Bricklin on Technology

11.1. Ward Cunningham, February 14, 2007¹

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^[] http://danbricklin.com/podcast.html#danbcast-2007-02-14-23-07-30

Dan as Announcer: [0:00] This phone interview was recorded on February 14th, 2007. The noise you hear in the background is not typing on the keyboard, but it's snow blowing up against the window once in a while—it was a quite blustery day!

Dan Bricklin: [0:14] Hi! This is Dan Bricklin, and with me today is wiki inventor Ward Cunningham. Hi, Ward!

Ward Cunningham: [0:20] Hi, good morning, Dan!

Dan: [0:21] Hi, thanks for joining me. Let's start by having you talk about your background. Don't explain how it relates to wikis, at least not yet—but where did you work? What type of projects have you worked on? What technologies did you use? Where are you coming from?

Ward: [0:38] Oh, gosh! I fell in love with computers in the college days, and that was back when we worked on big mainframes. I worked for the university and got plenty of access to that mainframe, so I enjoyed the quick turnaround.

First we were exploring timesharing, and I would fiddle with the timesharing terminal always trying to find a new way to put a problem onto the computer. At one point, I wanted to know how everything about computers worked, and I think back then you stood a chance, of course it's a big deal now.

Dan: [1:20] Were you a computer science major or something?

Ward: [1:22] No. I was an electrical engineer, and I had graduate work in computer science.

Dan: [1:26] Where?

Ward: [1:28] Both at ...