Microsoft Word Hopper Grace oral history. 1980. 102702026. final doc

 

 

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she’s right most of the time.” On the other hand – and people would turn around – I think you 

very successfully carried this off – they would say, “She is always willing to listen to someone 

else’s ideas.” So you are very successful in defense of your own ideas, but people still have the 

sense that you will give them their day if they can prove it to you.  

Hopper:  

Yes, because some times I get out of date. I’ve got to listen to the new ones. 

When someone comes up with good ideas, I will sell theirs as hard as I sell mine. When we 

came to the sub routines, it was George [Baird’s] ideas of how we could fix our programs to run 

on anyone’s computer. And I’ve been selling that every since. Because most people haven’t 

realized it yet. It was George who wrote the program – when we wrote the COBOL program, he 

invented the way by which to used Xs, x sub something for the special names and control cards. 

And then he stored little files that contained those.  So he just told the routine which computer 

was one and he stuck the special names and control cards and off he went. That was totally 

George Baird’s convention. And people still haven’t fully appreciated that. Those test routines 

for both COBOL and FORTRAN would run on anybody’s computer and they have – by sticking 

to the standard language in his technique for handling the control cards. George is the one that 

came up with that. 

Pantages:  

That set a pattern for the industry now, at least for the government.  

Hopper:  

So now George is a GSV 15 and manages the compiling testing service, which 

he fairly earned. And that fitted beautifully into the whole concept of portable programs, which is 

one reason for having standard languages anyway. There were two reasons; one for the 

training of people – you could train them once – and the other was the portable programs. 

The Push for Standard Languages and Education 

Pantages:  

Put me back in context historically. And note that you went back to the Navy in 

67. When did your interest in the support for a standard begin, in other words the testing and 

validation?  

Hopper:  

That was then. Norm Ream felt we had to standardize the programs and be able 

to move them from one system to another. And the way to do it was standard languages. And 

he also felt that the only way we were going to get standards was – he was thinking of course of 

the Underwriters Lab which tests things and say they meet the standard, and there had to be 

some tests to meet the standard. That was when he asked me to come back and do it.  And I 

said I wanted programmers to help me do it. I got Ed Ford, a civilian, and we had one young 

lieutenant and two sailors. George Baird was one of the original sailors. And Arnold Johnson 

[National Institute of Standards and Technology], who is out there as deputy director, was 

another one – he came in the second group. They were DP3s? That came in. And all the 

development since then has been done until they broke the compiler testing service off and put 

it off by itself. They all came in as young sailors in the Navy. 

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Pantages:  

Is the testing service now under DOD or GSA? 

Hopper:  

GSA. And that was done when all of a sudden the Appropriations Committee 

discovered that the Navy was performing a federal function. So they picked it out of the Navy 

and put it over in GSA.  

Pantages:  

Navy has always been avant garde. I remember the PCM effort out of the Navy. 

Hopper:  

There’s always been an environment in the Navy that is a little different from 

other environments. You were on a ship at sea with no radio communications, and you’ve got to 

be totally self-dependent. That forces a lot of developments that you wouldn’t have to make if 

you were going to land at an air base or return to headquarters. And of course the atomic 

submarines pushed a lot of new ideas. The need for the tremendous computer abilities there. I 

would say I think for new concepts we’ve gotten more from NASA and the Navy than almost 

anybody. Though they sometimes lagged in the hardware they put it on.  

But NASA has had a tremendous influence recently. After all, the chips were for NASA. That’s 

what made it possible to really begin to think of systems and computers. It’s all been thought of 

as a flow, with other streams feeding into the main flow as time went on.  

Pantages:  

When you began your research and development group, you also went heavily 

into education.  

Hopper:  

There’s another realization – not just mine but also Univac’s – that there was 

going to be a need to support the training of computer people.  And Univac always made major 

efforts – I’m not the only lecturer they sent around. There’s Carl Hammer,* and Harold Joseph 

who would go around and talk to all the societies. Because one of the future great needs was 

people not only for Univac, but also for all the customers. And, when people began turning in 

their UNIVAC 80s and 90s way back then, an awful lot of those were reconditioned and given to 

schools and colleges. And I think there’s always been a realization at Univac that part of getting 

ready for the future was to train people and to support schools and colleges.  

[Carl Hammer, with Univac for 20 years, primarily as director of computer sciences, was a highly 

regarded educator and leader in the development of the industry’s professional organizations.] 

They’ve always done a great deal in that area. Quietly. I don’t think they’ve ever gotten the full 

credit for it. But there’s always been a push and an interest at Univac in training people. Even 

the course given their own people was important. They realized there weren’t going to be 

enough people.  

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