First Person Essays

The Software Industry Special Interest Group, under the leadership of Bob Patrick, has initiated a new page on our website to enable people to tell stories about significant systems and applications in which they were involved.

We're looking for informal descriptions giving some background on the event (or product or program) and how you became active in it. We're not looking for a detailed technological description, but rather the application, marketing, business and technical highlights which made the experience memorable to you. For instance, you might want to note how the project came about, how it was organized and staffed, what hardware and software were used, its relationship with other projects and its significance and usage.

In addition to stories on systems, operations and applications, we're also interested in a broad range of topics including stories about publishing, conferences, financing of companies, consulting experiences and any stories that will help others better understand how the software industry grew and became such an important part of our daily lives.

If you have any subjects about which you would like to write, please send an email to bobpatrick@mac.com describing what you would like to cover.

The following are the First Person Essays which we have already received and are now available:

The Birth of IMS/360
by Uri Berman
Uri Berman worked with Pete Nordyke at Rockwell's Space Division on a massive parts list application for the Apollo space capsule. They had the idea of separating the disk access and recovery functions from the applications programs which accessed the data. Uri created Data Language/I (DL/I) which was also used with the program when it was converted to run as Information Management System (IMS) for the IBM S/360. IMS became a major program product for IBM with many thousands of installations and Uri was given an Outstanding Contribution Award with a large check attached.

The First Commercial Computer Application at General Electric
by Burton Grad
Burt describes his experience designing and programming a manufacturing control system in 1954 for the Dishwasher and Disposer Department of GE in Louisville, KY to run on the first Univac I computer sold for commercial use (as against government use).

The Title Plant Operating System: A Data Base System of Index Files for Recorded Documents
by Jerry Koory
Jerry describes his experience in the mid-1960s while working for PRC in developing a comprehensive system for a Title Insurance company to manage the records for both real property transfers and related court actions. This system was an early application on the IBM S/360. Jerry notes that the system was still in operation in 2006.

Operating System Roots
by Bob Patrick
Bob traces the evolution of operating systems from his early work on CPCs and the first IBM scientific computers through the GMR-NAA system and the development of SOS, IBSYS and the Direct Couple to the IBM OS/360.

Evolutionary Events in Core Business Information Systems
by Bruce Peterson
Bruce describes his experiences at Hughes Aircraft as a programmer on the Hughes Labor System and the problems from some of the short-cut assumptions built in from the use of punched cards. He also describes techniques that he introduced ("Pitchfork Processing") to improve the throughput on large, sequential jobs. Finally he talks about how he set up the management process for year end closing.

A Brief Account of Spell Checking as Developed by Houghton Mifflin
by Howard Webber
Howard describes his work over the years in developing a system to a comprehensive spell checker to be used in producing a world class dictionary which could be used to drive spell checking. He also talks about how this was expanded to cover other languages besides English and for grammatical analysis as well.

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