Description
The Mark Halpern papers consists of technical papers and reports, conference proceedings, manuals, the majority of which were
published by IBM, and periodicals that document programming languages and computer technologies from 1955 through 1990, with
the bulk of the material from 1959 to 1973. Included in the collection are papers authored by Halpern and others about programming
languages, computing, and military electronics.
Background
Mark Halpern was born on March 1, 1931 in New York, New York. He received a BA from City College of New York in 1951 and went
on to pursue a PhD in English Language and Literature at Columbia University. However, in 1957, Halpern left his doctoral
program at Columbia to begin work for IBM as a computer programmer. This transition occurred just months after IBM’s Programming
Research Department announced the release of Fortran, and much of Halpern’s training and work at IBM involved working with
this new programming language. In 1961, Halpern left IBM and began working at the Palo Alto Research Laboratories of Lockheed
Missiles and Space Company (LMSC) as the Head of Programming Application Research. During his time at LCSC, Halpern made significant
progress on XPOP, a macroprocessor-based programming system.
Extent
8.75 Linear feet,
7 record cartons
Restrictions
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.
Availability
The collection is open for research.