Alan Kotok

Alan Kotok was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was raised as an only child in Vineland, New Jersey.{{cite web |author=Hendrie |first=Gardner |date=November 15, 2004 |title=Oral History of Alan Kotok |url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/kotok.oral_history.2005.102630478/kotok.oral_history_transcript.2005.102630478.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927121611/http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/kotok.oral_history.2005.102630478/kotok.oral_history_transcript.2005.102630478.pdf |archive-date=September 27, 2011 |access-date=2009-01-23 |publisher=Computer History Museum}}{{cite news | last=Marquard | first=Bryan | title=Alan Kotok; he tred vanguard of computers with brilliance, wit | work=The Boston Globe | publisher=The New York Times Company | date=June 6, 2006 | url=https://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2006/06/06/alan_kotok_he_tred_vanguard_of_computers_with_brilliance_wit | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060614115042/http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2006/06/06/alan_kotok_he_tred_vanguard_of_computers_with_brilliance_wit| archive-date= 14 June 2006 | url-status= live}} During his childhood, he played with tools in his father's hardware store and learned model railroading. He was a precocious child, skipping two grades at high school, and he matriculated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the age of 16 in the fall of 1958 and an MBA from Clark University in 1978.{{Cite web |title=Alan Kotok {{!}} Computer History Museum |url=https://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/alan-kotok/ |access-date=2022-07-12 |website=www.computerhistory.org}}{{cite news | last=Markoff | first=John | title=Alan Kotok, 64, a Pioneer In Computer Video Games | work=The New York Times | date=June 3, 2006 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/business/03kotok.html | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121113085936/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/business/03kotok.html| archive-date=November 13, 2012| url-status= live}} Although his interest in computers began at Vineland High School, his first practical experience of computing came at MIT; there he developed a habit of working late at night when more computer time was available.

At MIT, Kotok earned bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering.{{cite web | title=W3C Folio | year=1999 | url=http://www.w3.org/Press/99Folio.pdf | publisher=World Wide Web Consortium| access-date=2006-07-01}} He was influenced by teachers such as Jack Dennis and John McCarthy and by his involvement in the student-organized Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC), which he joined soon after starting college in 1958.

While a graduate student and member of TMRC, Dennis introduced his students to the TX-0 on loan to MIT indefinitely from Lincoln Laboratory. In the spring of 1959, McCarthy taught the first course in programming that MIT offered to freshmen.{{cite book |page=729 |title= Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy}} and {{cite book |last= Levy |first = Steven |title= Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution |date= January 2, 2001 |publisher= Penguin (Non-Classics) |isbn= 0-14-100051-1}} Outside classes, Kotok, David Gross, Peter Samson, Robert A. Saunders and Robert A. Wagner, all friends from TMRC, reserved time on the TX-0.{{cite video |people=Kotok, Alan |date=2006 |url= https://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/34ffe6f92096abc369a70609b2394c12/ | title = The Mouse That Roared: PDP-1 Celebration Event Lecture 05.15.06 | medium = Google Video | location=Mountain View, CA, USA | publisher=Computer History Museum | access-date=2020-11-16}} Kotok begins at 0:53:50. They were able to use the TX-0 as a personal, single-user tool rather than a batch processing system, thanks to Dennis, faculty advisors and John McKenzie, the operations manager.{{cite web |author=TX-0 alumni reunion |title=The Computer Museum Report, Volume 8 |date=Spring 1984 |url=http://www.ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TheCompMusRep/TCMR-V08.html |publisher=Computer Museum via ed-thelen.org |access-date=2006-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060615180503/http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TheCompMusRep/TCMR-V08.html |archive-date=2006-06-15 |url-status=dead }}

In September 1961, Digital donated a PDP-1 to MIT.{{cite web | title=Letter to Professor Peter Elias | author=Olsen, Kenneth H. | date=September 15, 1961 | url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/dec.digital_(DEC)_timeline_1957-1997.102630354/pdp-1miteeletter.jpg | publisher=Computer History Museum | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001023414/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/dec.digital_(DEC)_timeline_1957-1997.102630354/pdp-1miteeletter.jpg | archive-date=October 1, 2007 | url-status=dead }} Although not an expensive machine, and with a tiny (by today's standards) 9K of memory, it had a Type 30 precision CRT display. Dennis oversaw the PDP-1 lab, located next door to the TX-0. Students from TMRC worked as support staff, programming the new computer.

