• 1927 June 26
    (b.) -
    2013 June 06
    (d.)

Bio/Description

Born in Philadelphia, PA, and raised in Atlantic City, NJ, he received his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Rutgers University. After two terms in the Army, he attended graduate school at Columbia University, receiving his Master's degree in 1961. He managed a wide range of time-sharing and database programs and language systems as an employee with RAND Corporation and Systems Development Corporation (SDC). He completed his career at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) as a designer of several programming languages for commercial and government systems. While attending Columbia he became acquainted with some early computing devices at T. J. Watson Center in New York. He joined RAND Corporation in 1954 where he worked on the JOHNNIAC Computer, primarily in the development of utilities and on the IBM 701, where major work was on the PACT Compiler (one of the early high-level language efforts). He joined the SAGE System Development (SDC) at Lincoln Laboratory in late 1955, where his major contribution was to the Lincoln Utility System. By the end of the 1960s, he was the Director of Technology. After SDC was split off from RAND, he became involved with various system efforts, which eventually led to language work and the development of JOVIAL. His work developing software for the world?s first computing devices led to authorship of JOVIAL (Jules? Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language) in 1959 to compose software for the electronics of military aircraft. JOVIAL was the first computer software designed for use by the military. It is a high-order computer programming language similar to ALGOL, but specialized for the development of embedded systems (specialized computer systems designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, usually embedded as part of a complete device including mechanical parts). It was in 1970 that he joined CSC, where his primary responsibilities were consulting, managing, auditing, and working on a variety of commercial and Government Systems. In the process, he was responsible for design of several general and special-purpose languages.
  • Date of Birth:

    1927 June 26
  • Date of Death:

    2013 June 06
  • Noted For:

    Author of JOVIAL, the first computer software designed for use by the military
  • Category of Achievement:

  • More Info: