Browsing by Subject "Computer history"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 442

Burroughs B 5000 Conference
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1985-09-06) Waychoff, Richard; Turner, Lloyd; Rosin, Robert F.; Pearson, Ralph W.; Oliphint, G. Clark; MacKenzie, F. Brad; MacDonald, Ray W.; MacDonald, Duncan N.; Lonergan, William D.; Kreuder, Norman L.; King, Paul D.; Hootman, Joseph T.; Hauck, Erwin A.; Hale, John E.; Galler, Bernard A., 1928-; Ford, James; Eppert, Ray R., 1902-; Dent, Benjamin A.; Dahm, David M.; Creech, Bobby A.; Collins, George A.; Berce, Henri; Barton, Robert S.
The Burroughs 5000 computer series is discussed by individuals responsible for its development and marketing from 1957 through the 1960s in a conference sponsored by AFIPS and Burroughs Corporation. In the first session the technical aspects of the B 5000 and 5500 are discussed by a group of managers, engineers, and consultants. Topics include: the state of the industry in the late 1950s; the 5000's predecessors, particularly the ElectroData 101 and 201, B 205, and B 220; factors influencing the decision to produce the B 5000; reasons for designing the machine for ALGOL rather than FORTRAN and the effect of this decision on the computer's development and sales. The group reviews the MCP operating system, PERM, Polish notation, descriptors, stacks, the BALGOL compiler, and other innovations of the computer. In the second session, the same group discusses the development of the B 5000 into a product, including the effect of the administrative organization on the project; the relations between hardware and software engineers; the interaction of project personnel and upper-level management, field marketing, and customers; the COBOL processor, the head protract disk system; the operating system; ALGOL; and documentation of the computer. In the third session managers, sales personnel, and customers of the B 5000 discuss Burroughs' product line before the 200 and 5000 series computers; sales training and market reaction to the B 5000; acceptance of B 5000s at Ohio Oil Company and Stanford University; its rejection by the University of Michigan; reasons why the B 5000 was not marketed overseas; and Burroughs' presidents Raymond Eppert and Ray MacDonald. Technical session participants included: Robert S. Barton, Bobby A. Creech, David M. Dahm, Benjamin A. Dent, Bernard A. Galler, John E. S. Hale, Erwin A. Hauck, Paul D. King, Norman Kreuder, William Lonergan, Duncan MacDonald, F. Brad MacKenzie, G. Clark Oliphint, Robert F. Rosin, Lloyd Turner, and Richard Waychoff. Marketing session participants included: Henri Berce, George A. Collins, James Ford, Bernard A. Galler, John E. S. Hale, Joseph T. Hootman, Paul D. King, F. Brad MacKenzie, Ralph W. Pearson, and Robert F. Rosin.
Charles Babbage Institute: FastLane Oral History Public Archive
(2015-09-25) Misa, Thomas J; Yost, Jeffrey R; cbi@umn.edu; Misa, Thomas J
This archive of oral histories provides a large dataset on the design, development, and use of the National Science Foundation's FastLane computer system. FastLane was developed in the 1990s and made mandatory for agency-wide submission of proposals in October 2000; it became NSF's core system used in all phases of grants management. With support from NSF's Human Centered Computing program (details below), researchers at the Charles Babbage Institute (principally Jeffrey Yost and Thomas Misa) conducted extensive oral histories during 2008 to 2011. More than 400 in-person interviews were conducted with NSF staff and managers as well as university researchers, sponsored projects staff, and administrators during site visits at 29 universities. In addition to traditional in-person interviews, the research team designed and built an online interview platform that permitted an additional 400 online (self-directed) interviews. Around 80 percent of our 800 interviewees agreed to make their responses available to the public, the basis for this public dataset of 643 interviews.
Lorrie Faith Cranor Oral History
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2023-09) Charles Babbage Institute, Univ. of Minnesota
This oral history interview is sponsored by and a part of NSF 2202484 “Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy,” at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. At the start of the interview, Professor Lorrie Faith Cranor discusses early interests and studies in computer science and engineering & public policy at Washington University in St. Louis. This includes her dissertation, a pioneering work on computer voting systems. She then relates her work on privacy, security, and policy at AT&T laboratories following her D.Sc. for about a half dozen years and then transitioning to leave the lab to become a professor of Computer Science and of Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Cranor talks about launching an event and co-editing an influential edited volume, that led to her founding and early General Chair leadership of Symposium on User Privacy and Security (SOUPS). With a focus on this area, she also launched a research lab, the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security (CUPS) Laboratory and educational program with NSF support. This unique focus is not matched anywhere globally and Cranor and her team’s work have been central to bringing together researchers and understanding at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer security and privacy. She also discusses her evolving research in many areas including but not limited to phishing, cyber trust indicators, passwords, etc., as well as her year as Chief Technologist at the US Federal Trade Commission. Cranor, a master quilter, also relates how engineering quilts involve overlapping engineering principles with her design work in computer science.