{{main|Kotok-McCarthy}}

Image:Kotok thesis figure-1.png]]

With classmates Elwyn Berlekamp, Michael Lieberman, Charles Niessen and Wagner, Kotok began to develop McCarthy's IBM 704 chess-playing program in 1959.{{Cite web |title=Alan Kotok, 64, created joystick |url=https://news.mit.edu/2006/obit-kotok |access-date=2022-09-13 |website=MIT News {{!}} Massachusetts Institute of Technology |date=13 June 2006 |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Getting Going {{!}} Mastering the Game {{!}} Computer History Museum |url=https://www.computerhistory.org/chess/getting-going/ |access-date=2022-09-13 |website=www.computerhistory.org}} Kotok described their work in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Project Memo 41. The Kotok-McCarthy chess program at MIT would also become Kotok's S.B. thesis. "The chess group" graduated in 1962 and at that point their program was able to play chess "comparable to an amateur with about 100 games experience" on an IBM 7090.{{cite web | last=Kotok | first=Alan | title=MIT Artificial Intelligence Memo 41 | date=December 3, 2004 | url=http://www.kotok.org/AI_Memo_41.html | publisher=MIT CSAIL | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-date=2020-11-06 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201106235753/http://www.kotok.org/AI_Memo_41.html | url-status=dead }}{{cite thesis | last=Kotok | first=Alan | title=A Chess Playing Program for the IBM 7090 Computer | publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering | year=1962 | hdl=1721.1/17406 | type=Thesis }}

They came to learn a great deal about chess, but neither Kotok nor McCarthy were known as chess players. Mikhail Botvinnik, three times world chess champion, wrote in his book Computers, Chess and Long-Range Planning that the Kotok–McCarthy program's "rule for rejecting moves was so constituted that the machine threw the baby out with the bath water."{{cite journal | author=Abramson, Bruce | title=Control Strategies for Two-Player Games | journal=Computing Surveys | publisher=ACM | volume=21 | issue=2 |date=June 1989 | url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=66443.66444 | access-date=2009-01-23 | doi=10.1145/66443.66444 | page=137| citeseerx=10.1.1.1005.7214 | s2cid=11526154 }} The program drew criticism from Richard Greenblatt, who later wrote Mac Hack, which beat a person in tournament play,{{cite interview | last=Greenblatt |first=Richard D.|subject-link=Richard Greenblatt (programmer) | interviewer=Gardner Hendrie| title=Oral History of Richard Greenblatt | publisher=Computer History Museum | date=January 12, 2005 | url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/greenblatt.oral_history.2005.102634500/greenblatt.oral_history_transcript.2005.102634500.pdf | access-date=2006-07-01}} and more recently, from Hans Berliner, when he looked back on it in 2005.{{cite interview | subject-link=Hans Berliner| last=Berliner|first=Hans | title=Oral History of Hans Berliner | interviewer=Gardner Hendrie|publisher=Computer History Museum | date=March 7, 2005 | url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/hans_berliner.oral_history.2005.102630824/berliner.oral_history_transcript.2005.103630824.pdf | access-date=2006-07-02 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811172833/http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/hans_berliner.oral_history.2005.102630824/berliner.oral_history_transcript.2005.103630824.pdf | archive-date=August 11, 2011 | url-status=dead }} During the Cold War, Kotok-McCarthy played (and lost to) the best Soviet chess program in the first match between computer programs.{{cite video | people=McCarthy, John | url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1583888480148765375 | title=The History of Computer Chess: An AI Perspective | date=September 8, 2005 | medium=Google Video | location=Mountain View, CA, USA | publisher=Computer History Museum | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-date=2006-06-14 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614024002/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1583888480148765375 | url-status=dead }}. McCarthy begins at 0:43:48.

