Life and Times of Measurex

• Process control pioneers pass torch as new era begins in industry - 1994 interview with Dave Bossen. local copy.

• Measurex sold to Honeywell - Year 1997 - all cash about $600 million. local copy.

• A few years later, Honeywell was bought by Allied Signal, which renamed its self to "Honeywell".
       Allied Signal/Honeywell was strictly bean counters squeezing cash cow old Measurex. see below

Everything I know about the Ethernet issues at Measurex was hearsay as I was not involved in the development or even the use of it. I’m a control engineer so that’s a different field.

I can tell you what it was used for: paper (or more general “sheet industry) production. Those are very large factories (1 km long) and we needed to connect different parts of the control system and monitors. Our actuators (devices to change the thickness of the paper were on one side of the machine, the measurements happened on the other end of the machine where the paper was rolled up. Paper can be made at 100 km/hr and 10 meters wide! Taking the time delay between control and measurement into account was a big part of our control strategy.

The number of customers that had our “datafreeway” device is probably in the hundreds, not tens and not thousands.

I also avoided Vision like the plague. I hated the programming environment. The software engineers just had a captive audience: as control engineers, we had to use what they gave us. Luckily I still had the PDP-11 systems for plastic to work on for a couple of years.

And when Measurex finally started to look beyond Vision, I already was using Macs to compile/link our control code for ISD systems. The Mac and the compile environment developed by our Chicago office ran circles around the VAXes.

It then became a battle between the next-gen system developed by the paper system group and the one by ISD (Industrial Systems: everything but paper) group. They had 5x the resources and 5x the people and on top of that a 2 year head start!. But most of them were the old guard or Unix people with no experience with graphical environments. I could not believe what was going on then: they created thousands of pages of specifications on how they were going to change the Vision language to a graphical environment and their idea was to just make a dialog box for each existing command. Which made using it to develop control systems even more cumbersome.

I was already programming in LabVIEW at that time. That was graphical. You [Ed Thelen]were already gone at that time but the battle came to a head at a board of directors meeting. The paper group came in, showed a lot of Powerpoint slides, asked for another 2 years of development budget but could not show anything real. When we came in, we rolled a fully functional plastics control system into the room, removed the blanket and showed it off: we had full color high res screens, used off-the-shelf hardware, had far better graphs, touchscreen control, 2D color intensity maps of sheet thickness, 3D graphs, etc. Our VP at the time had actually stacked the deck a bit and unbeknownst to us engineers, had given a demo himself to the sale force the night before. It was so easy to use.

The sales force was livid and told Dave: this is a system we can sell, we cannot sell powerpoint presentations! Oh it was a sweet victory. Within months the paper development group was cut and all people told to move to that new-fangled graphical LabVIEW environment. But then the lawyers got involved: how could we base the future of the company on some software package from a company in….Texas?? In the end, I won that battle too but that’s another (long) story!

And, when after a couple of years of more development, we started moving our largest paper systems to this new environment, we ran out of CPU power. The PC curve (from 386 to 486 to a Pentium) could not keep up with the advanced controls and sensors and #of scanners that we kept on adding. But by that time LabVIEW was already multithreaded and because of the graphical dataflow and it’s runtime engine, supported multi-CPU systems. So we bought a 4 CPU Dell server, and the LabVIEW code just distributed itself over the 4 CPUs. We did not have to change a line of code. Problem solved.

And then Honeywell bought us. Problem created…

Dirk

Some of the initial strikes against Measurex within Honeywell were caused by some executives stacking the books in their favor when they retired. That caused the year after their retirement to be a disaster which caused Honeywell to come in heavy handed.

Most of the decline in engineering was caused by a changing market place. Instead of people designing boards, compilers and control design software, we just bought PCs and off-the-shelf software. We just could not charge $5000 for a black & white daisy wheel printer anymore. Or $25000 for a "DataTranslator" if much better functionality could be bought with a $100 Ethernet card in a PC.

Dirk De Mol
National Instruments

Honeywell-Measurex Develops Large Industrial Control Applications Using National Instruments LabVIEW Software - local copy

I reported to DSB [Dodie] and I enjoyed working with her and for her. She was a delightful and colorful person. The simple pleasures we share the secret things we share and the secret delights we shared in one with the other. A gift indeed, was she. She definitely know people and could read you like a book, and very charming as well.

I appreciate you saying such nice things about her. I even went to her memorial. She did a lot of good in her life, from "Woman of the Year" in Silicon Valley to V.P. of Corporate Communications.

Sincerely,
     c.n.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jeanne Whitmer
To: ex_mx@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:37 PM

> > Hello fellow Ex-MXers!  Here is a message from Paul Lannus, who is
> > looking for some assistance on a project he's working on.  He was
> > referred to the site, and so I'm forwarding to you his message.  I
> > hope some of you can help him:

> > ------

> Greetings!

> I am working on a project that concerns the
> construction of the One Results Way campus - work in
> the 1970s to be specific.
> A bunch of former MX officers suggested I check with
> you alums.

> We would like to chat with anyone that worked in
> Operations/Building maintenance or has any
> recollection of the original construction and
> expansion projects that went on at the Measurex
> Cupertino campus.

> I can be reached by email at plannus@yahoo.com or
> telephone at 415.267.4058.

> Thanks,

> Paul Lannus

In the early 1980s, the Saddle Rack was in downtown San Jose. It was a very large bar/dance hall/place to hear canned and live country western music. It also had a prominent mechanical bull the folks tried to ride, with controls from gentle to Moon Shooter.

Soon we at Measurex heard that there was "mud wrestling" going on there Saturday nights.
     The general plan was that two young ladies, who were quite athletic, would wrestle guys from the audience in a ring covered several inches deep with mud. We had heard from magazines that this was the latest fad, and here it was in San Jose. OK?

Soon we heard that teams of folks would pool their money so that their designated person could wrestle the young ladies. That there would be an auction preceding the event, and the winning group would have their person wrestle the young ladies.
    And the bearer of the news thought that we of engineering software should pool our money and have Tai Chen, a software engineering manager, be our hero.

Tai Chen was all of 5'5" tall, quite popular, a practical go-get-er, but no one would consider him a threat physically. His wrestling name would be "Too Tall Chen" ;-)) What the heck - we oughta have some fun!!
    Somehow a pool of $120 dollars was collected and that Saturday night a delegation of mostly Measurex software engineering showed up at the SaddleRack to participate in the excitement.

There was a crowd maybe 150, a wrestling ring with maybe 3 inches of mud in it, some means of keeping the mud mostly in the ring, and a master of ceremonies. The master of ceremonies started out explaining that this was not ordinary mud from some back yard, but sterilized filtered clay to remove sand, rocks, and other possibly harmful material. Among other things, the mud would reduce the impacts of falls.

The two young ladies, in bathing suits and caps, maybe 115 pounds each, were introduced and gave a maybe 30 second example of their wrestling prowess. They flipped each other about, pinned each other, and it was obvious that they were athletic, agile, and used to the mud ring.

The master of ceremonies then announced the terms of the wrestling, the auction, and the constraints on the challenging wrestlers. The heroes would wear heavy boxing gloves, presumably to restrict pinching, hair pulling, scratching and gouging. Also, the hero would have his feet tied together to prevent kicking.

Then the auction started, our $120 pool was quickly exceeded and a group offering say $250 won. Their hero appeared, and he was a maybe 200 pound hairy muscular specimen - with the humor of a brown rock. The wrestling started, and it was quickly obvious that the two young ladies could do nothing with that 200 pound hairy chimpanzee of a guy. If they tried to pin him - with one arm he could flip a girl off, get up, and chase them around the ring again.

It was scary. I was impressed with how little a 115 pound woman could do against a 200 pound guy. If he can keep his hips rotated a little to protect his gonads - she has no apparent chance. Anyway - the event was over - we (or at least me) went home somber.

