Computer History Museum

Grad, Burt (Burton) oral history : International Business Machines (IBM)

Burt Grad (in one of four interviews) discusses his experiences in IBM from his joining the company in 1960 after leaving GE. He covers a wide range of assignments during that period including his initial work on the Study Organization Plan and Decision Tables. He discusses work on operations research applications like linear programming, critical path management and simulation. He talks about his work with the IBM Science Centers and the use of VM/CMS as a principal timesharing system along with the release of APL and HASP. He reviews his work on the IBM Unbundling Task Force and the announcement of the first priced programs by IBM. He then became a Development Director in the Data Processing Division and discusses some of the principal products like CICS and IIS as well as IBM’s failure to make any successful application products for large computer customers. Then, he covers the international software development work at IBM and his reassignment to IBM Research and the technology transfer projects that he worked on there, albeit unsuccessfully. The interview closes with his decision to leave IBM and start his own consulting practice in 1978.

Item Details

Date
2007-11-28 (Made)
Type
Document
Catalogue number
102701925
Organization
Computer History Museum
People
Edward LaHay (Interviewer)
Burt Grad (Interviewee)
Category
Transcript
Credit line
Software Industry Special Interest Group
Extent
35 p.
Place of publication
North America/USA/CA/Mountain View
Language
English
Acquisition number
X4362.2008
Subject
Query By Example (QBE), Decision Tables, Syncsort, Rockwell, McCormack and Dodge, MSA, OS/360, CICS, Linear Programming, Xerox PARC, VM/CMS, National CSS, Mark IV, Informatics, C-E-I-R, UNIVAC, System/360 (Computer), Remington Rand, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), Control Data Corporation, COBOL (Computer Program Language), APL (Computer Program Language), IBM Research, ADAPSO, Pansophic, GE, IDMS, SIMSCRIPT, ADR, IMS
Archive collection
CHM Oral History Collection
Archive hierarchy
CHM Oral History Collection