Browsing by Subject "IBM"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    Oral history interview with Ann Hardy
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2012-04-03) Hardy, Ann
    Tymshare, Inc., senior executive Ann Hardy discusses her prior work on IBM Stretch, and at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (later renamed Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), before focusing on Tymshare, where she was one of the first employees at start-up Tymshare and became one of the highest ranking women executives of a major IT firm in the 1970s. Her interview details the technical, strategic, and organizational history of the company—including her programming effort with Verne Van Vlear to get the start-up’s initial time-sharing system operational. The interview also offers perspectives on TYMNET and Tymshare’s acquisitions.
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    Oral history interview with Barry Schrager
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2012-05-24) Schrager, Barry
    Barry Schrager, who has a M.S. in applied mathematics from Northwestern University, is a seminal figure in the design and development of early commercial computer security software products. From 1968 to 1978 he served as Assistant Director of the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle Computer Center, where activity of student hackers on the center’s time-shared system led him to investigate methods and tools to achieve greater security. In the early 1970s he became involved with IBM SHARE, and led a committee of emerging computer security experts – SHARE’s Data Security and Management Group. Schrager and his group’s 1974 SHARE white paper defined access control requirements to achieve security, which led to IBM’s 1976 computer security software product, Resource Access Control Facility (RACF). Initially this product fell short of the requirements outlined in the white paper and Schrager and a colleague, Eberhard Klemens, developed a prototype Access Control Facility (ACF) which met the requirements. In 1978 these two teamed up with Scott Krueger to found SKK, Inc. and refine this computer security software product as ACF2 for its first customer London Life Insurance (Ontario, Canada). Soon thereafter SKK sold this product to General Motors and many other major corporations/organizations. ACF2 became a billion dollar product that is now owned by Computer Associates. This oral history concentrates on Schrager’s work with SHARE, the creation of ACF2, and his leadership of SKK, Inc. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1116862, “Building an Infrastructure for Computer Security History.”
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    Oral history interview with Eldon Worley
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2012-11-15) Worley, Eldon
    Eldon Worley was a longtime software scientist/engineer at IBM Research in San Jose. He pioneered Information Management Facility (IMF), a path breaking security system that was the underlying basis for the IBM security product Resource Access Control Facility, or RACF. After this work left IBM Research to be developed into a product, Worley continued to analyze and provide feedback to IBM’s development staff. RACF has gone through many different releases since its first iteration in the mid-1970s. Worley provides background on the origins of IMF and RACF, and how RACF evolved over two decades—including perspective on customer installations of RACF in the UK, where he spent time in both the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1116862, “Building an Infrastructure for Computer Security History.”
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    Oral history interview with Gideon I. Gartner
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2005-08-12) Gartner, Gideon I.
    This interview is with entrepreneur and corporate leader Gideon Gartner, the founder of Gartner Group, Inc.—a pioneering firm in information technology assessment and advisory services. The interview briefly discusses his early life and education (which included a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a Master’s from MIT’s Sloan School of Management), before focusing on his founding and leadership of Gartner Group (later renamed Gartner, Inc.). After MIT, Gartner began a successful career at IBM, focused on research and market management, before shifting to Wall Street and joining and becoming a Partner at Oppenheimer & Company. Leaving Oppenheimer, he launched Gartner Group in 1979 (where he was President, CEO, and Chairman until the early 1990s)—a company that revolutionized IT advisory and investment services with deeply-researched, concise (one-sheet) reports (among other innovations). He also discusses his teaching at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. In the mid-1990s Gartner launched another fast-growing, important company, GiGa Information Group. This, too, focused on IT assessment and advisory services.
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    Oral History Interview with James Cortada
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2021-12) Cortada, James; Cortada, James
    James Cortada recounts his childhood and higher education before discussing his career at IBM. One main topic of the interview are his publications on business and management of computing, Spanish history, history of computing, and history of information. He discusses the various individuals and institutions he interacted with as he worked in the history of computing. Of particular note is the Charles Babbage Foundation, which he chaired. This interview is part of the series on the early history of the history of computing.
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    Oral history interview with Judith Kinsey
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-03) Kinsey, Judith
    Judith Kinsey grew up in southern Minnesota and graduated from Wellesley College in 1962. She applied to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but also took the IBM Programmer Aptitude Test (PAT) and received a job offer from the Minneapolis branch office. She received extensive corporate training especially in the first years of her work. As a System Engineer she supported IBM sales in the manufacturing area, working out of the Minneapolis and St. Paul branch offices. With the coming of the System/360 she helped install these at customers’ locations by doing assembly-language and other programming. While raising children she was out of the workforce during 1970-76 then returned to IBM as Staff Programmer at Rochester, Minnesota, and then moved into management in 1980. She describes programming assignments, college recruiting, gender relations, and Rochester’s distinctive work culture. During development of the AS/400, she was Technical Assistant to the Directory of the Programming Lab at Rochester. In 1995 she took a position at IBM corporate (in Somers NY) and experienced the re-engineering of IBM under Louis Gerstner. She adds descriptions of efforts to encourage Girl Scouts in computing. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Marc E. Levilion by Andrew L. Russell
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2012-04-02) Levilion, Marc E.
    French computer engineer Marc Levilion reflects upon his career with computers and computer networking that spanned from the 1950s to the 1990s. Levilion describes his 33-year employment with IBM France, where he worked on projects at the intersection of computing and telecommunications including error-detection and correction codes, IBM digital Private Branch Exchanges, IBM’s Systems Network Architecture (SNA), and IBM contributions to the X.21 and X.25 international standards. Levilion describes the relationship between IBM facilities in La Gaude, France and Raleigh, North Carolina; compares the networking concepts behind SNA, X.21, and X.25 to the concepts deployed in the Arpanet and by Louis Pouzin in Cyclades; and explains IBM’s global standards strategy and IBM’s involvement with French standards committees, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the European Computer Manufacturers’ Association, and the Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique. Levilion reflects on his participation in Open Systems Interconnection in various roles: as IBM France representative to committees in Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR), as head of the AFNOR delegation to ISO, and as convenor of the OSI architecture Working Group. This set of nine interviews conducted with Tilly Bayard-Richard, Najah Naffah, Louis Pouzin, Marc E. Levilion, Michel Gien, Jean-Louis Grangé, Gérard Le Lann, Rémi Després, and André Danthine was funded by the ACM History Committee with a fellowship on “European Contributions to Computer Networks: An Oral History Project.”
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    Oral history interview with Robert E. Johnston
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2013-10-28) Johnston, Robert E.
    This interview with computer security pioneer Robert Johnston stands out for its documentation of early efforts to implement computer security systems and policies within corporations. Specifically it details his leadership with computer security in the insurance industry (at Travelers, The Hartford, and Phoenix Mutual) in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as his role as workshops chair for the Computer Security Institute, an important, independent, user-focused organization for inter-firm sharing of information and knowledge on computer security. He also discusses a secure facility (unprecedented within industry) he designed and oversaw that was used in discovery with the IBM-Fujitsu legal battle, and professionalization issues in the computer security field. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1116862, “Building an Infrastructure for Computer Security History.”
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    Oral history interview with Thomas A. Berson by Rebecca Slayton
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2014-04-18) Berson, Thomas A.
    This interview with computer security pioneer Tom Berson discusses his early interest in computers, formal training in physics and computer science, and career in computer and network security industry. Berson earned a bachelor’s degree in physics before going to IBM Yorktown Heights in the late 1960s. He worked as a consultant while earning a Ph.D. in computer science from University College London, which he completed in 1977. After completing the Ph.D. he went to work for Ford Aerospace and Communications Corporation in California, where he worked on the Kernelized Secure Operating System (KSOS). In 1979 he and five others from Ford started a computer networking company, Sytek, where Berson was involved in several innovations related to network security. In 1986 he founded a new start-up, Anagram. Berson also discusses his involvement in IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), the influence of the Orange Book, and the future of the field of computer security. This interview is part of a project conducted by Rebecca Slayton and funded by an ACM History Committee fellowship on “Measuring Security: ACM and the History of Computer Security Metrics.”
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    Oral history interview with William H. Murray
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2013-09-24) Murray, William H.
    In this interview computer security pioneer William Murray begins by discussing early work experiences and influences (his father was an IBM CE and manager, and his mother was a keypunch operator). The bulk of the interview focuses on his work at IBM in computer security and his reflections on developments in this field. This includes efforts with computer security at IBM SHARE, Bob Courtney as an early leader at IBM in this field, Horst Feistel and the cryptographic research group at IBM, MVS TSO, IBM’s MVS Integrity Commitment, TCSEC, and RACF. He also provides context to a number of his publications including his influential Access Control Facility for AAS and Data Security and Controls. Murray was an influential figure with ISC-squared and the CISSP security credential and the auditing and forensics sides to security (working as a consultant for Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young after leaving IBM). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1116862, “Building an Infrastructure for Computer Security History.”
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    Oral History with Brian Randell
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2021-01-07) Randell, Brian
    Brian Randell tells about his upbringing and his work at English Electric, IBM, and Newcastle University. The primary topic of the interview is his work in the history of computing. He discusses his discovery of the Irish computer pioneer Percy Ludgate, the preparation of his edited volume The Origins of Digital Computers, various lectures he has given on the history of computing, his PhD supervision of Martin Campbell-Kelly, the Computer History Museum, his contribution to the second edition of A Computer Perspective, and his involvement in making public the World War 2 Bletchley Park Colossus code-breaking machines, among other topics. This interview is part of a series of interviews on the early history of the history of computing.