Completion of Computing History Memoir (II)

Grosch, Herbert R, Portland OR

Investigators

Abstract

EIA - 0135257 Grosch, Herbert TITLE: Completion of Computing History Memoir The investigator has published two editions of an autobiography/history intended to cover the early years of the computer revolution. The first edition, in hardcover, called COMPUTER [see B. in Biographical Sketch], ran through mid-1959 and ended with his first departure from IBM. The second edition, on CD/ROM, was produced under NSF auspices (Grant No. CDA-9622944) and also covered the subsequent years through mid-1967, when the investigator was drafted to re-launch the Center for Computer Sciences and Technology at the National Bureau of Standards now NIST. The material added to the second edition was primarily concerned with the international computer scene, and included a visit to Japan in 1960 and two long tours of European user installations and European manufacturers on behalf of the young Control Data Corporation, in 1962. On the domestic side, the second edition ended with the investigator's direction of an Air Force-funded research project in computational linguistics for GE Santa Barbara. It is proposed to carry the memoir through six years at NBS, three as director of CCST and three as Senior Research Fellow after IBM requested his removal from the earlier post for halting all Federal procurement of the new System/3 (which was withdrawn some years later). The investigator emerged to become the first editorial director of the burgeoning newspaper COMPUTERWORLD, which was to be the foundation of the McGovern IDG empire.