Doctor Raymond L. Kuntz - "Doc" was a friend and teacher of mine in Turtle Creek High School and way beyond.

Doc taught high school chemistry. I remember those labs with timed reactions where liquids would change colors a couple of times. The lab where we made partial thermal degradation of mixed saccharides with protein inclusions (peanut brittle) was a great. Doc showed us what a liquid gas looked like an even froze a banana in just seconds (and broke it with a hammer).

Doc also taught physics. I can remember Avogadro[base ']s number and 'what's a mole of atoms?' I got into a lab where I did some holography. It was cool to use a laser to show a train engine where you couldn't see one before. And it really was 3-D - you could move around and peek around the 3-D projection. It was really cool.

Doc opened up science and made it approachable.

I can remember that first computer science class in my junior year in high school. I was just that average kid in school - just average grades and I was bored out of my skull. Then I stumbled into an introduction to computers class where Doc taught us how to program a Data General Nova 3C in extended basic. We learned all kinds of interesting programming stuff. I'll never forget infinite loops as Doc taught it. He had a bottle of shampoo on the table and started reading the directions. Wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat, wash rinse, repeat. We learned that computers were really literal - if you tell a computer to do something forever (wash, rinse, repeat), it will just merrily go on doing it forever. There is no common sense in computers. They just do what you tell them to do.

Programming the computer was cool stuff and it just made sense to me. After that first class, I got hired by Doc to help out programming. I know they found spelling mistakes of mine for years after I left. Doc had a few magazines like Creative Computing - which had programs in basic in them which I'd try out and they'd just about always work. I played the computer game Adventure this way.

I can remember the books that Doc had called 'The Art of Computer Programming'. These were weird books for me at the time. But we'd been programming for a couple of years. Looking through these books by Donald Knuth we found the names to a lot of the stuff we had been programming. That was really cool.

Doc inspired me to want to go to college for a degree in computer science. I knew that Doc had gone to Penn State University. I had to get into college to work on computers. So, my next year I took all of the college prep classes like calculus and physics. I got A's in everything. I remember the calculus class where I was there to understand instead of just write the answers. On one test there was a problem about throwing a ball in the air and how long did it take to come down or some such thing. I took the theory and came up with the right answer - but my answer was marked wrong. So I spoke up and the teacher marked mine correct and marked everyone else[base ']s grade down (they only wrote down what he wrote on the board, they didn't learn how to get the right answer).

Doc inspired me to apply to Penn State. It's the only school I wanted to go to. I started at the McKeesport campus and continued to work with Doc for a couple of years after I had graduated from high school.

I suspect I'm one of the few students of Doc's that really did pursue a life in computer programming. I owe the foundation of my education in computers all to Doc.

Doc also played a couple of different musical instruments (Oboe and Bassoon). I had played Alto Sax from 5th grade on up through high school. I played in the high school concert and marching bands. The coolest place to play though was the East Suburban Concert band. I played there with Doc. I also got into a Dance band for one year before I went away to college at Penn State's University Park campus. Playing big band music was a blast. There were some great musicians there like Tony Bacho who played Tenor Sax. I've uploaded a few songs we played in 1978 as a band with the following links:

Track 1 | Track 2 | Track 3 | Track 4 | Track 5 | Track 6 | Track 7 | Track 8

I hadn't played my Sax in years and years. It's been a good twenty years - wow time sure does fly. I just had it repaired last month. Guess I have another reason to get it back out and start practicing again.

I haven't talked with Doc in a few years. I'm sorry about that. I've been busy at startup companies for the last few years and there are way too many other excuses. My folks stayed in contact once in a while and I was always glad to hear from them that Doc was doing well.

I still have the picture I got from Doc on my desk at work. It's a picture of the Pittsburgh incline and the point downtown.

I gave Doc a little pinball robot toy that was on his desk ever since I had left to go away to college. I had to upgrade it once to a crystal turtle (for Turtle Creek, of course).

Doc had a great personality. He was just a great man to know and to learn from.

For me, Doc was great friend and teacher. I'll miss Doc.

I look forward, with great anticipation, to seeing and talking with him in heaven one day.

I express my sincere condolences to Doc's family and all his relatives and friends. I wish I could come to Pittsburgh to be supportive.
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