Well, lets try again - but Tai Chen decided he did not want to be our hero again. Who would volunteer? The search was on -

Mike Powell was persuaded to be our hero. Lets introduce Mike Powell, Mike is your basic nice guy, a kind of Dilbert. No bad jokes, quite serious, hard worker, handles practical mathematical questions with ease, stable temper, wife and maybe three kids, one adopted?, goes to church, teaches Sunday School, not known to drink, ... maybe 5'11", 200 pounds, works at building/improving his house in the mountain/woods near Cupertino. What an unlikely hero for mud wrestling at the rowdy SaddleRack bar.

A much larger bidding pool of maybe $300 dollars was collected, and down to the SaddleRack we went. This Saturday night the bidding was not so vigorous, and we got our hero, Mike Powell, into the ring for something like $180.

The boxing gloves, leg restraints and swimming cap were placed on Mike - and the action started. Mike and the girls were wonderful. Mike had a sense of humor we had never seen. He and the girls were rolling around in the mud - It was quickly obvious that Mike could take care of himself, but restrained himself from pushing hard and soon we were enjoy the humor of the participants.
     Now, I cannot tell you how folks wrestling in the mud can cause an audience to start to smile and relax. But we did. Maybe the contrast with the previous Saturday's gorilla made us feel better about people and guys and gals - who knows - but they had fun, and we had fun.
     Unbelievable - fun mud wrestling - you must be kidding !! But I'm not.

The event was over too soon, and the participants were wiping their faces, shaking gloves and laughing.

Mike - Thanks much for the memory.
    The world can indeed be a fun place.

There was a movement at Measurex to participate in a mud wrestling event at Saddle Rack.

I heard that some people were trying to draft me to give the girls at Saddle Rack a fair chance. I was only 5'5" & weighed 130 lbs.

While I was in favor of the fun event, I was not keen about being humiliated by mere girls.

So I secretly started to pay quite a few dollars to stuff the ballot box with Matt Guerreri's name.

I called Matt our "Italian stallion".

Unfortunately the "Italian stallion" lost to Mike Powell in a popularity contest. The rest is history.

We also gathered the resources that were present and eventually ran a library with a collection focusing on programming languages, process control, other technical disciplines and my full set of Dilbert books thrown in. Dave Bossen once called it "The World's Smallest Library." Yes, but we could always find what people wanted from the books or the archives of magazine donations. It wasn't a pretty site after the Loma Prieta earthquake!

Software Maintenance/Configuration:
     When Rowena Koch left, Randy Kalmeta felt I could take on the SWM team too. My wonderful group consisted of John Charlton, Vicky Stewart, Haruko Vultee, Polly Noyce, Cyndy Hiatt, Linda Borg, Alice Huang, Mike Olensky, Cathleen McCann, Kathy Weill, Maureen Maris, Marge Bogen. Apologies to anyone I've missed.

Little did I know how emotionally charged the words "release" and "update" were . Nor were letters and numerals straightforward. We created a whole new alphabet. To save my sanity I wrote two editions of "In Search of Euphemisms," the first in 1983 and the second in 1988. If we weren't releasing new software, were we disgorging it? liberating it? unfettering it?

Characters of note:
     Steve Cabot, our homeless employee, who lived in his truck in the parking lot, The Duke of Dork who stuck to you like flypaper, Holly who had a special relationship with the Xerox machine, Jerry McCann and Mike Powell--to know them was to love them, Claudia Mc Queen whose silhouette made strong men crumble, Tom King, who besides being the best VP, made April Fool's Day special, Pat Van Munn who lived by the credo, "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission."

The Grade Program:
     I started at MX when it had to be run from multiple boxes of punch cards. God help you if you dropped them!

The SYSGEN program:
     Why did I think that every time I submitted it was the final one?!

Carol Gilbert
carol.gilbert@comcast.net
www.carol.gilbert.name

I worked there from Jan. 73 until about May of 80 and previously worked for one of the vendors who produced sub assemblies for MX, 7 Associates the company owned by Dave Meader's Dad, Dave Sr.

I started out in manufacturing and worked for Fred Moulton, then made a series of jumps. The tobacco system prototypes were all built by me and Sandi Swain (who can forget her voice) under the direction of Ron Smithson. I worked in the engineering lab with Pete Wellington and built the first X-ray based ash sensor for system 307 (Finch Pruyn Paper) in Glens Falls NY.

I finished up in the system configuration department working for Ken Meigs. I was part of the "flying" group which included Ken, Bill Davis, Bill Rink Bob Micelli and a wannabe named Connor Vlacancic (sp). I owned the green Mooney, and the white XK-E Jaguar that often sat next to Bossen's Mercedes 450/

I currently live in Boise where I inspect aviation assets for the Department of the Interior, and still fly.

One correction in the bio, the cafeteria manager was named Gerta Thiem. She personally witnessed the destruction of Dresden during the war, and later went to the former East Germany in the later 70's. She had a drop dead gorgeous daughter who I once took flying.

    Tom Wilson employee 636.

...how would I know....Why should I care..?

I was bored and decided to look up Measurex, and was amazed to find your site.

I was an employee from 1978 to 1986 based in the UK.

I was taken on as Field Engineer for the "new" Energy Systems having had Power utility experience.

I worked my way up to Applications Engineer having changed disciplines from Energy to Paper to Plastics and Metals.

They were some of the best years of my life. I found it a refreshing company to work for, and particularly enjoyed my training / visits to Cupertino, Waterford and Cork.

I now live in Richmond, Virginia.

Power to you!

Sean Maxwell

Now, what I recall about the results things that it was a clear concept when applied to say the paper machine.
    Mx had the applications engineer that collected statistics about BW and Moi BEFORE Mx and then documented how much $ the customer was making by pushing the Moi to the upper limit and the BW to the lower AFTER he had the super duper sensors and control software.
     Key of this success were the resident tech rep and the app engineer.

Note that we, the software/control engineers, did our contributions too by fixing and adding to the MIS reports.. ;-)

Best regards,
Raul Femenia

from Scott Mayer from [ex_mx] (October 13, 2006)

Sometimes the results guarantee was an offer of a refund of the price of the system, less the portion paid for initial services [usually 205].

If the customer was not satisfied for ANY reason, they could return the system for a full refund of the system price less the initial services.

The evaluation was to be performed by the customer in any manner they chose.

If they weren't satisfied, we were allowed the opportunity to improve the performance or situation to their liking.

We didn't get many back.

Best regards,

Scott Mayer

from Jeff Mitchell from [ex_mx]

What we used to do on the DMC side (metals, mostly zinc coatings) was to offer a guarantee for a certain extra price. We would guarantee, for example, a 50% improvement in long term variation. If we did not meet that, we would refund a prorated portion of the purchase price, for example 10% return at only 40% improvement, 20% return on only 30% improvement, etc. On the other hand, part of the agreement was for the customer to give us a 10% premium if there was a 60% improvement, 20% on a 70% improvement, and so on.

No one EVER took us up on the offer! But just the confidence we showed gained us a 90% market share (North America) in metal coatings during our heyday.

Jeff Mitchell

from Mike from [ex_mx]

From my experience in the UK it was always difficult to get the customer to come up with reliable QC results. Generally, you had to help them out first with training on how to establish good practices in quality checking of their own product!

I lost count of the times that I went to a site to follow up on an installed system only to find that the only quality check was a battered old hand micrometer with a bent pointer that (when it wasn't being used to measure) was being used under the leg of the qc bench to stop it wobbling.
    ...

Best regards
     Mike Howard

Gunnar worked in sensors, and lived about a block from me in Cupertino. I tended to visit with him at work rather than home - I guess our kids were very different ages.
    (Info from resume)

M.S. Equivalent, Electrical Engineering, 1942, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm ... 1947-52 LEAR, INC ... autopilot and general servomechanism development ... ... 1954-59 LEAR, INC, (now Lear-Siegler). ... avionic devices... transistorized servo amplifiers .. airborne navigation ... 1959- Lockheed Missiles ... Manager ... fuel cells .. digital telemetry ...

