Letters to the Editor

Bytes From The Past

Reading the winter 2023 Bulletin surfaced memories of my computing experiences at Exeter during 1965-68. My math professor, John Warren, was instrumental in acquiring a time-share connection to a PDP (Digital Equipment Corp.) computer at Dartmouth, consisting of a teletype and a modem with a cradle for a phone to transmit data.

In 1965 Edmund C. Berkeley, famous as a founding member of the Association for Computing Machinery and editor of the magazine Computers and Automation (C&A), paid a visit to our computer lab. He interviewed Bart Evans ’66 and me about our experiences, and he played my tic-tactoe program and Bart’s roulette program. He then published both programs in the September 1965 edition of C&A.

Other great experiences followed. As Computer Club president, I worked with Birney Titus ’67, president of the Math Discussion Group, to organize a daylong symposium on computing for 16 high schools. We engaged Dr. Anthony Oettinger of Harvard and president of the ACM as the keynote speaker. Bart and I also ran a computerized matchmaking service for school dances with local girls schools. (Exeter was all male.)

On the wild side, one day I set out to solve a math problem that involved permutations, and I left the program running all night. Dr. Warren informed me the next day that the process had been stopped and that a $100,000 charge for CPU time had accrued. He kindly arranged to have my trespass forgiven.

Jim Bowring ’68

A Teacher Remembered

Inspired by the Bulletin article “Borges and I,” here is my tribute to Francesca Piana. My first impression of Ms. Piana when I arrived at Exeter as a very unworldly lower was that she was strict. Unlike many of the other female faculty, she did not go out of her way to exude an easy warmth or make herself seem approachable. I thought it sensible to keep a respectful distance and, sadly, I did for my first two years in Bancroft.

It was not until my senior year, when I became a dorm proctor and had a room right outside Ms. Piana’s thirdfloor apartment, that I learned what I had read as strictness was a product of her more formal Ecuadorian register and sense of dignity. Jodi Harrison Tobin, a fellow proctor, who studied Spanish and had enough Southern charm to work on anyone, regularly got us invited inside Ms. Piana’s apartment to make brownies and eat leftovers, all in exchange for washing dishes.

My most powerful memory of Ms. Piana was the day she drove to Exeter Hospital to bring me back to campus. That morning I had gone out early to skate on the river and had fallen through the ice. I’ll never forget Ms. Piana’s look of tenderness and concern as she came into my bay in the emergency room. As soon as she realized I was out of danger, she launched into a maternal stream of fussing, chiding and nagging that she kept up all winter and spring. That look was transformative for my relationship with Ms. Piana: I understood her deeply familiar language of caring and was grateful, even if I couldn’t fully show it, for all the ways she grounded me and looked out for me as I slipped into a depression that I was incapable of recognizing.

As they say, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. I’ve adopted that slightly distant and demanding, but always wryly amused, persona in my own teaching and am pleased to report that it continues to work as a pedagogical model that spurs personal and intellectual growth in my students. Ms. Piana, thank you for all those brownies and love.

Maram Epstein ’79