Browsing by Subject "International Business Machines Corporation."
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Item Orah history interview with Mike Maples(Charles Babbage Institute, 2004-05-07) Maples, MikeAfter 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.Item Oral history interview with A. Terence Maxwell(Charles Babbage Institute, 1980-01-09) Maxwell, A. TerenceMaxwell 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.Item Oral history interview with Ann Hardy(Charles Babbage Institute, 2012-04-03) Hardy, AnnTymshare, 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.Item Oral history interview with Arnold A. Cohen(Charles Babbage Institute, 1983) Cohen, Arnold A.Cohen provides information about relations of Engineering Research Associates with the Navy, and with Remington Rand management after their acquisition of ERA. He also describes ERA projects in detail. Specific topics include: early research on magnetic drum storage systems, reports to the National Bureau of Standards, the Atlas I project and the commercial by-product (the 1101), the Atlas II project and the commercial by-product (the 1103), the 1102 built for Arnold Engineering Development Center, the 1104 built for Westinghouse/BOMARC, the Remington Rand Tape-to-Card Converter, the File Computer, ERA non-computer projects, ERA's design contract with IBM and its relation to the IBM 650, UNIVAC II, and patents and their defensive use in litigation.Item Oral history interview with Arnold Dumey(Charles Babbage Institute, 1984-10-09) Dumey, ArnoldThe Dumey interview begins with a description of his work for the Army Signal Corps during World War II. He discusses the development of a system for comparing data for which Eastman Kodak supplied a contrast reversal film process and Reed Research a reading device. He also considers some of the problems inherent in working for a secret organization. In the post-war period, he focuses on the contractual work done by Engineering Research Associates for the Navy, emphasizing their engineering excellence and the leverage that their competitive position gave him in his negotiations for the Navy with IBM. He highlights the roles of John L. Hill and William Norris in ERA, and contrasts the ERA 1101 with the Standards Electronic Automatic Computer (SEAC). He concludes with a discussion of the obsolescence of electrostatic tube and delay-line memory devices with the introduction of magnetic cores.Item Oral history interview with Arnold Spielberg(Charles Babbage Institute, 1987-06-23) Spielberg, ArnoldSpielberg, an electronics engineer and manager in Product Technology Operations for Unisys, discusses product development in the computer industry. He describes his work with RCA and General Electric Computer Dept. in the 1950s; IBM, Scientific Data Systems, and Electronic Arrays in the 1960s; and his work with Burroughs (and later Unisys) after 1973. Subjects discussed include: point-of-sale equipment; product development and marketing; GE 225; IBM computers; Burroughs computers; Scientific Data System's SIGMA series; and GP2000 (a cooperative graphics product of Burroughs and Superset).Item Oral history interview with Arthur L. C. Humphreys(Charles Babbage Institute, 1981-02-28) Humphreys, Arthur L. C.Humphreys, a former managing director of International Computers, Limited (ICL), reviews the history of the British computer industry. Topics include: the termination in 1949 of the trade agreement between IBM and the British Tabulating Machine Company, the merger in 1959 of British Tabulating and the Powers Samas Company into International Computers and Tabulators, Ltd. (ICT), and the merger in 1968 of English Electric Computers Limited and ICT into ICL. Humphreys explains how the last merger was enacted by the government to establish a single national computer company. He recalls the government's pride, as expressed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, in maintaining a position in the international computer industry. Humphreys also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the British computer industry, and compares the management of the British and American computer industries. He mentions the European Economic Community's efforts to establish Unidata, a multinational computer company, and the problems associated with conducting business across Europe's linguistic and cultural boundaries.Item Oral history interview with Ben Dyer(Charles Babbage Institute, 2004-05-07) Dyer, BenBen Dyer, an industrial engineering graduate from Georgia Tech, describes joining the Computer System Center, one of the earliest computer stores in the United States.. He then switched to providing accounting software for minicomputers which led to Peachtree Software with accounting programs for CP/M computers. IBM identified Peachtree accounting software as a principal product for the IBM PC and provided funding