{{main|Spacewar!}}

Image:Spacewar and controller.png

Kotok contributed to one of the earliest interactive computer games, Spacewar!,{{cite web | last=Graetz | first=J. Martin | title=The origin of Spacewar! | work=Creative Computing and Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games | date=Spring 1983 | url=http://www.atarimagazines.com/cva/v1n1/spacewar.php | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060629233959/http://www.atarimagazines.com/cva/v1n1/spacewar.php| archive-date= 29 June 2006 | url-status= live}} and is sometimes called the first video game.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/28/technology/a-long-time-ago-in-a-lab-far-away.html?pagewanted=all|title=A Long Time Ago, in a Lab Far Away . . .|work=The New York Times|access-date=2009-01-22|author =Markoff, John|date=28 February 2002 }}

Kotok did not write any of the Spacewar! code, but he did travel to Digital to obtain a sine-cosine routine that Russell needed.{{cite web | author=Digital Equipment Corporation | title=Sine-cosine Routine | date=31 December 1962 | publisher=Computer History Museum | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/index.php?f=showitem&id=22.11 | access-date=2006-07-20}} Graetz credited Kotok and Saunders with building the game controllers that allowed two people to play side by side.

Edward Fredkin, at one time at BBN Technologies (BBN) (Digital's first customer for the PDP-1), McCarthy, Russell, Samson, Kotok and Harlan Anderson met in May 2006 for a panel to celebrate the Computer History Museum's restoration of a PDP-1 (with Gordon Bell on tape).{{cite web|publisher=Computer History Museum|title=PDP-1 Restoration Project|url=http://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/|access-date=2009-01-23| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090122095230/http://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/| archive-date= 22 January 2009 | url-status= live}} Their presentations illustrated the contributions of TX-0 and PDP-1 users to early software.

• Piner wrote Expensive Typewriter which enabled the group to operate the TX-0 and PDP-1 directly.
• Wagner wrote Expensive Desk Calculator.
• On a second PDP-1 in the physics department, Daniel L. Murphy wrote the Text Editor and Corrector (TECO) text editor, later used to implement Emacs.
• Samson wrote the type-justifying program known as TJ-2, an early page layout program, and implemented the War card game.
• Collaboration on computing waveforms with Dennis on the TX-0 led to Samson writing the Harmony Compiler with which PDP-1 users coded music.
• Kotok and Samson worked together on T-Square, a drafting program that used a Spacewar! controller to move the cursor.
• Gross and Kotok built the digital audio program Expensive Tape Recorder.

Early PDP-1 users wrote programming software including an assembler translated from the TX-0 over one weekend in 1961. Kotok later wrote an interpreter for the Lisp programming language in TECO macros.

Kotok and his classmates are described as the first true hackers in the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy.

File:Dec pdp-6.lg.jpg and Kotok at a PDP-6 in 1964]]

After graduating from MIT, Kotok started at Digital Equipment Corporation as one of the company's first few dozen employees; in his 34-year career with the company, he held senior engineering positions in storage, telecommunications and software. He retired in 1996.

He began in 1962 by writing a Fortran compiler for the PDP-4, before contributing to the development of the PDP-5 instruction set. Under Harlan Anderson (vice president of engineering), principal architect Gordon Bell led a team, including Kotok as an assistant logic designer, which developed the first commercial time-sharing computer, the PDP-6, designed and delivered in 1963–1964. Aiming at a scientific market, Digital machines had a 36-bit word length to accommodate artificial intelligence work in Lisp and to compete with IBM mainframe computers.{{cite web | title=Twenty Years of 36-bit Computing with Digital 1964-1984 | year=1984 | url=http://www.ultimate.com/phil/pdp10/20yrs/index.html | publisher=Digital Equipment Corporation via ultimate.com | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060526141955/http://www.ultimate.com/phil/pdp10/20yrs/index.html| archive-date= 26 May 2006 | url-status= live}} In 1965, in what may have been the first around-the-world networking connection,{{cite web|author =Digital Equipment Corporation|title=Digital Computing Timeline: 1965|url=http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/Digital/timeline/1965.htm|publisher=Microsoft (research.microsoft.com)|access-date=2009-02-25| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090405184605/http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/digital/timeline/1965.htm| archive-date= 5 April 2009 | url-status= live}} a PDP-6 at the University of Western Australia in Perth was operated from Boston in the United States via a telex link.{{cite web|author =Digital Equipment Corporation|title=1965: Early Networking, in Digital Computing Timeline|url=http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/Digital/timeline/1965-3.htm|publisher=Microsoft (research.microsoft.com)|access-date=2009-01-23}}

