Guide to the Howard J. Cohen collection
Finding aid prepared by Sydney Gulbronson Olson
Computer History Museum
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA, 94043
(650) 810-1010
research@computerhistory.org
August 2018
Title: Howard J. Cohen collection
Identifier/Call Number: X7787.2016
Contributing Institution:
Computer History Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
5.0 Linear feet,
9 manuscript boxes and 1 record carton
Date (inclusive): 1978-1990
Abstract: 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.
Processing Information
Collection processed by Dick Johnson and Anna van Raaphorst-Johnson, 2018. Detailed inventory created by the donor, 2016.
Access Restrictions
The collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
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.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of Item], [Date], Howard J. Cohen collection, Lot X7787.2016, Box [#], Folder [#], Catalog [#], Computer History
Museum.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Howard J. Cohen, 2016.
Biographical/Historical Note
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.
Scope and Content of the Collection
The Howard J. Cohen collection, ranging in date from 1978 to 1990, consists of program listings, manuals, reference books,
and directories. The bulk of the collection is made up of listings from companies that Cohen worked for during the 1970s and
1980s. Cohen retained these listings, which he either created himself or worked as a contributor on, to serve as a personal
archive, with each set of listings generated as a project snapshot. About half of the program listings are from Oceanroutes,
a company that provided weather routing services to vessels and predicted ocean wave statistics at fixed points, typically
for offshore drilling. There is also a significant amount of material from Daisy Systems, which was an early electronic design
automation company. There are small amounts of listings from ROLM and ENSCO. This portion of the collection contains three
8-inch floppy disks, which hold copies of source code and are stored with their related program listing. The rest of the collection
consists of manuals and reference materials, most of which are related to IBM and Intel.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into 4 series:
Series 1, OceanRoutes program listings, 1978-1986
Series 2, Daisy Systems program listings, 1983-1986
Series 3, Other listings, 1979-1981
Series 4, Books and manuals, 1979-1990
Subjects and Indexing Terms
ENSCO
Chip design
Electronic design automation
FORTRAN
Gate array circuits
Ocean surface wave modeling
Oceanroutes program listings, Series 1,
1978-1986
Series Scope and Content
The Oceanroutes series contains program listings that reflect Cohen's work at the company. Oceanroutes specialized in knowledge
of marine weather, waves, and currents, and used this information for two main services. The first was for recommending optimum
ship routing to avoid bad weather and to optimize some aspect of the crossing, such as time or fuel. Oceanroutes also used
the information to predict ocean wave statistics at fixed points in the ocean, usually where oil companies had or were planning
to locate off shore drilling platforms. While the first models were created by hand, Cohen's team eventually developed a semiautomatic
way to create a site-specific model. This series contains complete documented sets of code for the general "make model" system
as well as for specific systems, such as the North Sea and the Indian Ocean off west coast of Australia. These materials were
written in FORTRAN for use on Data General Nova and Eclipse minicomputers. This series is arranged alphabetically by title.
102784539
Australian model and generation code and documentation
1980-07
102784546
Australian model code
1980-1981
102784542
Canadian (Nova Scotia) model listings and maps
1985-11
102784541
Canadian 24-direction model
1985-09
102784537
CLI and utility scripts
1978
102784545
Grid generation code and documentation
1980
102784540
Make Model documentation and code
1982-1986
102784548
North Sea model code and documentation
1981-1982
102784543
North Sea model data tables and code
1985-12
102784547
Various OceanRoutes projects
1982
102784538
VESSIM code and CLI scripts
1979
Daisy systems program listings, Series 2,
1983-1986
Series Scope and Content
Founded in 1980, Daisy Systems was a computer-aided engineering company that specialized in electronic design automation (EDA).
The company manufactured software for EDA used by chip designers to design and analyze semiconductor chips. From 1982 to 1987,
Cohen worked in the physical layout division on products that facilitated the placement and routing of gate arrays and later
for the creation of full custom integrated circuits. Daisy Systems ran the software on the company's proprietary workstations,
which were based on the Intel 8086 family of chips. They used PL/M as their language for most projects, but towards the end
of Cohen's work at Daisy Systems, they began using C. The program listings in this series date from 1983 to 1986, and contain
a number of complete listings of various systems that Cohen worked on over the years. A small number of folders also hold
related 8-inch floppy disks. This series is arranged alphabetically by title.
102784573
Daisy Systems documentation and manuals
1983-1985
102784575
Design rule checker (DRC)/Electrical rules checker (ERC) listings
1986-11-17
102784574
Elite database system (EDS) listings
1986-01-21
102785200
GGO system
1985-08-01
102784572
Mega place and route (MPR) project
1985-07-31
102785201
MKMOTO, version 4.0.0
1983-08-03
102784571
PIM system
1985-01-17
102785199
PINUP, version 4.0.0
1983-08-03
102784544
PLACE auto/interactive placement system modules
1983
102784570
PLACE system, version 4.01.00.01
1984-01-19
102785198
PLACE system, version 4.01.03
1983-10-19
Other program listings, Series 3,
1979-1981
Series Scope and Content
The other listings series contains small amounts of program listings from ENSCO and ROLM. The ENSCO software was a research
project for a DARPA contract, where they developed statistical analysis software to determine real sources of sounds in the
ocean, such as ships or submarines, as opposed to random noise. This series also contains program listings of Fortran testing
code as well as code to have an IEC plasma display device emulate a Calcomp plotter, both of which are likely from when Cohen
consulted for ROLM. This series is arranged alphabetically by title.
102784576
ENSCO M-out-of-N software project
1981
102784577
ROLM Fortran testing code
1979
Books and manuals, Series 4,
1979-1990
Series Scope and Content
The books and manuals series holds manuals, standards, reference books, and directories. Included are two IBM manuals from
the early 1980s, a draft of the ANSI standards for the programming language C, a reference book about parallel processing,
and Intel service and product directories from 1989 and 1990. This series is arranged chronologically.
102784579
IBM virtual machine/system product : system product editor user's guide
1980-07
102784578
IBM virtual machine/system product : system product editor command and macro reference
1982-03
102784580
Draft of proposed American National Standard for Information Systems programming language
C
1986-10-10
102784581
Parallel processing : a primer
1987
102784584
Intel directory of consultants' services
1989
102784583
Intel literature guide, 3rd quarter 1989
1989
102784585
Intel directory of consultants' services
1990
102784582
Intel product guide
1990
