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Guide to the Paul R. DesJardins collection
X4578.2008
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Table of contents
Title: Paul R. DesJardins collection
Identifier/Call Number: X4578.2008
Contributing Institution:
Computer History Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
12.5 Linear feet,
10 record cartons
Date (bulk): Bulk, 1956-1993
Date (inclusive): 1947-2003
Abstract: The Paul R. DesJardins collection documents DesJardins’s career as a programmer, with material dating from 1947 to 2003, and
the bulk from 1956 to 1993. A large portion of the collection is related to the development of the time-sharing system RUSH,
and to PL/I, the programming language used for RUSH. DesJardins was the principal designer of RUSH when he worked at Allen-Babcock
Computing. Also included is a smaller amount of material created and collected by DesJardins when he worked at North American
Aviation and Nucleus International. Lastly, the collection contains various publications collected by DesJardins that include
technical papers, newsletters, conference and seminar proceedings, manuals, reference guides, specifications, and promotional
material.
creator:
DesJardins, Paul
The collection is open for research.
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 as owner of the material.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Stephen des Jardins, via Al Kossow, 2007.
Paul R. DesJardins is notable for his work as a programmer, particularly in aerospace applications, operating systems, time-sharing
systems, databases, and other industry applications and programs. He graduated from St. Louis University in 1948 with a bachelor’s
degree in aeronautical engineering, then studied numerical analysis at UCLA Extension. At the beginning of his career, DesJardins
worked in the aerospace industry doing application programming, aircraft design, flight testing, and trajectory analysis for
Chase Aircraft Company, Redstone Arsenal, the United States Army, and North American Aviation (NAA). DesJardins was with the
army from 1950 to 1953, where he worked in missile trajectory analysis, aircraft flight safety, maintenance, and parts procurement.
After the army, DesJardins was employed at NAA from 1954 to 1965 in the Missile Division, where he worked as the supervisor
of flight test data analysis, and as the director of the Computer Services Division. He was involved in space flight analysis,
celestial mechanics, lunar landing studies, and the NAA’s Hardware Committee. After leaving the NAA, DesJardins worked for
Allen-Babcock Computing (ABC) from 1965 to 1972 as the vice president of systems and programming. While at ABC, he was the
principal designer of RUSH (Remote Use of Shared Hardware), a time-sharing system for the IBM System/360 Model 50 that used
the PL/I language, and contributed to the development of other instructions and applications for a variety of industries.
DesJardins worked as a database application consultant from 1973 to 1986, then worked for Nucleus International (formerly
Marcus) into the 1990s. While at Nucleus, DesJardins co-designed a bit vector coding method that was patented as the Bit String
Compressor with Boolean Operation Processing Capability in 1991. Outside of work, DesJardins was active in the IBM user group
SHARE as a program chairman and board of directors member. He was also a national Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
lecturer on application-specific programming in 1969. DesJardins passed away in 2007.
Scope and Content of the Collection
The Paul R. DesJardins collection contains material collected by DesJardins primarily during his work at North American Aviation
(NAA), Allen-Babcock Computing (ABC), and Nucleus International. The records span 1947 through 2003 with the bulk of the collection
being from 1956 to 1993. One main focus of the material in this collection is the development of the RUSH (Remote Use of Shared
Hardware) time-sharing system, which DesJardins managed as principal designer at ABC. RUSH was built on IBM’s PL/I programming
language, and this collection holds a significant amount of material on PL/I’s development--primarily by joint efforts between
IBM and SHARE--as well. Forms of documentation in this collection for both RUSH and PL/I include technical reports, specifications,
manuals, committee proceedings, and correspondence.
The collection’s records relating to DesJardins’ work at North American Aviation and Nucleus International are fewer in quantity
compared to the Allen Babcock material, but they are useful for gaining a more comprehensive idea of DesJardins’ career. Types
of material from NAA and Nucleus International include internal correspondence, manuals, training and course material, technical
papers, notebooks, and internal committee reports, such as reports from NAA’s Hardware Committee.
Lastly, this collection holds various publications that DesJardins collected as a sort of reference library for different
projects, interests, and work. Included are technical papers, newsletters, conference and seminar proceedings, manuals, reference
guides, specifications, and promotional material. Much of these publications relate to software design and the use of programming
languages, such as Fortran and BASIC. Many of the publications in this part of the collection were published by IBM. The collection’s
earliest publication, a paper titled “Planning and Coding of Problems for an Electronic Computing Instrument,” was published
in 1947 and written by Herman H. Goldstine and John von Neumann.
The collection is arranged into 6 series:
Series 1, Allen-Babcock Computing RUSH records, 1965-1974
Series 2, PL/I development records, 1964-1976
Series 3, North American Aviation records, 1954-1967
Series 4, Nucleus International Corporation records, 1984-2003, bulk 1984-1993
Series 5, Technical reports and newsletters, 1947-1995, bulk 1956-1977
Series 6, Manuals, product descriptions, and specifications, 1957-2001, bulk 1961-1991
Software was separated from the main collection: Lisa Interactive Assembler, DOS, Commodore Word Processing (WordPro), and
Visualize from Norell Data Systems Corporation. A portion of periodicals and books were also separated and cataloged on an
item-level. To view catalog records for separated material, search the CHM catalog at
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/ .
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Allen-Babcock Computing.
International Business Machines Corporation.
North American Aviation.
Nucleus International Corporation.
PL/I (Computer program language)
Programming (Computers)
RUSH (Remote Users of Shared Hardware)