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- Morton (Mort) I. Bernstein
- Biography
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- Born 2 July 1927 in Wilkinsburg, PA (just outside Pittsburgh,
PA)
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- 1945 - 46: U. S. Navy where I was introduced to
data processing as a Storekeeper, disbursing closing out pay records for
separatees.
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- 1947 - 50: University of Pittsburgh - Bachelors
in Mathematics
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- 1951 - 52: University of Pittsburgh - Masters
in Mathematics (Statistics). For the two years I spent in graduate school,
I ran a small punched card laboratory in the Department of Biostatistics
at the University's School of Public Health. We had one of the first IBM
101 Statistical Sorter installations at which I learned a great deal about
programming by plugboard.
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- 1952 - 53: University of Pittsburgh - Analyst
on a project for the U.S. Army in the Pentagon where I learned about computer
models in economic modeling. I took my first course in programming
at the Graduate School of the Department of Agriculture, which ended up
being taught by Ida Rhodes of the National Bureau of Standards, the "mother"
of a great many early programmers.
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- 1953 - 54: Atlantic Research Corporation - I ran
a small engineering computation group. We did all of the data reduction
of data recorded in the company's rocket and other test facilities, designed
quality assurance programs and designed solid rocket propellant grains
for a number of applications. I learned quickly that hand computation
using desk calculators was slow, tedious and error prone. I vowed
to get into "real" computing as soon as possible.
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- 1954 - 63: The RAND Corporation - I was hired
by Paul Armer as a Programmer trainee (my job title was Assistant Mathematician)
where I was introduced to the IBM 701 and, eventually, the JOHNNIAC. Some
of the more significant events during my tenure at RAND were:
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- Writing the first lunar trajectory program in conjunction
with Nancy Brooks;
- Participating in the invention of the world's first digitizing
tablet, The RAND Tablet (for which I wrote one of the first on-line, real-time
character recognizers);
- Being the JOHNNIAC's "mother" from 1957 to
1963;
- Being present at the creation of SHARE, the world's first
computer users' group (I served the important role of making sure that
Paul Armer had sufficient change to call the potential east coast members
to see if they would participate);
- Convincing the powers that were (as contrasted to "be")
to improve the JOHNNIAC's capability by adding one-level indirect addressing.
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- 1963 - 65: IBM Corporation - I was a Senior Analyst.
I worked on things graphic and was declared persona non grata at
the IBM Kingston, NY facility for my critical evaluation of the IBM 2250,
the graphics console for the IBM 360. I also participated in the design
of one of the earliest network computer operating systems. The intent was
to manage load sharing among three large mainframes.
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- 1965 - 84: System Development Corporation - I
left IBM to return to computer graphics. SDC had a Philco 2000 to
which it had interfaced a RAND Tablet. I began what was to become
an ever improving series of on-line, real-time, hand-printed character
recognizers. The final version could recognize 105 distinct characters
and was integrated into a demonstration program called The Assistant
Mathematician. The program produced executable programs from
two-dimensional standard notation mathematics. I eventually became a Department
Manager in the R&D Division and ended my tenure there working on a
series of classified projects.
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- 1984 - 91: Quest Analysis, Incorporated - I left
SDC to found and become the CEO of a small government sponsored research
company. Most of the work was classified, continuing projects that had
been started at SDC, but which they no longer had any interest in continuing.
As the Cold War ground to an end and the interest in our work on the part
of the government waned, we were unable to convert our abilities to the
world of commercial software and decided to terminate active operation.
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- 1991 - Present: Consultant - I've done a minimal
amount of consulting to maintain my interests in IT, but keeping busy in
"retirement" has been no problem. I have become active in the
Los Angeles Computer Society and been elected to its Board of Directors.
To keep my hand in programming, I am building a JOHNNIAC Simulator, which
I hope to finish sometime before
the year 2000.
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