Gunner would tell of working with Bill Lear

In WW II Bill Lear proposed and apparently manufactured a good enough control for the tricky problem of controlling the turbo superchargers on high altitude bombers in WW II. Apparently he made enough money to later develop the small business jet called the Learjet 23. Lear had no aircraft design or manufacturing education nor experience, but selected inventive skilled people, which led to the development of a very successful aircraft - and Gunnar was one of those - According to Gunner, Lear's next project was a steam car. A prototype was made - but it seemed to have the following unresolvable problems: Mileage per gallon of fuel was poor compared to the then current gasoline engines Cooling the steam for the closed cycle of water/steam was a big problem. Even the outsides of the doors were used as part of the condenser - a safety hazard. Even though a "flash boiler" was used to try to speed getting steam when someone wanted to drive the car, it took almost a minute from "turning the key" to having enough steam pressure to drive down the street. Apparently the last was the project killer - Bill figured auto drivers would not wait, and therefore would not buy!

Then Gunnar worked for Lockheed, but the dynamics of mass hirings and lay offs did not agree with his organized soul.

In about 1970?, Gunnar joined Measurex as part of sensor development. The following are my recollections, corrected by John Dahlquist, Thanks much John :-))

It is my impression that Gunnar worked on many gauges but his specialty was the thickness (caliper) gauge. I understood he had several patents on it - If I remember that gauge was so good that some folks bought the gauge as a separate item and tried to use it with competitive equipment - The software to use it was a combination of simple and complicated. The thickness determination was relatively simple. Convert the frequency (difference due to the separation of the inductive lower and upper parts) to separation - a relatively straight forward formula      - with minor correction due to the different compressions of different grades of the paper The control of when to close (make the gauge touch the paper) and open the gauge was more complicated - It was a contacting gauge, the two parts coming from the bottom head and the top head - You (the software) closed the gauge when the gauge was "On-Sheet" and opened just before going "Off-Sheet". If you closed the gauge before it came on sheet, the rapidly moving paper generally cut through the rubber bellows that helped the gauge flex with the rapidly moving paper - Worst case, either the top par or bottom part of the caliper head got sawed off by the rapidly moving paper and thrown some distance down the paper machine - maybe never to be seen again. Also worst case - Sawing off of the gauge could tear the sheet of paper - further irritating the situation :-(( Going "off-sheet" with the gauge closed was not very cool either !! So, Software/Control had to be sure that the     - offset from the center line of the scanning head was correct -     - the edges of the paper were REALLY where you thought they were - But the gauge was a winner, apparently the best in the industry :-))     Gunnar got many complements on it -

John Dalquist e-mailed

He also was responsible for Mx using the Microwave gauge, on an OEM basis from a Swedish company. He also proposed the Z-sensor, which ended up being a joint invention of Gunnar (who proposed it as a correction to the way the scanner distance changed and thus affected the basis weight gauge), myself who took his idea and made it work, first installed in Australia) and John Goss, who was the Sensor Group boss. Enough said. We sensor people thought the only real problem with the caliper gauge was that the S/W could not be relied on to know off-sheet vs on- sheet. This could hardly be a hardware design fault.

Glad you enjoyed :-))
I [Ed Thelen] worked a number of places before - and one since -
but Measurex was tops :-)) IBM only second ;-))

Hard to explain:

• We of course bitched about the imperfections of life
• We sometimes wondered about where Mx got their comparative salary info they quoted didn't seem to match the job offers we were getting
• People did leave -
  Some felt Measurex was getting too big or the valley too crowded
  One software integration guy had a knack with people and selling realestate - left (1980?), was last heard of making big bucks selling commercial properties in Los Angeles

There are some stories yet to come,
    but Big Dave figures that people don't need to know - so - we will see -
I think he would have made/is a great poker player -

Ed Thelen

Pat McSweeney today

I, Mr. Diplomacy, told her I really was enamored with her badge. Mike Terry took this best picture of her badge.

At the same table a little later :-))

I, being still lazy, had determined to take few pictures. I had come to talk, not to do post production work. Besides - most of us do not preserve as well as Pete Wellington, employee # 2xx. Some, such as Burt Kendall, looked distinguished, gray hair, ... .
    But, for the rest of us, - the spoken word may be a kindness.

Dirk DeMol also came early - we of course talked astronomy.

Dirk said in a 2011 e-mail "The software group for the Keck telescopes [10 meter diameter, Mona Kea, Hawaii] is now heavily Measurex-flavored. Their director is Kevin McCann who you might have met at Measurex. I think you were still there when Kevin came from Ireland. He now has two people under him who used to be my colleagues at Measurex in the later years."

He had just come back from Costa Rica. He claimed you could drink the water, eat the fruit, walk the streets, ... Dirk had shown me the Internet in 1992 - this time he showed me the tricks he could do with his iPod - guess I will just HAVE to get one :-| (My youngest works at Apple - has been trying to persuade me for 'years' - like get modern !! )

Soon the Mx reserved zone filled to overflowing with happy people exchanging tales. The noise was "deafening". A group of more than four really couldn't communicate - lots of mixing - lots of fun - I would guess 60 people?? including overflow near the bar -

Robotics, software, hardware, ... who is where doing what ... A number are "looking" :-|

As I was leaving I bumped into Rolf Brewer and Pete Wellington comparing notes of the decline of SUN Microsystems. Having been at GE Computer, Control Data, Mx and Landis&Gyr, I listened intently for clues of business survival ;-)) (Even IBM had to "re-invent" itself.)

"Big Dave" did not get to this reunion from his rumored birthday party at a daughter's home.

It seemed to me, a great time was had by all. Lots of "see you again next year" :-)))

From Don Dittmann, now living retired in Oxnard, Ca (deceased Feb 2010 ??) "Many years have come and gone (and many miles too) since Ripon #001 and ConCan #003, to say noting of St. Francisville, Valiant and then Gold River etc, and Brisbane and Hobart, Tasmania ... to name a few. - "As you can see by my badge (employee # 37 on Mathew Street) it wasn't all hard work ... 12 hour days and 7 days a week when on travel trouble-shooting). But the big thing was we all had a piece of the action (contemporary pay scale, but lots of stock options) that we all felt a part of something bigger and leading edge. And the camaraderie, guys like Lumen Morrow (whom I brought over from GE Spacecraft), Don Brewster and Don Robinson (English blokes) doing the trade shows in New York Waldorf-Astoria and then in Montreal, Gene Stinson, Jerry Patel (Yes, that's him by the early scanner) and Oh ! What great management."

Traveling with Eric Dahlen was always different. First off, he was about 6 foot 4 with a thick Scandinavian accent, having graduated PhD in Finland. As a vice-president (and with long legs) he always traveled first class and so did I so we could talk business on our way to Augusta, Georgia or Valiant, Oklahoma or wherever.
    Ron Smith carried his tool kit: an army foot locker full of equipment (must have weighed 50-60 pounds) and he could just about rebuild a system in the field if required. Even stuffed his old bib overalls in the hole they had knocked in the Mx computer shack for the cable entry 'cause it was air-conditioned and steam poured thought the hole and kept knocking our system out. Innovation was the main technique in the early days. Con-Can in Augusta and Interstate Paper in Savannah were early sites and mill managers had no qualms about calling Mr. Bosen at any time of day or night if our system crapped.
    Eric was a whiz with the theory and implementation and guys like Ron could make repairs with masking tape and coat hangars if that's what it took. On an early trip with Eric I noticed he was always living high on the hog (which was not too high at Holiday Inn, Augusta, Georgia), and the always say charge it to Mr. Dittmann's room. After 10 days I had quite a bill so on the plane back I asked him about how come I had to foot the bill. He explained that as VP Engineering he had to approve my expense reports, but his had to be approved by Dave. Did accounting ever catch on ?