Orah history interview with Mike Maples
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2004-05-07) Maples, Mike
After describing his substantial career at IBM where he was involved in display products and then with PCs, Mike Maples talks about joining Microsoft and managing its applications products. He discusses in detail his management philosophy at Microsoft and contrasts it with the IBM approach. He covers Microsoft’s successful recruiting practices and how product decisions were made. Maples also describes how development processes evolved and how Microsoft Office was designed and built. The selection of platform focus and decisions on the release of application program interface information are explained. Finally, he details why he left Microsoft and how he did so in a planned and structured fashion.
Oral History Interview with William Franta, Ph.D.
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2020-07-09) Franta, William
This interview was conducted by CBI for CS&E in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the University of Minnesota Computer Science Department (now Computer Science and Engineering, CS&E). Professor Franta briefly discusses early education and interests. He attended the University of Minnesota (UMN), went on to complete his doctorate at the UMN in Mathematics/Computer Science orientation and signed on to be one of the founding members of the Computer Science Department as well as provided important leadership to the computer center as its Associate Director. The interview is especially rich in discussing the computer center, research projects with local computer companies, and the importance of the department to the industry and the industry to the department. Professor Franta did very extensive consulting with computer companies local and national while at the UMN (Control Data, Honeywell, Sperry Univac, Network Systems, 3M, and others)—along with government (NSF especially) important to setting up UMN CS labs. It is also offers considerable and important discussion of the 11 early faculty members of the Computer Science Department, their research and specialization and how the department was building coverage to educate from very early on after the department formation in artificial intelligence, programming languages, operations research, numerical analysis/mathematics, automata theory, and other areas. In addition to discussing his work at the University of Minnesota, he also touches on his second career in industry as senior executive at Network Systems and other firms.
Oral History Interview with Allen R. Hanson
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2022-02) Hanson, Allen
This interview was conducted by CBI for CS&E in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the University of Minnesota Computer Science Department (now Computer Science and Engineering, CS&E). Professor Hanson briefly discusses his early education and interests through his graduate education completing his doctorate at Cornell (dissertation was on games and prediction problems). Most of the interview focuses on his career and he was one of the early faculty members of the newly formed Computer Science Department at the University of Minnesota. He discusses the early department, interaction, and teaching, and research. His research focused heavily on vision and computing, pattern recognition, and AI. He partnered on early research with University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Ed Riseman and later left University of Minnesota to join the CS faculty of UMass and lead the lab in this collaboration. Among other topics, he outlines his evolving research, applications in medicine, autonomous vehicles and other areas, as well as reflects on a range of issues on research funding, and computing and society. Finally, he briefly discusses Applied Imaging, Dataviews and concurrent enterprises he led/helped to lead.
Oral History Interview with David Hung-Chang Du
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2022-03) Du, David Hung-Chang
This interview was conducted by CBI for CS&E in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the University of Minnesota Computer Science Department (now Computer Science and Engineering, CS&E). Professor David Hung-Chang Du begins by discussing his education at National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan and then his doctoral work and Computer Center work at the University of Washington in Computer Science. The bulk of the interview is his professional career at the University of Minnesota. He discusses his wide-ranging computer science research in integrated circuits (VLSI), disk drives/storage, artificial intelligence, computer networking, security and privacy, and other areas. This includes his work with IBM Rochester, Seagate, Unisys and other companies, and he emphasizes the importance of working with more senior managers at companies so university and company interests can be aligned and can have local buy-in at the company, that resources will come if that there. He relates his leadership with the UMN-led Center for Research and Intelligent Storage: a multi-university partnership with industry supported by National Science Foundation.