Kotok became the principal architect and designer of several generations of the PDP-10, DECsystem-10 and DECSYSTEM-20. Bell, Thomas Hastings, Richard Hill and Kotok wrote that the DECSystem-10 accelerated the transition from batch-processing to time-sharing and single-user systems.{{cite journal | doi=10.1145/359327.359335 |author1=Bell, C. Gordon |author-link=Gordon Bell |author2=Kotok, Alan |author3=Hastings, Thomas N. |author4=Hill, Richard | title=The evolution of the DECsystem 10 | journal= Communications | publisher=ACM | pages=44–63 | volume=21 | issue =1 | date=January 1978 |s2cid=1390979 | doi-access=free }} With Kotok as system architect, the VAX 8600 (known as Venus) was introduced in 1984 as the highest-performance computer in Digital's history to date, operating up to 4.2 times faster than the standard at the time.{{cite web | title=VAX 8600: 1984 | work=DEC Timeline | url=http://research.microsoft.com/Users/gbell/Digital/timeline/1984-3.htm | publisher=Microsoft (research.microsoft.com)|access-date=2006-07-01}}

Kotok expanded his areas of expertise from engineering into teaching and business: following a suggestion of Berlekamp, he taught logic design at the University of California, Berkeley during the 1975–1976 academic year; he also earned a master's degree in business administration from Clark University in 1978,{{cite web|url=https://computerhistory.org/profile/alan-kotok/|title=Alan Kotok|access-date=June 17, 2024|publisher=Computer History Museum}} which prepared him for later work at Digital and W3C.

File:Berners-Lee announcing W3F.jpg announcing the World Wide Web Foundation (W3F) in 2008. He mentions the 1994 meeting with Digital at CERN in his speech.{{cite video|people=Berners-Lee, Tim|title=Tim Berners-Lee announces W3F|url=http://www.vimeo.com/1761434|publisher=Knight Foundation via Vimeo|time=11:15|date=2008-09-14|access-date=2009-02-04| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090204044512/http://www.vimeo.com/1761434| archive-date= 4 February 2009 | url-status= live}}]]

While at Digital, Kotok recognized the Web's potential, and helped to found the World Wide Web Consortium. Early in 1994, in Zürich, Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee had met with Michael Dertouzos to discuss starting a new organization at MIT.{{cite web| title=How It All Started |author =Berners-Lee, Tim | date=December 1, 2004|url=http://www.w3.org/2004/Talks/w3c10-HowItAllStarted/ | publisher=World Wide Web Consortium | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060703202653/http://www.w3.org/2004/Talks/w3c10-HowItAllStarted/| archive-date= 3 July 2006 | url-status= live}} In April 1994, Kotok, Steve Fink, Gail Grant and Brian Reid from Digital traveled to CERN in Geneva to speak with Berners-Lee about the need for a consortium to create open standards and coordinate Web development. Berners-Lee mentions the pivotal meeting with Digital in his book Weaving the Web.{{Cite book | last1=Berners-Lee | first1=Tim | surname2=Fischetti | given2=Mark | title=Weaving the Web: Origins and Future of the World Wide Web | publisher=HarperCollins | isbn=0-06-251586-1 | pages=77–78 | year=1999 | url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/ | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060615052802/http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/| archive-date= 15 June 2006 | url-status= live}}