At Valiant the new mill was an economic development in the middle of the dust bowl, but on the Red River. Nearest trees were in Arkansas where the lumber mill loaded their chips in box cars to make pulp and the bark and sawdust to burn in the steam boilers ... shipped about two hundred to where the unemployed farmers were. But they had to bring in experienced paper-makers from North Carolina to start up and run the mill. Now this was the largest paper machine ever ... 1000 inch wide sheet (about 83 feet) and over a half mile long ... first time for three scanner too!
    Gene Stinson had to replace the computer, so he carried it from his car in the parking lot across the plant and up about 40 stairs ... ended up with a clot in his arm and in the hospital for about a week back in San Jose.
    The plant was so long that signal boosters were needed to keep the 3.5 volt signal traveling from wet end to dry end to light the panels. Now communicating between the good old southern boys, the Oklahoma farmers, and Eric's Finnish sometimes got quite funny and frustrating when Dr. Dahlin was trying to explain some simple algebraic concept, with me as interpreter. There were a lot of "Yumpin' Yiminy's" and "Yeppers" before we finally rolled the first sheet at about 1000 feet per minute ... also the fastest paper machine. Couldn't even celebrate because it was a dry county so had to wait 'till Dallas airport.

Wilson Barbosa e-mailed from Brazil - Jan 17,2010

I?m the first Measurex employed in Brazil. I had been visiting this page and last week working on my office I found a nice picture received from Dodie and Dave Bossen in December 1988. Great times it was. Dodie and Dave send to all Measurex folks this card. I lost all others that I had from 1978.This one survived.      as sent, (reduced) cropped It Will be Nice to all folks remember great time we had with measurex. By this time do you have any information about chuck wortley? Sales man that I met in 1978. He sold first system in Brazil. Many thanks Wilson Barbosa

Don?t know if you recall me, I worked at Measurex from 1978-88 and shared my office for most of that period with Marilyn Clemo.
    [ Ed's comment, Marilyn Clemo was more pleasant to look at, STACKED, and a more reasonable person, than any current Hollywood starlet. Maybe I'm showing my age? ]

I just saw your site and came across some interesting memories, esp. the mud wrestling affair. I confess I must suffer some responsibility or accountability for the emergence of that nefarious episode in Measurex history. My role in much of life from college on has been one of instigator, leaving the flowering of such instigation to more entrepreneurial types.

One evening I ventured into San Jose?s Saddle Rack to experience the largest bar in the area equipped with a mechanical bull and became quite fascinated with mud wrestling and the contemplation that some member of Measurex?s more audacious staff could possibly vie for the much vaunted mud wrestling title. Upon sharing my experience and hopes with some promising promoters the next day we quickly found many Measurex hopefuls in attendance at the Saddle Rack the very next week. Regrettably, I was unable to attend this first gathering, but fortunately for me, the bidding war for the privilege was lost to a more affluent congregation. But with little despair and brimming with great hope, the same assemblage returned to the Saddle Rack the following week and victory this time was ours. The honor of representing Measurex fell to Mike Powell. Mike performed admirably and was designated the winner of this hard fought contest with fame and celebrity his reward. Sadly though, Mike never defended his title and fell into mud wrestling historical obscurity afterwards.

There are so many stories I can relate. I do recall Lincoln Towse was the fellow that provided much of that entrepreneurial talent that I refer to. He was responsible for carrying out the 180 degree turn of Clemo?s desk that was a big hit. Lincoln at that time had too much time on his hands and spent an entire morning gathering resources and carrying out this well engineered project. The front side of her desk was turned towards and backed up to the window, with the rear part of the desk then equipped with black paper in the middle to simulate the leg well with desk drawers then carefully drawn in with black marker and ruler. Items on top of the desk were carefully 180?d. The result was quite outstanding, as we had some people stand outside our door and view Clemo?s desk unable to detect any misplacements. Clemo finally came in, sat down to look at something on her desk, and without looking attempted to put her purse in the lower left drawer but found no drawer and only black marker on her hand?..she screamed and many came rushing in to discover the cause of her dismay. For that entire day, people came in, with some people even bringing groups, to view Lincoln?s masterpiece. Near the end of the day we reluctantly relented to Clemo?s desires to return her desk to normal placement.

Plus the ?Macho Mike? (our boy again?.Mike Powell) photos that were taken up on the 2nd floor outside break area (amid a number of curious and perplexed onlookers, as Mike was viewed posing with his shirt off as Lincoln captured the images)?..the best photo was later presented to Clemo for her pleasure (and astonishment I might add). Her screams upon first viewing the photo on the wall next to her desk are quite memorable and brought in quite an abundance of viewing audience for some time. I believe I have a copy of that photo and would love to upload it to your site. It was really a lot of fun in those days.

During the time that ?Baby on board? stickers were found on so many cars, I found such a sticker, in blue that stated ?I Stop for Studs?. I retained this sticker in my desk and on occasion I would share my desire with Lincoln on installing this on the rear window of Clemo?s car. Lincoln demurred on this project for some months, then to my astonishment one day, he comes enthusiastically rushing in to our office just before lunch and demands to see the sticker at once and goes to Clemo?s desk to retrieve her car keys (Clemo was of course absent at the time). He then rushed out, installed the sticker on the rear window and quickly returned the keys to Clemo?s purse. The result was gratifying (for me at least); Clemo and Lincoln were later driving to a restaurant for lunch, when she glimpsed the sticker from the rearview mirror and shouts ?Lincoln you A..Hole!?, hits the brakes and quickly disposes of the sticker. I was sometimes amazed that she desired me as an officemate despite all the travails that befell her due to my depraved amusements.

Perhaps more later.

Take care Ed.

Tony Favero

Creative Hanky-Panky Continued??

Coors Inspiration?..

In the early halcyon days of our hiring into Measurex, there was a span of time that my former officemate, Mike Powell, reasoned that stocking beer in the company fridge to be a worthy undertaking for those thirsty moments that beckoned for inspiration. Later on I recall he had a rather prolonged evening on the production floor that necessitated laboring into the wee hours of the morning; upon arriving at work at daybreak, we observed empty Coors cans residing up and down the scanners as ample testimony of his overnight efforts. Several weeks afterward found Mike a bit distressed that someone would shamelessly breach what he termed the ?honor code? by pilfering his beer from the company fridge; this unmitigated provocation sadly terminated such indulgences.

Fly trekking?

As a new hire in those same warm days of spring with no project, while Ed Thelen in an adjoining office was snapping photos of the new building construction with the underground garage, I found myself on occasion with too much time on my hands. Whereas our second floor office provided a perfect vantage point to view the new construction, the location also provided an abundance of flies on our windows due to the door just below the stairs remaining open far too habitually. I am uncertain as to what motivated me, but I opened a small bottle of whiteout and carefully applied it to the back of one fly?.sounds silly, certainly. But I was rewarded with the remarkable observation that the fly refused to become airborne afterwards and gave preference to just walking on the window, fully unresponsive to any hand waving attempts to encourage flying. As Mike Powell and I shared an office with Dan Caoco (sp?), the computer lab manager, a brainstorm came upon me. I commenced to apply additional whiteout to other flies, then having them walk on to a sheet of paper whereupon I would transport our newly fashioned pedestrians to Dan?s desktop. I estimate the process took about 20-30 minutes to acquire around 12-14 of these diminutive desktop trekkers due to an abundance of applicants. My efforts were entertainingly rewarded soon afterwards as Dan returned to his office to exclaim ?what are all these flies doing on my desk?? and even more hilarious to see him wildly wave his hands over the desktop, leaving him astonished that the little trekkers ignored all encouragements to abandon the desktop to soar into the air.

Lunch time foibles??

The apparition of Bob Zimmer, our supervisor, can still be seen and heard at the top of the stairs at the old Measurex building as we exited out for a customary Friday lunch, exclaiming??.?you guys are coming back aren't you?? Bob became a little insecure about our Friday afternoon attendance and frequently required assured affirmation of return. Lunch attendees in those early days, before ambitions eroded such frivolities, were Jerry McCain, Mike Powell, Robin Sinee (sp?) and I; later on those memorable Friday lunch forays included a fellow from South Africa, whose name I can no longer recall, so I?ll just label him Rob. Rob was in all ways a good fit for us. Once while Rob was driving us all back from lunch on Hwy 9 he turned into the left turn lane to await a green turn arrow to Bubb Road. We were the first car in the turn lane and were awaiting the green arrow, when Jerry McCain reached over from the back seat, shut off the engine, removed the keys and threw them into the landscaped median strip. At that precise moment the green turn arrow came on which by then we had accumulated quite a number of cars in back of us waiting to turn. Needless to say, Rob was quite displeased as he exited the car cursing to find himself plowing about the divider landscaping to search and recover his car keys while impatient drivers honked their horns at him; the conclusion of yet another entertaining and memorable lunch.

