Edsger W. Dijkstra's Handwriting

[Wendell]

Edsger W. Dijkstra was a famous computer scientist who was known to prefer composing his programs first with fountain pen and paper. If you have wondered what his writing looked like, this page has an example of a letter from him to John W. Backus (inventor of Fortran).

 

http://bit.ly/20Q3dQc

There is some discussion of these letters on Hacker News, a forum for people in the software industry.

 

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11796557

Dijkstra was apparently also quite particular about his ink. From an obituary:

 

 

He tried to create the perfect blend of fountain pen ink by mixing inks from different vendors in various proportions to achieve the right color (brilliant black), checking the resistance of the ink to fading under intense sunlight (by taping his writings to his office window under Texas sun)...

 

[sidthecat]

One of us, obviously.

[flummoxed]

Nice bit of trivia! I'd stumbled across something similar as a Dijkstra fanboy a long time ago.

[NORVIN]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra

 

"Dijkstra never wrote his articles using a computer. He preferred to rely on his typewriter and later on his Montblanc pen. Dijkstra's favorite writing instrument was the Montblanc Meisterstück fountain pen. He repeatedly tried other pens, but none ever displaced the Montblanc."

 

http://www.montblanc.com/en-us/collection/writing-instruments/meisterstueck.html?=undefined&filters=468123540

 

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/misra/Speeches.dir/Banquet-WG2.3-March2010

http://web.archive.org/web/20170224094721/http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/misra/Speeches.dir/Banquet-WG2.3-March2010

 

"He tried to create the the [sic] perfect blend of fountain pen ink by mixing inks from different vendors in various proportions to achieve the right color (brilliant black), checking the resistance of the ink to fading under intense sunlight (by taping his writings to his office window under Texas sun), and determining how best to fill up a fountain pen for an airline flight (either completely empty or completely full)."

 

He probably would have loved Noodler's Black inks like Heart of Darkness or Old Manhattan Black