The Jim C. Warren papers document Warren’s founding and chairmanship of the West Coast Computer Faire, his political activism related to online access and civil liberties, his computer-related publications and writing career, and his technological consulting projects and research. Also included is material related to other computer conferences and workshops, manuals and promotional material from various companies, reports and articles, and newsletters from computer clubs, organizations, and companies. Material dates from 1956 to 2000, with the bulk of the collection being from 1975 to 1995.

Jim Clarke Warren, Jr. was born July 20, 1936, in Oakland, California. Warren taught math at the high school level for two years before earning his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and education in 1959 from Southwest Texas State Teachers College, now known as Southwest Texas State University. He then went on to earn three master’s degrees: in mathematics and statistics from University of Texas at Austin in 1964, medical information science from University of California Medical Center in 1974, and computer engineering from Stanford University in 1977. He was also a PhD candidate in computer engineering at Stanford, and he chaired the mathematics department at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California, from 1965 to 1967. During his college years, Warren also taught mathematics and computer courses at the college level, including at San Jose State University, San Francisco State University, and Stanford. During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Warren took on freelance work as a minicomputer programmer and consultant under the name Frelan Associates, with most of his work concentrated on custom-built realtime data-acquisition/process-control applications in biomedical research settings at Stanford University and its School of Medicine. During this same time, he chaired the Association for Computing Machinery's regional chapters of SIGPLAN and SIGMICRO, and the San Francisco Peninsula ACM. From 1968 to 1969, he was the general secretary of the Midpeninsula Free University.

94.38 Linear feet, 74 record cartons, 5 manuscript boxes

The Computer History Museum (CHM) can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claims of the copyright holder. Requests for copying and permission to publish, quote, or reproduce any portion of the Computer History Museum’s collection must be obtained jointly from both the copyright holder (if applicable) and the Computer History Museum.

An item in Box 38, Folder 3, is restricted from access until Jim Warren’s death. An item in Box 20, Folder 8, is restricted due to the inclusion of a social security number, and an item in Box 38, Folder 13 is restricted due to the inclusion of a third-party’s address; researchers must use redacted photocopies of these two items.