I was really sad to hear he had passed. Since the first computer I ever programmed was a PDP-8/e I thought the guy who designed it must be a genius. When the Computer History Museum was being formed I gave them "1K" ($1024) and the person who collected that at the reception I was attending was Gwen Bell. I told her I admired Gordon's work and she called him over to say "Hi". We talked for about an hour about the PDP 8 and how the /E differed from the first 8 and the 8/I. Later, at a Vintage Computer Festival event Gordon was being honored and I worked with my Dad to gold plate an XR2242 front panel key which we then attached to a medal ribbon and presented to Gordon in a flip up Medal Presentation box. He got a great kick out of that.

Definitely one of my heroes.