The Howard J. Cohen collection contains hard copy listings of software from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as reference books, manuals, directories, and a small number of floppy disks. Ranging in date from 1978 to 1990, the collection traces Cohen's early work as a software engineer at Oceanroutes, Daisy Systems, ENSCO, and ROLM. The program listings from Oceanroutes relate to ocean wave modeling, prediction, and statistics, while the software from Daisy Systems is for electronic design automation and the placement of components on gate arrays. The collection also holds a small amount of reference books and manuals, most of which are related to IBM and Intel.

Howard J. Cohen is a software engineer and developer who has worked as a consultant for over 30 years. He has experience in a broad spectrum of technologies, such as electronic design automation, ocean wave modeling, and bioinformatics and computational genomics. A native of New York, Cohen earned a BS in physics from the City College of New York in 1966 and a PhD in theoretical physics from Brandeis University in 1974. After graduating, Cohen worked for two years as a member of the technical staff at NASA Ames Research Center. He then worked as a program manager in research and development at Oceanroutes from 1976 to 1979, where he was a project leader for and designer of the company's East Coast, Australian, and "portable" spectral ocean wave models. In 1979, Cohen began working as a systems development consultant, first as a scientist at ENSCO from 1979 to 1982, where he was a lead investigator in applying passive underwater acoustic detection and estimation procedures to multi-sensor target localization. After leaving ENSCO, Cohen joined Daisy Systems as a senior software engineer and group leader, where he created tools for the automatic and interactive layout of semi-custom and full custom VLSI chips until 1987. After Daisy Systems, Cohen continued to work as a consultant and occasionally in full time engineering and management positions for Silicon Valley businesses, such as Nortel Networks, SurroMed, Incyte Genomics, BomDiver, Canon Information Systems, WeatherNews, PetroSoft, LSI Logic, Aspect Development, Abbott Laboratories, ETAK, Engineering DataXpress, Nikon Precision, Diasonics, Rolm, Mindcraft, Integrated CMOS Systems, Tibco Inc., and Zycad Corporation. Also, he has taught courses at several San Francisco Bay Area colleges, including San Jose State University, Foothill College, College of San Mateo, and City College of San Francisco. In addition to his software development consulting, Cohen has served as an expert witness since 1997, specializing in software intellectual property litigation.

5.0 Linear feet, 9 manuscript boxes and 1 record carton

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The collection is open for research.