Title
A Perspective in the History of Computing in the Netherlands by Adriaan van WijngaardenCatalog Number
102639688Type
Moving imageDescription
The First International Research Conference on the History of Computing was a milestone in the history of computing, drawing a global elite of computer pioneers from the first generation of electronic digital computing. Most talks are approximately 45 minutes in duration and feature a lecture with a brief question and answer period afterwards.Van Wijngaarden discusses his early role, beginning on New Year’s Day, 1947, as head of the Computing Department of the brand-new Mathematisch Centrum (MC) in Amsterdam. After visits to the United States and the UK, he planned the design of the first Dutch computer, the ARRA, an electromechanical machine first demonstrated in 1952. That same year, van Wijngaarden hired an unknown programmer at the time, Edsger Djikstra, who would go on to become one of early computing’s leading figures. The pair worked on development of software for the ARRA and on the pioneering ALGOL and ALGOL-68 programming languages.
This lecture’s transcript was not included in the edited volume from the conference, viz. Metropolis, N., and Howlett, J., Rota, Gian-Carlo, A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1980.
Date
1976-06-12Credits
van Wijngaarden, AdriaanParticipants
| van Wijngaarden, Adriaan, Speaker |
Place of Publication
Los Alamos, NM, USIdentifying Numbers
| Other number | Reel 22 | Original tape numbering |