It’s All About Power - Inventing the PC - page 97

in Toronto, he learned about the APL efforts at MCM and de-
cided to leave CDC .
But what exactly was he to do at MCM , which, in 1973, was
simply too small to embrace all the engineering talent that Ed-
wards and his group represented? In spite of his considerable
APL expertise, Edwards could not be explicitly involved in the
development of the MCM / APL code; Ramer would simply not
have it. Before joining CDC , Edwards taught electronic circuit
design in the Electrical Engineering Department at the Univer-
sity of Alberta. But all the top hardware positions at MCM were
already occupied. Laraya was running the show and was quite
unhappy when Kutt brought Reg Rea to MCM and put him in
charge of Kingston operations as vice-president of engineering.
In the end, the two men managed to work things out and col-
laborated smoothly. There was obviously no place for a third
hardware engineer in a leading role.
It is unclear what compelled Kutt to hire Edwards and two
others from his APL group at CDC , Glen Seeds and Jim Litch-
field. Was it their expertise and enthusiasm for APL work? Or
was it perhaps the thrill of luring an entire APL development
team away from one of the largest computer manufacturers?
In the end, Edwards became a vice-president responsible for
planning. In 1973, he played a significant role in bringing the
MCM /70 to the attention of research and academic commun-
ities. Of course, giving MCM /70 seminars would never be a
substitute for creative software or hardware engineering work
and, hence, when the power supply project was up for grabs,
Edwards agreed to lead its development.
All electronic equipment requires electrical energy to power its
internal components, and a power supply is a device that pro-
vides that energy. A power supply can do more than just pro-
vide electrical current of a specified type and parameters; it can