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

 

 

CHM Ref: 

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From that point of view, you have to add that Univac has always been a much more people- 

oriented company. When McDonald was headquartered in Blue Bell [PA], anybody could go talk 

to him. You could always go talk to the boss. Very open. Very people conscious. And I don’t 

know what company has done what Univac has. Twice since I’ve been retired, they’ve upped 

the pensions for everybody. And they don’t have to because there is no contract or anything. 

And twice they’ve increased the pensions for people who have all retired. They don’t have to do 

that and people who work at Univac hope when they get retired, maybe the company will be 

generous when they retire and they’ll get an increase in pensions if inflation dictates it.  

Pantages:  

Howard mentioned that you got him a difference in pay when he went into the 

service for which he is still incredibly grateful for.  

Hopper:  

Well you see, again there, Univac had always been service conscious because of 

its close relationship to the Navy. It’s a more human company. And somehow it’s continued that 

way. That starts with the president.  

Pantages:  

IBM is people-benefits oriented. 

Hopper:  

Yes, but not people oriented.  The amazing thing is the number of people – as I 

watched over the years – who’ve left Univac and have later come back again.  

Pantages:  

The problem I always saw with them was their marketing decisions, rather than 

technology or people.  

Hopper:  

The marketing decision was controlled during the early years by the old 

Remington Rand group. And that’s where the mistakes were made. Not in the Univac group. 

And it wasn’t until we got Forrester that the whole thing began to get really united.  When Sperry 

came in the picture. They of course brought in more of the technical side and the marketing 

began to change. Up until then St. Paul and Philadelphia had happily gone along building 

machines and everything, but the marketing was managed out of New York, out of the old 

Remington Rand headquarters. It wasn’t until Sperry came in that you began to get a more 

technical orientation into the market. And a more realistic point of view. 

Pantages:  

It always seemed to observers that they had edges technically that they didn’t 

capitalize on them the way they should have, such as in the communications area. 

Hopper:  

Yes, that was right. They had to get some of the technical people into marketing, 

and get some of the marketing people to know more about what was being developed. It was 

Forrester and McDonald who brought that about. 

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CHM Ref: 

X5142.2009

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 of 54

 

 

 

 

There were a number of mistakes that could have been made. I think it was remarkable there 

were so few. Well, when you look at GE and RCA, I think Univac did pretty well.  

Pantages:  

Especially since Univac is one of the companies that had other interests. 

Hopper:   

Sperry still makes great hay balers. And hydraulic controllers come from Vickers.  

1964-1967:  University of Pennsylvania, Moore School of Engineering 

Independent Modular Systems vs. Big General Purpose Computers 

Pantages:  

Between 1962 or 1963 and 1967, that’s the time you took the research group 

over to the Moore School at University of Pennsylvania.  

Hopper:  

Yes, I was beginning to think about combining things – the interrelationships in 

the systems of computers. I don’t think I spoke much about it until 1965-66. That’s when I was 

beginning to think about getting rid of operating systems, and I was out in the edge of nowhere 

again.  

Pantages:  

Explain that. 

Hopper:  

The more I looked at an operating system, the more I could see that it was made 

up of … the whole 1108, which I looked at after it was designed, Exec 8 was modular. It was 

one of the first modular operating systems. And the minute I could see that it was modular, I 

could see that each module was general purpose. And when I ran my program I didn’t need all 

of it in there for any given program. I only needed about one-third of the operating system. Then 

the fun began of how to get rid of it. 

Pantages:  

You had to have been fought on that one.  

Hopper:   

And they still are. Everybody’s still loading in huge operating systems. One of the 

ways to solve it of course is to get inventory on its own computer and then you don’t need an 

operating system. You go back to a system of UNIVAC I’s that communicate with each other. I 

think that’s one of the reasons it’s hard to get this across. We don’t have many people around 

who ran the early computers, who know what you can do with a standalone computer.  

What I think in terms of today is that I know what UNIVAC I did with only 1000 words of storage. 

And therefore I can conceive of taking these micros and building a system, each one of them 

doing a major job. 

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