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lost. The trick was to record the high-energy debris from the cataclysm as it careered into one of two detectors inside the tunnel, each the size of a house, jammed full of electronics.

Research on this scale was so expensive that it had to involve collaborations among many nations. Visiting scientists would run their experiments at CERN, then go back to their home institutions to study their data. Though it was a central facility, CERN was really an extended community of people who had relatively little common authority. The scientists brought a wide variety of computers, software, and procedures with them, and although they came from different cultures and spoke different languages, they managed to find a way to work together because of their shared interest in particle physics and their desire to see a huge project succeed. It was a tremendously creative environment.

In 1980, CERN was in the process of replacing the control system for two of its particle accelerators. The work was getting behind, and CERN needed help. I had, by chance, been consulting elsewhere in Switzerland when my friend and colleague Kevin Rogers called from England to suggest we apply.

Upon our arrival to be interviewed, Kevin and I were given a tour, and soon found ourselves on a catwalk, looking out and over what looked like a huge, chaotic factory floor. This vast experimental hall was filled with smaller experiments, obscured by the concrete-block walls between them, hastily built to cut down radiation. Continuing along the catwalk, we came to the control room. Inside were racks and racks of computing hardware, with no lighting except for the glow of the many indicator lamps and dials. It was an electronic engineer's paradise, with columns of oscilloscopes and power supplies and sequencing equipment, most of it built specially for or by CERN.

At this time, a computer was still a sort of shrine to which scientists and engineers made pilgrimage. Most people at CERN did not have computer terminals in their offices; they had to come to a central facility, such as the terminal room next to the