As technical director of Digital's Corporate Strategy Group, Kotok was instrumental in creating the Internet Business Group which advocated early adoption and integration of Internet and Web-based technologies.{{cite web | title=W3C Alumni | author=Kotok, Alan | publisher=World Wide Web Consortium | url=http://www.w3.org/People/Alumni#kotok | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060615045231/http://www.w3.org/People/Alumni| archive-date= 15 June 2006 | url-status= live}} Digital created the AltaVista search engine, the Internet firewall, the Web portal, the webcast and live election returns.{{cite web | title=Internet/Intranet: 1977-1997 | work=DEC Timeline | url=http://research.microsoft.com/users/GBell/Digital/timeline/internet.htm |publisher=Microsoft (research.microsoft.com)|access-date=2006-07-01}}{{cite web | last=Stuart | first=Anne | title=Digital Rewired | publisher=WebMaster Magazine via Internet Archive |date=June 1995 | url=http://www.cio.com/archive/webbusiness/0695_dec.html | access-date=2006-07-01 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050208170820/http://www.cio.com/archive/webbusiness/0695_dec.html |archive-date = 2005-02-08}} Digital continued its lead in Internet and Web development through difficult times, but Kotok questioned a corporate strategy that he believed consumed Web and Internet resources to sell Digital products like the AlphaServer.{{cite web | last=Kotok | first=Alan | title=DEC Internet Business Group page | publisher=Richard Seltzer, B&R Samizdat Express | date=August 29, 2000 | url=http://www.samizdat.com/ibg.html | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060412012511/http://www.samizdat.com/ibg.html | archive-date=2006-04-12 | url-status=dead }} For example, he saw a missed opportunity in Millicent, the micropayment system for buying and selling Web content for fractions of a U.S. cent.{{cite web | title=Millicent: 1997 | work=DEC Timeline | url=http://research.microsoft.com/users/GBell/Digital/timeline/1997-3.htm | publisher=Microsoft (research.microsoft.com)|access-date=2006-07-01}}

Kotok was a corporate consulting engineer for Digital 1962–1997, W3C Advisory Committee representative for Digital 1994–1996, vice president of marketing for GC Tech Inc. 1996–1997, member of the Science Advisory Board for Cylink Corp., a consultant for Compaq, and a content advisor for the Computer History Museum.{{cite web | title=Exhibition Credits | publisher=Computer History Museum | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/credits.php | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060622205401/http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/credits.php | archive-date=2006-06-22 | url-status=dead }}

Digital and GC Tech were early W3C members and were among the sponsors of the Fourth International World Wide Web Conference (WWW4) in 1995 in Boston.{{cite web|date=December 11–14, 1995|title=Fourth International World Wide Web Conference|url=http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW4/|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=2009-01-23| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081228075919/http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW4/| archive-date= 28 December 2008 | url-status= live}} Kotok coordinated a birds of a feather meeting on Selection of Payment Vehicle for Internet Purchases on April 7, 1997, at WWW6 in Santa Clara, California.{{cite tech report | author=Khare, Rohit | title=W3C at WWW6 | publisher=W3C | year=1999 | url=http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW6/ | access-date=2006-07-01 | author-link=Rohit Khare| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060615012825/http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW6/| archive-date= 15 June 2006 | url-status= live}} In La Jolla, California, he presented Micropayment Systems to the Electronic Payments Forum in 1997.{{cite web | title=Meeting Report | publisher=Electronic Payments Forum | date=January 1997 | url=http://www.epf.net/PrevMtngs/Jan97/Jan97Report.html | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901182630/http://www.epf.net/PrevMtngs/Jan97/Jan97Report.html | archive-date=2006-09-01 | url-status=dead }}

File:Alan Kotok by r12a.jpeg

Kotok joined W3C as associate chairman in May 1997. His role involved managing contractual relations with W3C hosts and member organizations, coordinating the worldwide W3C Systems and Web Team services to millions of pages and resources on the W3C website, and maintaining the W3C host site at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), where he was a research scientist.

While he was associate chairman, Kotok was a member of the W3C management team,{{cite web|title=People of the W3C|url=http://www.w3.org/People/|year=2006|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium via Internet Archive|access-date=2009-02-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060202225413/http://www.w3.org/People/ |archive-date=2006-02-02}} and worked closely with the W3C Advisory Board.{{cite news|title=In Memoriam: Alan Kotok|url=http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw66/w3c_2.html|date=July 2006|work=ERCIM News|publisher=ERCIM EEIG|access-date=2009-02-11}} He helped to establish a new W3C office in India and worked with an internal task force to reduce membership fees in developing countries.{{cite web|title=Farma Final|url=http://tdil.mit.gov.in/July%2005%20-Jan%202007/ext/3.pdf|date=July 2005|work=Technology Development for Indian Languages (tdil.mit.gov.in)|publisher=Department of Information Technology: Government of India|access-date=2009-02-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303235122/http://tdil.mit.gov.in/July%2005%20-Jan%202007/ext/3.pdf|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=dead}} He was a major contributor to the W3C Patent Policy and chaired Patent Advisory Groups, including one for HTML.{{cite web | publisher=World Wide Web Consortium | title=W3C Patent Policy | date=February 5, 2004 | url=http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy/ | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060716170351/http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy/| archive-date= 16 July 2006 | url-status= live}}{{cite web | publisher=World Wide Web Consortium | title=HTML Patent Advisory Group (PAG) Public Home Page | date= September 23, 2003 – March 22, 2004 | url=http://www.w3.org/2003/09/pag | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060614095538/http://www.w3.org/2003/09/pag| archive-date= 14 June 2006 | url-status= live}} He briefly served as Domain Leader of the Technology and Society Domain which at that time included W3C's activity in digital signatures, electronic commerce, public policy, PICS, RDF metadata, privacy, and security.{{cite web | title=Technology and Society | author=Kotok, Alan |date=April 1998 | url=http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/04/WWW7TandS/ | publisher=World Wide Web Consortium| access-date=2006-07-01}}

