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Title: Mark Halpern papers
Identifier/Call Number: X3762.2007
Contributing Institution:
Computer History Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
8.75 Linear feet,
7 record cartons
Date (bulk): Bulk, 1959-1973
Date (inclusive): 1955-1990
Abstract: 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.
languages: The collection is almost entirely in English. There is one Russian manuscript, which has an English translation.
creator:
Halpern, Mark, 1931-
Collection processed by Bo Doub and Kim Hayden, 2015.
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.
[Identification of Item], [Date], Mark Halpern papers, Lot X3762.2007, Box [#], Folder [#], Catalog [#], Computer History
Museum.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Mark Halpern, 2006.
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.
In 1967, Halpern was invited to speak at a conference held internally by IBM and was subsequently re-hired by the company
as part of its Assembler Language Department and Mission in San Jose, California. After two years in this position, Halpern
resigned from IBM for a second time in December of 1969 and worked in a number of brief jobs including developing software
for Fairchild Camera & Instruments and working for Crocker National Bank in Data Processing & Systems Administration.
In 1972, Halpern started working at Tymshare, Inc., a company that provided public time-shared computer networking. Halpern
stayed at Tymshare for almost six years working on the development of a "SuperFORTRAN" compiler with its vendor, the Digital
Equipment Corporation (DEC). In 1978, Halpern left Tymshare for a job as compiler-department manager with the Western Development
Center (WDC) of Datapoint. Halpern’s last job programming and managing software development started in 1983 with a company
called Dialogue Systems (later renamed Enhansys).
After this job, Halpern shifted his career to technical writing, starting in 1987 as a technical writer for Tandem Computers,
Inc. Since then, Halpern has devoted his career to writing and publishing works on various topics relating to technology and
linguistics including two books, Binding Time: Six Studies in Programming Technology and Milieu (Ablex Publishers, 1990) and
Language & Human Nature (Regent Press, 2006).
Scope and Content of the Collection
The Mark Halpern papers contain technical papers and reports, conference proceedings, manuals, and periodicals written and
collected during Halpern’s career as a computer programmer at IBM’s Programming Research Department, Lockheed Missiles and
Space Company, and Tymshare, Inc. Some of the earliest materials in the collection coincide with Halpern’s start at IBM in
1957, just after the release of Fortran and span the following decades until 1990. The bulk of the collection is comprised
of technical papers, reports, and manuals related to specific programming languages and compilers: Fortran, ALGOL, SIMSCRIPT,
Lisp 1.5, JOVIAL , and many others are represented. A smaller amount of material covers hardware and software technologies
and products from Tandem Computers, Inc. and various IBM computers, including the IBM System/360 and IBM 7090. Also of interest
are conference proceedings spanning the 1960s from IBM Programming Symposia, Association for Computing Machinery annual meetings,
a RAND Computer Symposium, and the National Winter Convention on Military Electronics.
The collection is arranged into 4 series:
Series 1, Technical papers and reports, 1957-1983
Series 2, Conference proceedings, 1961-1969
Series 3, Manuals, 1955-1987, bulk 1956-1972
Series 4, Periodicals, 1958-1990, bulk 1958-1974
A computer and commercial software were separated from the main collection. The computer is a Poquet PC unit with integrated
display and keyboard, and slipcase. The software includes IBM 709/7090 program analyzer, and Medhalp Archives and Medhalp
Absolute. To view catalog records for the separated items please search CHM’s online catalog at
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search .
Computer History Museum Fortran Archive collection,
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/fortranarchive/ .
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Compilers
Computer programming languages
Halpern, Mark, 1931-
International Business Machines Corporation
Macros (Domain-specific programming languages)