Measurex recreation precinct ??

In those same times, Rob found himself as the third person in an office that included Mike Powell and Jerry McCain. Rob, rumor had it, was put there to provide a calming effect on the antics of Jerry and Mike, but such efforts proved futile. Once again, Rob was a good fit, but one not intended by management. I used to refer to this office as the Rec Room. When I desired to stretch my legs and take a break?.I would go down to that office for some amusement and relaxation. Once, while strolling down there I heard Rob yelling and as I entered into the ?Rec Room?, I observed Jerry holding Rob high by the ankles as Rob?s head went in and out of a trash can while Mike howled with laughter. I am uncertain as to what initiated that episode but I nevertheless secured some momentary diversion from work.

Rebel with a cause??

As Carol Gilbert mentioned above about Steve Cabot, the homeless employee; I don?t recall that he was homeless, but he did rent a room from me in Half Moon Bay for a period of 9 months along with his German shepherd dog, Edgar. Steve was certainly a fascinating fellow who eschewed conformity to many of the mores of society and corporate. Steve employed as a Control Engineer, possessed eccentricities that were quite amusing. For instance during field trips away from Cupertino, Steve?s concept of doggie care was to park his truck in the back lot and place an open 50 lb bag of dog food inside of his truck for Edgar, windows down of course; transforming the truck for a period of time into a mobile dog house. Edgar was quite a enjoyable dog and could usually be found in the truck, hopping in and out on occasion though the open windows to take care of business or grab a drink out of one of the percolation ponds nearby. At home, I once got on my knee to place my arm around Edgar and commence to howl; Edgar being a very quick study without hesitation commenced to howl in concert with me. The local kids once saw me do this and afterwards from time to time, Edgar and the neighborhood children could be heard performing outside?..Edgar proved to be quite a virtuoso in those days. Meanwhile, Steve shunned conventional 40 hour work weeks to persist in laboring tirelessly for days without sleep on self-styled projects, doubtless with the assistance of some pharmaceuticals. He once submitted a three digit sum of weekly hours on his timecard but was forced to rectify it as it exceeded 168 hours, the total number of hours in a week. Such long hours eventually became his undoing and at length he departed Measurex to engage in inspired endeavors better suited to his life style.

Characters of note: From Carol Gilbert

Steve Cabot, our homeless employee, who lived in his truck in the parking lot, The Duke of Dork who stuck to you like flypaper, Holly who had a special relationship with the Xerox machine, Jerry McCann and Mike Powell--to know them was to love them, Claudia Mc Queen whose silhouette made strong men crumble, Tom King, who besides being the best VP, made April Fool's Day special, Pat Van Munn who lived by the credo, "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

End-of-quarter catch and release?.

Dave Bossen and assorted VPs loitered nearby with mellifluous music playing as the beer and wine flowed at a ?end of the quarter? party in the Measurex parking lot; the consumed libations inspired Jerry McCann to swiftly seize Robin Sinee and fling her over his shoulder to then hastily sprint away from the Measurex assemblage while loudly exclaiming, as Robin screamed,???I got mine!? Ty Chen became mortified and feared that some would cease gainful employment owing to such frolics. Fortunately, Measurex leadership exhibited broad tolerance to such undomesticated behavior.

Friday revelry??.

Friday going away parties in the software department for Measurex employees transitioning to other employments were usually raucous affairs and generally, with very few exceptions, persisting well past Friday lunch hours, and some advancing into the evening hours as well. During one occasion at a Hwy 9 restaurant, a male and female employee became embroiled in an inebriated tiff, in which the man dumped an iced drink in the lady?s lap. Not to be outdone, the woman commenced to open up a ketchup container and vigorously wave the container past the fellow, who ducked at the precise moment, only to leave a line of ketchup on the wall behind him?..an incensed waitress witnessing the scene at that critical juncture vigorously encouraged the Measurex assemblage to vacate the premises with due haste. The subsequent party necessitated scheduling at another restaurant.

Duke?

And who could overlook the Duke of flypaper celebrity that Carol mentions above?! It was grueling to sustain two-way conversations with Duke, as getting in a word edge-wise proved unfeasible, leaving one with an imminently exploding head. Once, in a desperate struggle to extricate myself from diarrheal verbosity, I impulsively departed my office for the men?s room but was shadowed attentively by Duke the entire route. In anguish, with Duke remaining in persistent tow, I desperately advanced to the 4 person programmer?s corner office, whereupon I successfully engaged him and one of the programmers in conversation, at which point I was able to exit unmolested and scurry back to my office to swiftly secure the door behind me. Soon afterwards, Jack Obicina, one of the afflicted programmers approached me with a newly crafted office ruling: ?You take him in, you take him out.?

Once as Duke departed for a week?s vacation (which furthermore was merriment for one and all) all the office doors in the hall remained freely open for the entire duration of Duke?s vacation. Upon his return on the following Monday morning all doors were found shuttered as a precaution. Afterward the Powell-McCann office, functioning much like a foreign embassy, granted sanctuary to those entering due to Duke?s reticence to cross the unwelcoming and hostile threshold.

Measurex Holy Grail?

Building a Dec or HP system devoid of QA errors appeared unattainable and later emerged into a sort of an elusive Holy Grail in Measurex legend. One heroic attempt, however, was documented to snatch this elusive prize. The man of the hour was Herb Baumgartner, our office neighbor and Measurex programmer freshly entrusted with a project, now a quest, to create a new, but duplicate system he fashioned earlier for the same customer. Herb, like the knight of Grail legend, now seemed blessed by fate with the opportunity to craft the fabled ?perfect system? and thus enter into the annals of Results Way legend. Armed with prior knowledge of all QA errors, plus all known audit trail edits on the previous system, he meticulously lined up the foot high databases of old and new systems side-by-side to laboriously advance page by page to apprehend any elusive errors. Finally the hardware on the production floor was ready and so was Herb. With scanners going to and fro satisfyingly and all errors known to mankind seized and eradicated, several days elapsed with the QA error book free of discrepancies. It now appeared that indeed Providence had kindly gazed down on Herb and his quest to enter into Measurex grail legend. However, tantalizing near the conclusion of the testing period Mike Shelly, the Measurex QA man assigned to Herb?s system and unaware of this historic mission, audaciously documented a discrepancy into the hereto error free QA system log. Understandably disconcerted by this shocking setback, Herb departed the premises abruptly and his whereabouts remained uncertain for several days; sadly this terminated the last known grail quest.

But let me tell you that I have had a lot of fun and $ lately consulting with MXOpen systems, that still right now are controlling processes like in Ely Lilly in Indiana and FMC in Green River, WY.
They are slowly replacing them with the likes of Delta V and Siemens but by no means these new guys have the capabilities of the MXOpen + Unitec..
So, the history is still being writen..

Anyway, hang in there and don't ride into the sunset yet...
Raul Femenia

On the other side of the coin ? Vision and MxOpen was incredibly easy to sell! I know ? I sold many and some of the biggest out there and never had a complaint that it was too expensive. Ditto for all my old Euro colleagues, we out marched and outsold the competition because it beat anything else hands down. (I know I will end up in hell for saying this, but Alcont too in those days!) Customers liked the fact that it was a one stop shop. My team was absolutely fabulous, we delivered as promised and on time. The Ireland factory teams were delivering total quality on time. When I left Mx I left a backlog of 2 years for my team. You would be surprised how many systems there are still globally. Many an old Mx salt still making good money to this day as customers see no reason to spend big bucks on a system from one of the Big Four while the old QCS and DCS crank away merrily?

Best regards,

Frans.