Oral History Interview with JoAnne Yates
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2021-08) Yates, JoAnne
The interview provides an overview of Yates’s early life, education, and career. She discusses various people, including Alfred D. Chandler, who had a shaping influence on her career. Much of the interview discusses her career at MIT as a faculty member and administrator, and her research on the historical and contemporary study of organizations, including her collaborations with her husband, the political scientist Craig Murphy, and with the organizational studies scholar Wanda Orlikowski. She discusses the connections of her work to the history of computing and makes various comments about the development of the history of computing field.
Oral History Interview with Steven M. Bellovin
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2023-06-14) Bellovin, Steven M.
This oral history interview is sponsored by and a part of NSF 2202484 “Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy,” at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. It is an interview with Percy K. and Vida L. W. Hudson Professor of Computer Science, and affiliate faculty member of the Law School Steven M. Bellovin, Columbia University, a pioneer and expert in security as well as a leading scholar in technology and law. The interview starts with Bellovin’s recollections of his pre-college and college education and how he encountered programming. He then discusses his graduate education, his mentors and professors—Fred Brooks, David Parnas, and Brian Kernighan—and their influences on him. Bellovin briefly describes and summarizes contexts to his dissertation in formal methods, “Verifiable Correct Code Generation Using Predicate Transformers.” Then the interview shifts to focus on USENET during his graduate school days and beyond. This includes sharing his thoughts on the personal computer revolution, democratizing computing, important concepts growing out of USENET such as “flame,” “sock puppet,” “trolling,” “spam,” “FAQ.” Bellovin offers context to his joining AT&T Labs and his professional focus on computer security research. He shares the context of Morris Worm, as well as the origin of cryptographic authentication, the idea of firewalls, and his work serving on the Internet Engineering Task Force or the IETF. He discusses joining Columbia University and his research and teaching. The latter part of the interview focuses on his growing focus on technology and law.
Oral history interview with A. Terence Maxwell
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1980-01-09) Maxwell, A. Terence
Maxwell recalls the associations among the major British punched card companies in the 1930s: Power-Samas, the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM), International Business Machines, and Remington Rand. He reports on discussions Powers-Samas had with Ferranti and Remington Rand on the 1958 merger with BTM to form International Computers and Tabulators (ICT). He discusses planning among ICT, English Electric, and Radio Corporation of America in subsequent years to capture European market shares and explains how these plans collapsed. He then discusses the 1963 merger between ICT and Ferranti and the 1968 merger between ICT and English Electric to form International Computers, Ltd.
Oral history interview with Adelle Tomash
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2000-12-07) Tomash, Adelle
Tomash discusses her early life in St. Paul, Minnesota, and her attendance at the University of Minnesota. She describes her marriage to Erwin Tomash and their early life together while he was in the U. S. Army during World War II. Much of the interview focuses on their life in California from 1953, during which Erwin served with several companies before starting Dataproducts Corporation. Adelle describes her role in helping him to build the company and raising their two daughters. She describes her activities outside the home, her worldwide travels, involvement in founding the Charles Babbage Institute, and her interest in and collecting of contemporary art.
Oral history interview with Albert H. Bowker
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1979-05-21) Bowker, Albert H. (Albert Hosmer), 1919-2008
Bowker discusses his role in the formation of the Stanford University computer science department, and his vision, as early as 1956, of computer science as an academic discipline. He relates the difficulties he had in convincing colleagues of his view, his success in hiring George Forsythe in 1959, and the creation of a Division of Computer Science in 1963.
Oral history interview with Albert W. Tucker
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1986-05-08) Tucker, Albert W. (Albert William), 1905-
Tucker, a professor of mathematics at Princeton University from the 1930s until the 1970s, describes mathematics in Princeton in the late 1930s and during the years of the second world war. Topics include: personnel and personnel changes at the Princeton University Mathematics Department and the Institute for Advanced Study School of Mathematics; Solomon Lefschetz as the leader of the mathematical research program in the university; the later careers of James Alexander and Oswald Veblen; active mathematical research areas in Princeton; the move of the Institute for Advanced Study to Fuld Hall in 1939; the impact of the physical separation of the Institute and the University mathematics programs; teaching of mathematics to military personnel during the war; and mathematical contributions to the Fire Control Project located in Princeton during the war and to war-time calculation. Tucker also recounts his own career during this period, including his research, his war-time teaching of mathematics and use of the slide rule, and his suggestions for improvements in calculating aids for the military.