In 1977, at age 36, Kotok married Judith McCoy, a choir director and piano teacher on the faculty of the Longy School of Music.{{cite web|title=McCoys|url=http://www.kotok.org/McCoys.html|author =Alan Kotok|publisher=MIT CSAIL (kotok.org)| access-date=2009-02-04}} They lived in Harvard, Massachusetts; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Cape May, New Jersey. The couple shared a love of 16th and 17th-century music and pipe organs, and toured historic pipe organs in Sweden, Germany, Italy and Mexico. They had a daughter, Leah Kotok, and two stepchildren from Judith's prior marriage, Frederica and Daryl Beck.{{cite web | title=Kotok Family Home Page | url=http://www.kotok.org/ | publisher=MIT CSAIL (kotok.org) | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-date=2016-10-30 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161030060435/http://www.kotok.org/ | url-status=dead }}

Kotok recorded an oral history at the Computer History Museum in 2004. He died at his home in Cambridge, apparently from a heart attack, on May 26, 2006, seven months after the death of his wife during her treatment for cancer. He is survived by two daughters, a son, and three grandchildren.

{{Reflist|2}}

{{wikiquote}}

• [http://www.kotok.org/ Kotok Family Home Page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407024741/http://www.kotok.org/ |date=7 April 2023 }}
• [http://www.w3.org/ World Wide Web Consortium] (W3C)
• [http://www.csail.mit.edu/ MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory] (CSAIL)
• {{cite web

| last=Wright | first=Sarah H.

| title=Alan Kotok, 64, created joystick

| publisher=MIT News Office

| date=13 June 2006

| url=http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/obit-kotok.html

| access-date=2006-12-27

| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070108030548/http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/obit-kotok.html| archive-date= 8 January 2007 | url-status= live}}

• {{cite interview|interviewer=Gardner Hendrie | last=Kotok|first=Alan|subject-link=Alan Kotok | title=Oral History of Alan Kotok | publisher=Computer History Museum | date=November 15, 2004 | url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/kotok.oral_history.2005.102630478/kotok.oral_history_transcript.2005.102630478.pdf | access-date=2006-07-01 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927121611/http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/kotok.oral_history.2005.102630478/kotok.oral_history_transcript.2005.102630478.pdf | archive-date=September 27, 2011 | url-status=dead }}
• {{cite web | author=Computer History Museum | author-link=Computer History Museum | title=Mastering the Game: A History of Computer Chess |date=September 2005 | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/index.php | access-date=2006-07-01| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060808195014/http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/index.php| archive-date= 8 August 2006 | url-status= live}}
• particularly {{cite web | author=Computer History Museum | author-link=Computer History Museum | title=Section 2.4: Opening Moves: Getting Going |date=September 2005 | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/main.php?sec=thm-42b86c2029762&sel=thm-42b86c7bdbaf1 | access-date=2006-07-01}}
• {{cite video|people=Alan Kotok|title=World Wide Web: Ten Year Anniversary|url=http://dev.forum-network.org/lecture/world-wide-web-ten-year-anniversary|publisher=WGBH Educational Foundation|date=December 1, 2004|time=0:39:40|access-date=2012-08-20|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130512202236/http://dev.forum-network.org/lecture/world-wide-web-ten-year-anniversary|archive-date=2013-05-12|url-status=dead}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kotok, Alan}}

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