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Tell HN: Danny Cohen Has Died

432 points by drallison ↗ HN
Danny Cohen died yesterday morning, August 12th, peacefully at home. Danny was major figure in the development of Internet protocols, particularly those related to packet audio and video. He was a member of the Internet Hall of Fame (https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/danny-cohen).

39 comments

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fizwhiz
One of his most familiar contributions is the coining of Big/Little endian. RIP.
davidw
Wow... "In 1967, Danny Cohen developed the first real-time visual flight simulator on a general purpose computer. " - I'm always amazed at some of the things people managed to do "way back when", when my mental image is of people with punch cards.

Here's an article I found about his flight simulator work, among other things.

https://www.wired.com/2012/11/he-engineered-the-internet-to-...

mhandley
Video from that flight simulator is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a88Ixuv084

This video seems to be from 1973 (not 1970, as the title says), when the flight simulator was actually running as a distributed application over the ARPAnet!

greesil
It's fun to note that apparently Pong was invented in 1972.
ian0
>>I'm always amazed at some of the things people managed to do "way back when"

Its insane. The first time I saw the mother of all demos[0] (also from around that time) I couldn't help but think "How the hell have we only come this after 50 years".

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY

jacquesm
In some ways it is a step back. The mother of all demos is pure function, zero form. If all those cycles going to form would go to function there would be an amazing jump forward in speed. Try a really old version of windows on modern hardware for an idea of what I'm getting at.
eismcc
>And there is one last piece of insight that drives Cohen, and is perhaps the key to it all. “Always remember, that just because we don’t know how to do it, is not a reason for us not to do it.”
techwonk
May his memory be a blessing
DagSpicer
Hi, I'm seeking a movie, called "Digital Voice Conferencing" Danny did when he was at ISI, demonstrating packet voice technology in the '70s at Marina Del Rey. It used to be linked to by a WIRED article on Danny -- https://www.wired.com/2012/11/he-engineered-the-internet-to-... but the the embeded movie has vanished. We (Computer History Museum) would be super grateful if anyone had a copy or knew of one lurking on the internet somewhere. Can you help?
chnx
Could this be it?

https://youtu.be/MGat1jRQ_SM

yanowitz
Either way, that video is amazing, even if it makes Danny the “heel” of the call. Take 5 minutes and watch it—it’s an incredible window into how far things have changed in 40 years (especially because at the time, what’s in that video is Deep Magic). Thanks for finding that!
Rebelgecko
>it’s an incredible window into how far things have changed in 40 years

It's also entertaining to see the aspects of conferences calls that have stayed the same or even gotten worse in the last 40 years :)

mason55
The only thing it was missing was someone saying “can everyone please go on mute”
zeristor
This looks to have been posted on Danny Cohen’s own YouTube channel; there’re several other of his videos on it too
AstroJetson
Danny was a rock star in the early days of general computing and things people could do on the ARPANET. We all owe him a thanks for all the ideas that he pioneered.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants like Danny.

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pcunite
I've found it written of him, "Danny is a bona fide member of the Flat Earth Society". Is that a joke?
ddcohen
Oh it was a joke but it was certainly true (I’m his son). He joined in the days of Charles K. Johnson, who liked to tell the press that “my wife is from Australia and she says they don’t all walk around upside down over there.” He assumed the society was a joke until they rejected him for being a scientist, but he applied again without listing profession and they let him in. Here’s photos of his membership certificate, the rejection letter, and his “Flat Earth Map of the World.”

https://imgur.com/gallery/sqpAng8