#148) Roy Dean Bartlome, 1928 - 2017

Roy Bartlome, a long time Libravet known by all, has passed away. Roy's daughter, Laurie, kindly sent us an advance copy of his obituary which will appear in the LA Times' Glendale News Press tomorrow (Wednesday). A reproduction follows:

Roy Dean Bartlome, 89, of Glendale, California passed away on Sunday, July 30, 2017. Born in 1928 in Montpelier, Idaho to Fred and Lena Bartlome, he was one of eight children. Although raised in Idaho, he spent most of his adult life in the Los Angeles, California area.

Roy graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and, in 1952, earned his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. Beginning in 1956, he dedicated his professional life to aerospace at Librascope (Singer Corporation) based in Glendale, California. He led a distinguished career in program management as Director of Naval Weapon Systems until he retired as Vice President of Navy Modernizations Programs in 1991.

Roy was a loving and devoted husband to his wife, Patricia, until her death in 2009. He was a proud father of his only daughter, Laurie Brighton, of Sydney, Australia, and adoring of his companions in later life, Burton Johnson and Kelly Cassidy. He is survived by them and by his brothers, Gordon and James Bartlome of Utah, and by his sisters, Helen Portela and Linda Aland of Idaho, as well as by many loving nieces, nephews and dear long-term friends.

In Roy’s own words, he felt “gifted to have lived his life with honor, courage, laughter and love.”

A celebration of his life will be held at the Hillside Chapel, Gate 17, Rose Hills Memorial Park, Whittier, California on Wednesday, August 9 at 3 p.m., followed by a graveside service.

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#125) L-2010 Included In New Small Computer History Book

In February, I received a request for information about the Librascope L-2010 Portable General Purpose Digital Computer from Evan Koblentz, a computer historian and technology journalist based at the InfoAge Science Center, in New Jersey. Evan was writing a book about the history of "portable" computing and needed more information about the L-2010, a 1962 desktop computer with one of the first flying head disc memories.  He first learned of the L-2010 on our Librascope Memories website.

Key members of the L-2010 development team, including Roy Bartlome, Grey Stone, and Marty Rudolf all kindly provided Evan with the "behind the scenes" information he needed for his new book. The illustrated 100 page book is titled "Abacus to smartphone: The evolution of mobile computers", and is available on both his website (click here), and Amazon. The print version is $19.99, and an electronic (PDF) version is $8.00.

This unique history book includes a good variety of innovative computer companies and their products that older engineers will remember, plus a few they probably never heard of. Most will conclude the book provides a good balance between completeness and brevity, which makes it an interesting fast read.