Author here. The thing I'd genuinely like from this thread, beyond the inevitable nitpicks (welcome — I had to correct two facts between yesterday's draft and today's published version), is anyone who knew Ray Boyce at IBM Yorktown or San Jose, or who was at SIGFIDET 1974. The public record on him as a person is unusually thin. His daughter Kristin would now be in her early fifties; she does not appear, as far as I can find, in any obituary, interview, or oral history of the period.

The best single primary source on the SEQUEL design process is Don Chamberlin's Computer History Museum oral history. It is long, unhurried, and has Chamberlin in his own voice on the design process, including what Boyce contributed. Worth setting aside an evening for if the field interests you.

The essay is one piece of a chapter from a book on the history of computing I'm writing. drdavidwbell.substack.com.