for its development to run under PC/MS DOS. Dyer describes the purchase of Peachtree Software by MSA and its subsequent divestiture. Finally, Dyer discusses his activities post-Peachtree.Item Oral history interview with Ben Persons and Herb Pelnar(Charles Babbage Institute, 2001-07-17) Persons, Ben; Pelnar, HerbIn this oral history Ben Persons, most recently Technical Assistant to the Lab Director at IBM Rochester, and Herb Pelnar, retired AS/400 System Administrator, talk about their careers at IBM, focusing in particular on the development of System/38. Persons shares his experiences repairing World Trade equipment, contributing to the design of an underground command and control system for the Pentagon, and his work on TSS at IBM’s Yorktown research facility. Pelnar discusses his employment as a SAGE display system technician and in coordinating the RETAIN maintenance system. Pelnar also speaks about about his work coding System/32, and on the role and environment of the programmer within IBM before 1980.Item Oral history interview with Carl Rench(Charles Babbage Institute, 1984-04-18) Rench, Carl F.Rench, an NCR employee since l946, surveys the company's growth from a manufacturer of cash registers to one of the largest suppliers of business computers. He begins with NCR's l946 experiments with vacuum tube arithmetic devices, work during the Korean war on the A-1-A bombing navigational system, and the acquisition in 1952 of the Computer Research Corporation. Rench points to Joseph Desch's role in moving NCR into electronics. Rench highlights the major products of the l950s: the Post-Tronic machine for reading magnetic strips on ledger cards and doing financial transactions, and the Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) device. He mentions a l959 joint venture with General Electric to produce one of the first all-transistorized business computers. He explains how, in the 1960s, NCR returned to its earlier specialty in peripheral devices, and contrasts this approach with IBM's concentration on the sale of systems. Rench focuses on the company in the early 1970s as a major producer of metal oxide semicon- ductor chips and as a multinational corporation. He discusses at length NCR president William Anderson's decentralization of the company, the resistance among Dayton employees, and the advantages of this policy to the company's livelihood.Item Oral history interview with Cuthbert Corwin Hurd(Charles Babbage Institute, 1995-08-28) Hurd, Cuthbert Corwin, 1911-Hurd briefly discusses his work with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) before joining Computer Usage Company (CUC) in 1962. He outlines CUC's early projects with IBM and describes his leadership role at CUC. Hurd details his efforts to make CUC successful after becoming CEO and the strategies which he used. Dr. Fillerup, who worked with Hurd at CUC, compiled biographical information on Hurd that is presented in abbreviated form before the interview and in full after the interview. The original printed copy also contains biographical information on Fillerup.Item Oral history interview with Cuthbert Corwin Hurd(Charles Babbage Institute, 1981-01-20) Hurd, Cuthbert Corwin, 1911-Hurd discusses International Business Machines' (IBM) commitment to research in computer technology, IBM's support for academic research on computers, and his own work at IBM--especially on the IBM 701, 704 and 705 computers. He also describes John von Neumann and his contributions to the development of computer technology.Item Oral history interview with David L. Schleicher(Charles Babbage Institute, 2006-01-24) Schleicher, David L.David Schleicher begins with a description of his background and education at Mankato State University (Minnesota), and provides details of his first professional job. He describes his early tasks at IBM, his move to IBM Rochester, and the management structure of which he was a part. Among the technical projects he discusses are the Fort Knox project, the System/38 computer system, the Silverlake project, and the various aspects of AS/400 development, including RISC processing and the AS/400. He describes programming at IBM Rochester over many years, including support software for manufacturing, integrated data bases on the System/38 and the AS/400, microcoding, and the Rochester Programming Center. Concerning management, he discusses the management styles of Tom Furey and Glenn Henry, and in a broader context, compares evaluation of personnel by managers at Bell Laboratories and IBM. There is some discussion of the patenting process at IBM Rochester. He ends by describing his role in the coordination of programming in IBM, his move to Austin, Texas, and back to Rochester, and his work on OS/2.Item Oral history interview with Dick Hedger(Charles Babbage Institute, 2001-05-17) Hedger, DickRichard Hedger begins the interview describing his