Title
Chambers, John oral historyCatalog Number
102792763Type
Moving imageDescription
John Chambers was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and attended the University of Toronto, studying Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry.In 1960, as second-year undergraduate, he got introduced to both statistics and Fortran, but was warned that spending much time programming would inhibit a career in research. This of course did not stop him programming. While working on his PhD at Harvard, one professor suggested he seek a summer internship at Bell Laboratories, which led to a permanent job there, including work with the eminent statistician John Tukey.
Bell Labs researchers did much statistical analysis, using non-interactive programs in Fortran. John led efforts to create an interactive language to make this much easier. S was proposed in 1976, and implemented on the Honeywell GCOS system at Murray Hill, NJ.
A few years later, it was redone to run on UNIX and was frequently updated as it got more usage, at first inside the Labs, then outside.
During the 1990s, an international organization including Chambers grew up to create an augmented, open-source version of S called R and it really took off after 2000.
Date
2022-08-22Participants
| Chambers, John, Interviewee |
| Mashey, John, Interviewer |
| Plutte, Max, Camera person |
Publisher
Computer History MuseumPlace of Publication
Mountain View, CADuration
01:27:52Format
MOVCategory
Oral historyCollection Title
CHM Oral History CollectionCredit
Computer History MuseumLot Number
2022.0126Related Records
| 102792762 | Chambers, John oral history |