Who is Carl Alsing from The Soul of a New Machine and what is their importance?

Carl Alsing is an engineer at Data General who was there from the days of the first Eclipse computer. He was born in the Northeast, and then moved to Evansville, Indiana when he was a child. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts where he became interested in digital circuits. He at first flunked out of school, but then became a straight A student when he discovered courses in electrical engineering. Alsing worked for DEC before moving to Data General. He was employed by Data General when Tom West arrived and the two quickly became friends. Alsing headed the software group on the EAGLE project and was thirty-five years old when the project began. He was their top microcoder.