education in electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota. Following graduation he accepted a position at IBM Rochester in the optical character recognition group. He then discusses his shift to software development. Eventually he joined the Service and Support group developing application software supporting facilities infrastructures for the IBM System/3, and System/360. In various places in the interview, he describes some of the programming techniques in vogue while he was at IBM. He discusses his work in software for the System/32, System/38, and client server applications (attaching PCs to the AS/400). He talks about standards certification, e.g., ISO 9000. IBM people he discusses include Glenn Henry, Watts Humphrey, Ben Persons, and David Schleicher.Item Oral history interview with Donald D. Chamberlin(Charles Babbage Institute, 2001-10-03) Chamberlin, D. D. (Donald Dean)Don Chamberlin is a research staff member at IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. In this oral history Chamberlin recounts his early life, his education at Harvey Mudd College and Stanford University, and his work on relational database technology. Chamberlin was a member of the System R research team and, with Ray Boyce, developed the SQL database language. Chamberlin also briefly discusses his more recent research on XML query languages.Item Oral history interview with Donn B. Parker(Charles Babbage Institute, 2003-05-14) Parker, Donn B.Donn Parker, a renowned expert on computer security, begins by discusses his education and early programming and managerial work at General Dynamics and the Control Data Corporation (CDC). The bulk of the interview concentrates on developments and contexts to Parker’s subsequent work at SRI on computer security and computer crime. This pioneering research, which was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Justice, provided Parker with the substance for a number of influential books. Parker also discusses the emergence of the computer security industry, IBM’s contributions to the field, and computer security legislation. He concludes by addressing aspects of the contemporary computer security situation, best practices to prevent breaches, and his formation of the International Information Integrity Institute (I4).Item Oral history interview with Edward Feigenbaum(Charles Babbage Institute, 1979-06-12) Feigenbaum, Edward A.Feigenbaum discusses the formation and growth of the Stanford University Computer Science Department and its acquisition of facilities. He recalls how IBM and Control Data Corporation replaced Burroughs as the university's computer vendor because of the need for large-scale computing. He explains his effort as head of the Computation Center to centralize all university computing activities, and the failure of that effort in the l970s with the introduction of minicomputers on campus. Feigenbaum also details the department's financing, including government support (ARPA, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research), equipment donations from industry (IBM especially), and faculty salaries. Feigenbaum credits George Forsythe for the department's initial success in key areas such as numerical analysis, systems, and artificial intelligence, and hiring talented faculty such as John McCarthy.Item Oral history interview with Elmer Trousdale(Charles Babbage Institute, 1977) Trousdale, ElmerTrousdale, a lawyer from the Oppenheimer firm that worked with Control Data Corporation (CDC) on its lawsuit against International Business Machines (IBM), discusses the CDC versus IBM litigation.Item Oral history interview with Fernando J. Corbató(Charles Babbage Institute, 1990-11-14) Corbató, F. J.Corbató discusses computer science research, especially time-sharing, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Topics in the first session include: Phil Morse and the establishment of the Computation Center, Corbató's management of the Computation Center, the development of the WHIRLWIND computer, John McCarthy and research on time-sharing, cooperation between International Business Machines (IBM) and MIT, and J. C. R. Licklider and the development of Project MAC. Topics in the second session include: time-sharing, the development of MULTICS by the General Electric (GE) Computer Division, IBM's reaction to MIT working with GE, the development of CTSS, the development of UNIX in cooperation with Bell Labs, interaction with the Information Processing Techniques Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, interaction with Honeywell after they purchased GE's Computer Division, and the transformation of Project MAC into the Laboratory for Computer Science.Item Oral history interview with Florence Pessin(Charles Babbage Institute, 1981-06-24) Pessin, FlorencePessin discusses her involvement at IBM with programming languages such as FORTRAN and FOR TRANSIT.