As history happened to unfold for me, I did get extremely involved with Vision in that period, 84 through 89 (I departed in 89). I liked the opportunity to learn new and different things. The only big objection I had was that Vision was on life support for so long a period of time, and there was such resistance to take seriously the sincere feedback (from the field, often customers) as being "learning opportunities" for product improvement.

I'm sure that certain folks would argue that this wasn't the case, but I remain convinced that the high degree of fragility of Vision during the 84 to 90ish time was a factor in the corporate direction, analogous to the Titanic hitting the ice berg. It didn't sink the ship right away, but the hull was leaking enough to make staying afloat a problem. By the time MxOpen was ready for prime time, the hull was still too waterlogged so Honeywell pulled their boat along side, and the rest, as they say is history.

I'm Rik Nilsson. I was hired into Measurex by Kieth Swanson in February, 1971 as Field Engineer employee #39 or #62 (or something low) and sent to Snowflake, AZ to install and maintain the 1000 System there on their #3 kraft machine. When Keith interviewed me in Phoenix, I was working as a small engine repairman for a rental company, in jeans and plaid shirt with grease up to my elbows. His Red Lion hotel suite was full of suited guys. Don't know why he hired me, I was a mess. Maybe because I was ex-Navy (submarine) and we were both Scandahoovians.

He invited me down to the bar after grading my tests and we had a pitcher of beer -- he stood up, shook my hand and said I'd get plane tickets to Cupertino on Monday! That's how Measurex moved in those days -- strike like a cobra. I was there 2 years. One extra job the FE had in Snowflake was to also maintain the mill's railroad crossing light electrics. What a kick!

A town with no stop lights, one grocery, one Western Auto store (also the motorcycle and gun store), one school, two churches (one Mormon, one everything else). The mill was 14 miles away in the middle of desert just off the highway. I hired Tom Grant to replace me and moved back to California (Antioch, home of Louisiana Pacific mill) to become a Senior Field Engineer. Bob Fuller was our Installation Engineer. I traveled 5 days a week hitting Ripon(Sys#1), Stockton(cylinder board kraft), Santa Clara, Salinas(Firestone Rubber tire fabric calendar), Anahiem(Proctor&Gamble tissue machine) and occasionally Snowflake and another new mill in Flagstaff. There was another one up around Concord, CA, I think, or south of there off of I5 someplace. I was responsible for 13 systems in all.

After awhile I went to Ocean Falls BC to install a newsprint system for a year, then came back and Bob Fuller and I swapped jobs for couple years. I worked with Area Manager John Spanbaur as a Systems Engineer for awhile, configuring 1010 and 2000 systems and managing installation projects. I was asked to be the field liaison for the 2001 System development project, so I moved to San Jose for about 3 years. Afterwards, I became Chief of Quality inspection, over Incoming Inspection, PC Board Assy&Test, and Subassembly fab. I took college courses in quality control at night at De Anza. Once Dave Bossen personally called me to his office and talked me into going to Taio Paper in Iyo Myshima Japan for a couple of months to get a newsprint system back online. The Japanese service group had let all the 'extras' degrade (headbox ctl, caliper, dryer-limited control).

I remember writing statistical analysis programs on the 'big' VAX 11/780 we used to do the cross-compiling on. I met Robin Senne, a pretty blonde software engineer you may recall -- we were bad, fooled around a bit -- I got divorced and we married in 1982. After I got back from Japan, I was passed over for Director of Quality so we both quit and moved north.
Still together, living rurally southeast of Medford, Oregon now. Retired and raising chickens, brewing beer, playing with my John Deere.

So very sorry to hear about Lumon... he was a good friend and colleague, and an able mentor when I was learning BLOC control tuning, and on the 2001 project. I loved the way his facial expressions would animate his soft-spoken explanations and solutions to your problems. Especially when he'd sneak in a wry joke! What a guy. I'm glad he had a full, productive and rewarding life. Oops, got something in my eye.

Regards,

--

rik@saragossa.net
http://www.saragossa.net

What kind/grade of paper did the first Measurex system measure? (e.g. kraft, tissue, paper board, etc.)

If system #1 wasn't on a tissue machine, how long did it take Measurex to sell its first system for use on tissue?

Any information about the SEQUENCE of paper applications in the early days of Measurex would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks and best regards,
Warren - Mx 81-89

The first Measurex system was installed on a fine paper machine at Ripon, California. This was before my time but I worked there much later, after system #1 had been replaced by system #2000. The machine made fine paper, lots of colors, lots of weights.

Scott Mayer
(360)607-1737
scottmayer@stanfordalumni.org

From:	"Vangeel Paul" < paulcj.vangeel@planet.nl >
Date:	Sat, May 11, 2013 1:26 pm
To:	"Warren Schirtzinger" < wschirtzinger@comcast.net >
Cc:	

Hello Warren,

It has been a long time we had contact but it does feel good to still see your interest
in this fantastic company we both had the pleasure and honor to work in.

The answer to your questions can be found in an interesting interview of Dave Bossen
by Sally Smith Hughes (University of California) in 2010 :
EARLY BAY AREA VENTURE CAPITALISTS: SHAPING THE ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS LANDSCAPE
which you can find at http://ed-thelen.org/MeasurexBossenOral.html

In the last part of this interview Dave mentions:

Quote

The first three systems that went in?one went in Varkhaus, Finland. No, that?s the next year.
 Can you slide that report over to me? [reviewing annual report] This is the 1972 annual report,
and it shows the systems. The first three systems went in?one in Garden State Paper Company
in New Jersey, one in Fiberboard Corp. which was in Antioch, California then, one in
Simpson Lee Paper Company out here in Ripon, California. I wanted to get all three of them
in California so we could service them easily. And then we started moving out.
Our first European systems went into Ahlstrom and Varkhaus, Finland, Bowater in England,
and Fundy Forest Industries in Canada.
But this [annual report] shows the first three?1968, ?69, ?70, ?71, ?72.
This was a great selling aid, showing this to our new customers.

Unquote

Best Regards

Paul C.J. Vangeel
Zandstraat 19
4891PP Rijsbergen
The Netherlands
Europe

Tel: +31 (0) 76 596 3927
Cell: +31 (0) 652 523 901
E-mail: paulcj.vangeel@planet.nl

From: "John Gingerich" < johngingerich@earthlink.net >
To: < ex_mx@yahoogroups.com >

First Kraft machine was Fiberboard Paper in Antioch, CA. I worked on that one in 1970. I think first newsprint was Garden State Paper Company in New Jersey. These along with Simpson Lee in Ripon, CA were first three. First tissue, I think, was Wisconsin Tissue in Wisconsin and that would have been late 1970/71. I have all of these records at another location where I will be in about two weeks. Let me know if you need something else.

John G. Mx 1970-1997(1999)

TUQUER < tuquer@yahoo.com >

simpson was text and cover and it was the first of all of them

hey john, howdy from patrick theut in michigan

From: Raul Femenia < fraulf1940@yahoo.com >

Hi everybody: nice to hear from all of you...Long life to Mx...
Just a little trivia: I used to go to a paper mill in Trois Rivieres (Quebec) (perhaps Canadian International Paper) that had the most newsprint machines: 11 of them and all had a Mx system on it..!!!
Now we read the news in Google...-;)

Raul Femenia (1977-1982 and 1986-1993)
Montreal, Cupertino, Mexico City, Cupertino

Form: "Harold" < engwelch@yahoo.com >

• System No 1 was at Simpson Lee Paper in Ripon CA. They made fine paper of various grades. I was Measurex's first field service engineer there.
• System No. 2 was at Fiber Board in Antioch CA where they made heavier papers.
• I don't remember System No 3.
• I believe System No 4 was in New Jersey and it was newsprint.
• I think the first tissue machine was at Wisconsin Tissue, but I don't remember when it was installed.

From: < 2wheelers@comcast.net >

I think #3 was coated board at CCC in Augusta, GA. # 8 was linerboard at Interstate in Riceboro, GA.