Oral history interview with Alexander A. McKenzie
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1990-03-13) McKenzie, Alexander A. (Alexander Anderson), 1940-
Following a brief overview of his background, McKenzie discusses his connection with the ARPANET project at Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), including an indirect influence on hardware selection, his early role as a project generalist responsible for handling user questions and giving presentations about the ARPANET, and the running of the Network Control Center (NCC). McKenzie addresses why the NCC was set up, how it expanded, his view of the computer utility concept, and his interactions with the IPT Office, the other members of the group at BBN, and the rest of the community. The interview ends with an evaluation of the impact of the ARPANET. This interview was recorded as part of a research project on the influence of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on the development of computer science in the United States.
Oral history interview with Alexandra Forsythe
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1979-05-16) Forsythe, Alexandra I.
Forsythe discusses the career of her husband, George Forsythe, from the time of his Ph.D. in 1941. He studied meteorology at UCLA in preparation for a military commission. After the war he taught meteorology at UCLA, where he became involved with the National Bureau of Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC). In 1957, when the National Bureau of Standards closed its operation at UCLA, George accepted a position at Stanford University to establish its program in computer science. Forsythe recalls some of her husband's difficulties in securing funding for computer projects, the resistance he encountered in his attempts to sell computer time to the private sector, and his eventual success in establishing a well-funded program in 1965.
Oral history interview with Alfred Doughty Cavanaugh
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1985-09-02) Cavanaugh, Alfred Doughty
Cavanaugh discusses the work of his grandfather, A. J. Doughty, with William Seward Burroughs and the Burroughs Adding Machine Company. Subjects include: A. J. Doughty's advancement within Burroughs management and his interaction with Standish Backus.
Oral history interview with Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1980-06-20) Burks, Arthur W. (Arthur Walter), 1915-; Burks, Alice R., 1920-
Arthur Burks describes his work on the ENIAC and Institute for Advanced Study computers. He reviews his upbringing, education, and work experiences (mainly teaching) before joining the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1941. He then discusses his associations with J. Presper Eckert, John Mauchly, John Brainerd, Herman Goldstine, and others and their work at the Moore School. Various aspects of the ENIAC project are discussed in detail: interactions of project members, division of tasks, decision making processes, patenting issues, initial operation, and von Neumann's association with the Moore School and the ENIAC and EDVAC projects. There is a general discussion concerning the classification of general versus special purpose computers and computers versus calculators. Patenting issues concerning the ENIAC project are given particular attention. The Burks discuss the dispersion of ENIAC and EDVAC personnel at the end of World War II. Burks recounts his move to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, his experiences there, and his consulting work with Burroughs prior to accepting a faculty position at the University of Michigan.
Oral history interview with Allan Blue
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1989-06-12) Blue, Allan
The concentration in this interview is on the Information Processing Techniques Office from the time Blue arrived at DARPA in 1965 until his retirement in 1977. Topics discussed include: a trend to increase relevance of funded projects; increasing orientation to industry; increased paperwork and micromanagement from outside IPTO; comparison of DARPA offices management styles; relations with NSF, ONR, and NIH; the DARPA contracting process; and personnel hiring problems. This interview was recorded as part of a research project on the influence of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on the development of computer science in the United States.
Oral history interview with Allen Newell
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1991-06) Newell, Allen
Newell discusses his entry into computer science, funding for computer science departments and research, the development of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, and the growth of the computer science and artificial intelligence research communities. Newell describes his introduction to computers through his interest in organizational theory and work with Herb Simon and the Rand Corporation. He discusses early funding of university computer research through the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health. He recounts the creation of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) under J. C. R. Licklider. Newell recalls the formation of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon and the work of Alan J. Perlis and Raj Reddy. He describes the early funding initiatives of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and the work of Burt Green, Robert Cooper, and Joseph Traub. Newell discusses George Heilmeier's attempts to cut back artificial intelligence, especially speech recognition, research. He compares research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Computer Science Department with work done at Carnegie Mellon. Newell concludes the interview with a discussion of the creation of the ARPANET and a description of the involvement of the research community in influencing ARPA personnel and initiatives.
Oral history interview with Alvin I. Thaler
(Charles Babbage Institute, 1990-09-28) Thaler, Alvin Isaac
Thaler describes his experiences as a program director in both the mathematical and computer science divisions of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Topics include: EXPRES, an interoperability program of NSF; computational mathematics; theoretical computer science; the work of John Pasta; Jim Infante and the decision to separate mathematics and computer science into two divisions; the role of other funding agencies; and NSF support of computer science research.

University Digital Conservancy

Browse by Subject

Browsing by Subject "Computer history"