What is a K1BC


K1BC is an Amateur Radio callsign. The K is one of the prefices assigned to the USA. The 1 points to the New England area and the BC refers to my informal initials, for "Bob Clements". I have held this callsign since 1976.

My legal name is Robert C Clements. That name appears on some RFCs. There's a bit of history to the legality of the name, which I will only discuss with very close friends.

Back in the days when the net was populated only by decent people, and there was no such thing as spam, I signed my usenet posts and my email with the format "/Rcc". Or, more completely, as
/Rcc, Bob Clements, K1BC, clements@bbn.com
Needless to say, that address is no longer alive.

In professional life, I was educated at MIT, with a BSEE in 1964. (Before that, Stuyvesant HS in NYC.)

I worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for some years after that, working on PDP-1's, PDP-6's and PDP-10's. I was the Project Engineer for the KA-10 -- the central processor for the first of the PDP-10 systems. My partner on this task was Alan Kotok. At some point I transferred to the software development group, which I felt needed more help than the hardware group.

In 1972, I moved to BBN (Bolt Beranek and Newman) where they were working on a new thing called the ARPANET. This developed into another new thing called the Internet.

I joined the group developing TENEX, which DEC bought the rights to, to make TOPS-20. I worked on many other things there for a long time and left in 2003.

I worked on TENEX itself and on the initial implementation of various net protocols including FTP. See RFCs RFC-414, RFC-430, RFC-438 et al.

After that, I worked on products in BBNCC and BBNACI as well as contracts in the multimedia and the internet research departments.


My most recent claim to minor fame was being humiliated at Disney Orlando, where I was picked as the butt of jokes in the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor show. I was that performance's designated "That Guy". At the end of the show I was presented with a sticker acknowledging my moment of fame; "I was That Guy". Click here to see it .
Last Updated: 2010-May-31