’t talk about me. How could you be so negligent to talk about this computer and leave me out of the story.”

The realization that I had left out this detail was like dangling a bunch of drugs in front of an addict.

So, an obsession compels me to tell you about that stupid couple of pieces of hardware, or I won’t make it to the next episodes. I can just imagine myself on my deathbed, feeling devastated that I left out these details. Okay… perhaps it isn’t that bad, but it’s closer than you think. The result is I’m going to tell you about the stupid hardware anyway.

See the YouTube video version of this episode to see the photo in question and to follow along with the following explanation.

The older Spencerguy on the right is Dr. Merritt, whom you’ve already heard about in previous episodes. The guy on the left is Dr. Kang, who will be featured in episode 79.

To the upper right of Merritt’s head are several rows of tape spools known as DECtapes. Everything in a Digital Equipment Corporation computer seems to have the prefix “DEC” in front of it. DECtape, DEC-System-10 percent, DECwriter, and so on. The outer rim of the spool was 3-7/8″ in diameter. The inner diameter where the tape was wound was 2-3/4″, so the wound tape only occupied about 1-inch thickness. The tape was 3/4″ wide. The spool was stored in a translucent plastic container, usually with a blue tint. There was a paper sticker on the front where you could write identifying information. They were used on a variety of Digital Equipment Corporation computers, including the DEC-System 10 that I used in college.

Students in computer science were permitted to purchase one of these tapes for their personal use. I don’t recall what they cost, but I think it was around $10. I owned one in those days. I used it to keep an archive of all the programs I wrote and a few computer games on the system. I could’ve transferred those programs from the University’s DEC-10 to our department’s PDP 11, but I don’t think I ever did. I’m not sure what happened to my DECtape. I haven’t seen it in decades, and I probably threw it away because I didn’t have any way to get the information off it anymore.

The tape would store 184K of data. It was formatted in blocks that could be randomly read and written, so it had its own file directory at the beginning of the tape and a file system. Functionally, it was like a floppy disk on early personal computers. It was slow but not prohibitively so. The tape could be wound from end to end in about 30 seconds. The only other way students had to store programs was punched paper tape on the teletype machines. That was a pain to use.

I don’t recall ever using the DECtapes in my two years at the genetics department. I have no idea what was on those tapes, but I presume it was some sort of backup. I believe that they also used them to distribute updated software from DEC headquarters to our facility.

The two white circles to the left of Dr. Kang’s head are DECtape spools mounted on the TU56 DECtape drive. That drive would hold two tapes. You cannot see the other spools behind his head. I have included a photo of a DECtape drive that I found online. I remembered that we had DECtape drives on our machine, but I didn’t bother to talk about them in the last episode because I don’t recall ever using them.

In the background, between the two men, you can see one of two RK05 disk drives known as DECpacks. I couldn’t remember what they were called. I had to zoom in on the photo to see the word “DECpack” and then do some Google searches to get the technical details.

They contained a removable cartridge containing a single 14-inch disk platter that would hold about 2.5 MB. I vaguely recall that we used them for backup purposes.

So there it is. I can now sleep at night now that I haven’t left a gap in the story. At least, unlike the guy in the parable, I shared it with you before I died.

In episode 77, which I’ve already written, I will take a deep dive into genetics just so that I can tell you about a paragraph’s worth of explanation of what we did in the department. It’s another one of those instances where I had to tell you a huge amount of background just so I can tell you one little thing. In fact, that’s what I did in this episode. I gave you a huge amount of background just to tell you what a DECtape and DECpack were.

Episode 78 will be about a new guy who joined the programming staff in the genetics department and became a very dear friend.

Episode 79 will describe my departure from the department.

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I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.