Phil Wheeler

From: Ernie Bell < ejbell@pacbell.net >

What was the number of the system that went down in flames when the "cannery" caught fire? I remember fetching parts off of old systems we stored in that old building to satisfy Level One orders. We sure serviced some old systems, couldn't buy new parts (they didn't make'em anymore) so we had to be creative. Guys like Glen Closson, Harry Jue, Rahlon, and a few others made my job easier at times because of their Measurex "History" knowledge.
    I worked there for almost twenty years, miss it at times!

From: "Basanese, Chris" < chris.basanese@idt.com >

Ernie

It was System 1 that met its demise in the great cannery fire. I recall seeing the remains of the scanner the day after. The I beams had twisted and the welds holding the end plates had apparently given way as they were no longer connected (it was a very hot fire). I do not recall seeing any other parts of the system ? but then there was not much that was recognizable in the ashes.

Best of luck to you and all the other folks that I had the privilege to work with at Measurex.

Regards,
Chris Basanese (1977 ? 1997)

Hmmm - Ernie has "Time-in-Grade" on me, Ernie's list shows me as employee #580 :-| ;-))

There are numeric gaps in the employee # list -
And I don't see Doris Bossen ???
Ernie wrote back noting that Doris Bossen is employee # 264, and wonders if there is a story there ??
Harold Welch writes Aug 26, 2014

When I joined Measurex in 1969, Dodie was not yet there. She was going to Stanford earning her Masters/PHD. I'm not sure exactly when she started. Her "Analysis of Relationships" testing for employment at Measurex started after that. I notice that Don Wyman was not on the employees list. He was one of the first programmers. I guess he was gone already.

Darlene has set the Memorial service for Tuesday, June 9 at 3 PM. It is being held at the Menlo Circus Club. The obit will appear this Sunday in the SF Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury papers.

By the way this service is exactly six months from Dad's Jan. 9 birthday when he turned 88. Also there will be an Honor Guard to present a flag to Darlene.

Aloha, Alison

Darlene has asked me if I could help her with getting information of how many people that will attend for planning purposes.

So if you plan to attend would you be so kind and send me an e-mail at anders@axelssonfamily.com with that information. This will make it so much easier for Darlene.

Thank You - Anders

Its interesting to note that long before Jobs and Wozniak commenced work in that Los Altos garage, Dave's vision at Meaurex was already a reality. I always wanted to write an Op-Ed on Bossen, but always put off the research. With his passing, I finally did write something (below)...solely from my remembrances and heart. The time at Measurex for many of us was a seminal time in our lives. The letter below may get published in Palo Alto, but that remains uncertain. The pics do not come though in the email so I offer them as attachments here....one is a cropped pic from your website.

Dear Editor: I worked as a software engineer for 10 years at Measurex Corp in Cupertino. Mr. Bossen was certainly an icon of Silicon Valley and a most wonderful human being. He lived for decades in Woodside and later Menlo Park. Many on the SF Peninsula are greatly saddened to learn of his departure from all of us. With sincere heart I decided to write the following general story of him and the company he founded. Below are two cropped pictures, of Mr. Bossen, one recent the other much earlier in his life. For your generous consideration: Thank you.

This past April, Silicon Valley visionary David August Bossen, 88, long time resident of San Mateo County, quietly passed away at his home in Menlo Park. Most residents of the San Francisco Peninsula would fail to recognize his name, yet he was a brilliant futurist that elevated paper manufacturing from truly what can be regarded as the ?dark ages? of the industry.

The paper production process is a very linear endeavor that extends a football field or more in length. Liquid pulp at the start going on a ?wire? with dryers and rollers in between; the early paper making process was primarily a mechanical effort that resulted in numerous breaks in the lengthy paper stream, which fashioned quite a chaos in factory clean up while securing serious consequences to productivity and expenditures.

Dave, a graduate of MIT in Electrical Engineering, spent several years working and learning with the leaders of the paper making industry. Eventually his industrialist creativity led him to a judgment that digital technology, via computer control, would influence a dramatic rise of efficiencies and productivity with commensuratey diminished costs. Prior to the implementation of digital technology, most paper making controls were discrete functions scattered in the paper making line, with modest efforts in the way of feedback control loops.

To advance his vision, Dave founded Measurex, (which stood for Measurement Excellence) on Results Way, Cupertino, CA. Employing 7x30 foot rectangular I-beam scanner placements, complete with digital instrumentation that would traverse the paper making sheets continuously at various critical junctures of the paper production process, Dave became very successful at not only eliminating most disrupting sheet breaks, but inspired pioneering standards for the entire industry worldwide. Critical measures and process control of paper basis weight, moisture, thickness, opacity, color and other parameters affected the entire spectrum of paper products globally. Such technology eventually not only conserved capital by diminishing product levels and energy, but established new industry standards that found such technology not merely convenient, but now essential in addressing consumer demands for more exacting and uniform products.

For the first time in paper manufacturing history, the entire line of isolated controls were unified with robust feedback control loops through a central processor, performing much like an orchestral conductor, meting out precise commands to assorted actuators to facilitate a streamlined efficient production control process.

Measurex consequently advanced to exceptional success in numerous countries worldwide with offices in Australia, Japan, and Europe et al.

Dave, a World War II veteran serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, would often proudly fly the U.S. Marine Corps flag alongside the American and State flags at the company headquarters in Cupertino, CA. Yet with all his success, he and his wife Doris remained caring and affable as they kindly greeted anyone encountering them in the hallways of Measurex.

I was surprised to recently discover that akin to baseball in Cooperstown, the Pulp and Paper Industry has a Global Pulp and Paper Industry Hall of Fame to which at the time of his passing Dave was nominated to; in due time he will certainly be regarded as the Babe Ruth of the industry he graciously gave much to.

David August Bossen truly embodied the entrepreneurial spirit of Thomas Edison with his energetic creativity and intelligence that genuinely contributed to the heart of what is best known as American Exceptionalism that has made this country a beacon to the rest of the world. To Dave I personally say ?thank you? for your service to our country, both in uniform and as an entrepreneur who provided a superb environment of employment to many grateful people.

Semper Fi.

Tony Favero
Freelance writer and former software engineer at Measurex Corporation

In 1987, Measurex hired a video production company called "Great Caesar's Ghost, Inc." to produce a promotional/educational video.
The original video was approximately 30 minutes long and was distributed on VHS tape.
Now (Dec 29, 2020) available at https://youtu.be/ml99lkzXq5w

You'll see lots of familiar faces in addition to Dave Bossen. There is also footage of system installations at james river, smurfit and exxon.

I hope you enjoy this walk down memory lane.

Best regards,
Warren Schirtzinger

This is a response to Warren's posting - that rings so true - Measurex did indeed provide all the challenges you might want ;-))
"We don't get paid for Effort, we get paid for Results".

Hi Warren, What a video! It stirred a lot of coals that have been smouldering for years. I went to work for Measurex at 29 in 1974 - system 080 in Lyons Falls, New York. I clearly remember training in Cupertino; Dave and Dodies' introductions to Measurex culture and Bob Aldred's great training experience. I'll bet I retained 80% of everything they taught us. I have always believed that Measurex poured 90 percent of the concrete that became the foundation for my entire career. As a Field Engineer I was always being taken way outside my comfort zone to do things that just had to be done, from almost single-handedly pulling system 80 and installing system 466, to completely refinishing, painting (with DuPont Imron), and installing on another machine, a dirty used system 1000 that the mill acquired from Finch Pruyn in Glens Falls. I even spent a whole Christmas shutdown doing a hand drawn engineering drawing for a size press scanner, and Measurex built the scanner to my drawing! I was scared to death but it actually fit right in and worked great. It was almost like feeling that the systems were our own personal property and we didn't want anybody else to even put fingerprints on them. On top of that I gained eight years of experience in communicating with top management right down to floor level. Distinctly different, but very important. I could write a book about my Measurex experiences but it would probably only be interesting to me! Now, in the twilight of my engineering career (I'll be retiring on January 4th), my current employer, International Wire Group, CEO has asked me (and made me a pretty generous offer), to stay on a few days a week for a year or two to mentor new engineers and teach them how to troubleshoot systems, and to instill in them as much as possible my philosophies about company loyalty, tenacity, always having fun working and all those other little intangibles that follow you to work every day. Yet another stretch outside my comfort zone, but I guess I'm prepared as I'll ever be. I have a sign on my office door that reads, "We don't get paid for Effort, we get paid for Results". It doesn't matter that I'm the only one who knows where it came from, the message is clear. I think that little snippet of philosophy is what drives me. Measurex will always be special. Best regards and thanks again, Fred Carpenter > Camden, New York

Steve Kall?s - added - and ?grow as much as you can? attitude.

Hi Warren, I never met you, but your remarks sure ring a bell. My Measurex experience served me to this day, for the reasons you state ? good training, great boss, and ?grow as much as you can? attitude. Very best in your new phase in life Steve Kall?s P.E. +1 (770) 449 7564 cel: +1 (770) 728 8906 stevekallos@gmail.com

November 02, 2003 in response to a question "was it reliable", I wrote YES !! :-))

I joined MEASUREX (a local company becoming the big frog in the paper process control pond) in about 1971.
(I arrived as some of the original employees were leaving. They claimed the company (100 employees world wide) was getting too big and impersonal. There were about 4,000 world wide when I left about 18 years later.)

We used the Hp 2116 (and the later Hp 2100) exclusively in paper process control for about 10 years, then started buying higher and lower cost/performance machines as different markets were attempted. Both the Hp 2116 and Hp 2100s were good reliable workhorses!

A rumored reason for the selection of the Hp 2116 was to piggy-back on the solid reputation of Hewlett-Packard by the then rather small startup Measurex.
Another good reason was that it had a rather fast floating point capability microprogrammed into its control ROM :-)

Already on board was Gene Stinson, reputed to be one of the designers of the 2116. The 2116 had lots of slots for peripheral and memory cards , and a capability for DMA transfer of data. Gene Stinson said that Measurex would use that DMA capability only over his dead body.
(Life was interesting enough without random malfunctioning I/O cards or malfunctioning programmers picking away at random addresses in memory ;-))

Originally the Hp 2116 was all Hp, with Hp core memory. Then Fabri-Tek core memory was purchased.

We made most of our own I/O cards, used Diablo disks for software development, and a not-too-great Hp printer. The customer's program, individually tailored to the hardware configuration and gauges, was punched onto paper tape (three reels about 4 inches diameter each).

We were probably a good customer - sending out maybe 8 Hp computers per month. A typical shipment to a customer would be an Hp 2116, paper tape reader, along with our 1/2 or more truckload of
    - 20 to 40 foot wide scanning frames,
    - scanning paper gauges measuring
      -- carbon (in the cellulose)
       -- water
       -- thickness,
    - operator control panels,
    - main processing rack
    - spares, ...

Then the almost identical Hp 2100 (with optional hardware floating point :-)) came out and we used that. Some years later Hp sent us their 4,000th Hp 2100 produced. It had its brushed aluminum front panel anodized (which looked like gold :-).

Then we started buying semi-conductor memory !! I got involved with writing test programs and verifying that this new memory was environmentally tough. (Paper mills are usually hot and steamy!!) Man did we freeze and steam cook those memories. The plastic dual-in-line memory packages were (unexpectedly) up to the job.

For years, I made part of my job tracking the success of the hardware. (I had been in G.E. field support in the early 1960s and have always been interested in keeping things going.) Hp made reliable stuff, gold plated contacts and all.

After about 5 years there was a real certified bad memory board. Prior to that, the headquarters people had taken suspect boards from the field, rubbed a rubber eraser across the gold contact pins of the board, tested the boards, found them good, and returned them to the field.

I even have some international shipment tales

1. We used to send some California wine in system shipments to Canada. Customers really liked that. That stopped suddenly when Canadian customs held up a system for 2 weeks after finding a few cases of wine hidden in some shipping cases.

2. The Hp 2116 (and the later 2100) were basically backplane machines, that is the processor was plugged into the backplane which held the memory cards, I/O cards, ... When shipping to Japan, we had to remove the processor (CPU) cards (2116) or card(2100) because some Japanese company had exclusive rights to sell this Hp line in Japan. On one shipment someone forgot to pull the CPU card before sending it to Japan. All hell broke loose!! The police arrested and hauled off to jail the Measurex manager in Japan. The Measurex sales (not maintenance!!) office was seized. The Japanese government regarded the offence as major smuggling. In the end, several weeks, the innocent Measurex manager in Japan was fired (with a promise never to hire him again.)

3. We had to demonstrate to the State Department that the Hp 2116 and Hp 2100 were slow and clunky and not capable of targeting an intercontinental ballistic missile. (This at a time when the Apple II with the MOS Technology 6502 8 bit processor was considered a threat to national security.)

Some techie details:

1. The Hp 2116 had some registers in low memory - - they traded the slow cheaper core for the higher speed more expensive flip-flop memory. Something like the A register was in address 0, the Q register was in 1 ...

2. The return address of a subroutine call (OR INTERRUPT!) was stored in the first word of the subroutine. (this made any use of re-entrancy "interesting", and since all coding was in assembly language, a few folks made some really tricky code!
       - like sometimes incrementing the return address to skip some code in the calling routine )

3. Floating point variables were stored in two consecutive words. You could get into interesting jumps in floating point values when running interrupt driven scheduling.

4. Maximum memory addressability was 32 K words. The high order addressing bit was used for indirection. This was a MAJOR limitation to our business. We spent considerable effort to run our system on two machines. The results were poor - too much inter-process code with too little gain in available storage for
       - control targets for different paper grades,
       - gauge parameters in different situations,
       - production history
       - ...

I responded somewhat as follows -

I worked for about 17 years at Measurex, now "absorbed" into Honeywell. It became New York Stock Exchange listed as MX.

As the name implies, we were deeply involved with measurement. Software folks, such as myself, were merely a necessary supporting role.. We provided support for the gauge and scanning activities, process control activities, and presented the results to the customers.

Other than marketing, those guys ;-)
the heart of the company was the Measurement Physics Department
and OK, the Process Control folks, who controlled the speed, valves, ...

The company started measuring and controlling sheet products,
such as paper, which starts the process as a runny wet mush
    - the "basis weight", amount of wood fiber per square foot,meter,what_ever
     - and humidity, the % of water,
    - - final product needed to be 6%, and the % used to help calculate the "basis weight"
    - thickness, this was a contacting gauge, touched both sided of the paper,
    - - the paper moving at say 30 mph
    - color, our color gauge used one of the first microprocessors in industry
all of these gauges had to be taken "off sheet", say every 5 minutes
     to assure and maintain calibration in the face of reality, crud, dust, wear, ...
    
And since paper manufacturing can create streaks in the product
     we had to scan the width of the "sheet", up to say 10 meters
     which we divided into "slices" usually about 6 inches wide,
     which of course customers wished to be narrower ...
And the sheet whizzed through the mill at say 30 mph.

We then expanded into sheet aluminum, plastics, rubber, ...
     - and then more exotic situations such as bleaching paper pulp
     - and measuring combustion products of flue gasses in power plants.
     - - oxides of hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and sulphur
     - - particulates, ...

Babbling on --
The humidity sensors were based primarily on two effects
     - infra-red
     - microwave
and since carbon/wood measurements and water effects interacted
     the separations of the variables was "interesting".

And of course this little tale shown above

then, after my positive response, a day later

Good Morning Ed, Below you will find a link that was generated to celebrate 35 years in Waterford so you might see a picture or 2 in there that will stir the memories. Every month about 15 of us ex-employees meet up to rekindle all the good times....I'm the youngest there @ 63 yrs so at least we keep the flag flying. https://hmx35.jimdofree.com/ Cheers & thanks from the sunny south east of Ireland Declan Waterford_Main_test_floor_1980s Waterford_Mx_outside_1970s

So, now we await the likely "MeasurExtra" publications mentioned above :--))