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Report by Professor Emeritus Jack Minker

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Report by Professor Emeritus Jack Minker BEGINNING OF COMPUTING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND Jack Minker [email protected] Department of Computer Science and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies University of Maryland at College Park College Park, Maryland, U.S.A. January 8, 2004 ABSTRACT Computing as a University of Maryland-wide activity started formally on February 1,1962 with the hiring of Professor Werner C. Rheinboldt as Director of the Computer Science Center. This paper traces the beginnings of computing at Maryland starting with the use of computers in the late 1940s and the first courses that taught computer programming. It describes the events leading to the hiring of Rheinboldt, the formation of the Computer Science Center, Rheinboldt’s objectives to provide an outstanding computation facility, with research and educational components, and how those objectives were achieved. It discusses the role of Mr. John Menard, Assistant Director of the Computer Science Center and the accomplishments of Professor William F. Atchison as Director of the Computer Science Center, following Professor Rheinboldt’s resignation as Director in 1965. The developments of the start of the Department of Computer Science on July 1, 1973 are traced with Acting Chairman Professor William F. Atchison, through the appointment of Professor Jack Minker as the first permanent Chairman of the Department in 1974 and the five years of his tenure to 1979. It discusses Minker’s role in the development of the Department to be among the leading departments of computer science in the United States. DEDICATED TO1: Werner C. Rheinboldt John Menard and William F. Atchison 1The history of computing and the Department of Computer Science owes a great debt to Werner C. Rheinboldt, the first Director of the Center, who had the vision to make it all happen. He was assisted ably by John Menard who was Assistant Director of the Center. William F. Atchison succeeded Rheinboldt as Director and was the Chairman of the Curriculum 68 Report of the ACM that defined the curriculum for computer science. PREFACE One of the projects I wanted to undertake in my ‘retirement’ was to write a history of how computing started at the University of Maryland up to the beginning years of the Department of Computer Science. I came to the University of Maryland as a Visiting Member in 1967. I had been invited to the University by the then Director of the Computer Science Center, William F. Atchison. In 1966 I invited Bill Atchison to be a member of my Program Committee for the National ACM Conference that had its meeting in Washington, DC. Bill agreed to be a member and we got to know one another then. I asked Bill if I could come to the University as a visitor for a year. He graciously invited me and, the next year the faculty invited me to stay as a permanent faculty member. I was delighted to become a faculty member and subsequently became the first permanent Chair of the Department of Computer Science in 1974, one year after the Department started on July 1, 1973. Computing started as a formal discipline at Maryland on February 1, 1962. I thought that it would be interesting to develop a history of the period from the late 1940s when faculty at Maryland first started to use computers until the end of my chairmanship in 1979. To extend the history beyond that period to the present time would have been a major undertaking and would have diverted me from other projects I wanted to do, namely to write about the involvement that I had in human rights for computer scientists, and scientists in general. My objective was to cover several periods: the late 1940s–1961; the period from 1961–1962 when Werner C. Rheinboldt was offered the position of Director of computing and was hired as a consul- tant until the time he was able to start on February 1, 1962; the period from 1962–1973 when the Computer Science Center was formed; and the period 1973–1979 when the Department of Computer Science was in its infancy and covered the period when I was Chairman of the Department. It seemed to me that since I had been part of this history, I would have been able to reconstruct what had happened, except, perhaps for the period before I joined the faculty. This was partially the case; however, reconstructing events in each period had its own challenges. In the period 1940–1961 I wanted to learn who had taught the first computer courses, who was on committees that had tried to convince the University to provide computer capabilities for research and education, and who had asked that such a committee be initiated. To find answers to these questions, I turned to the Hornbake Library. I scoured the minutes of the Board of Regents, went through the Course Catalog descriptions from 1945–1965, and the extensive collection of Vice-President for Academic Affairs, R. Lee Hornbake. I was able to reconstruct the first courses in computing. However, I could not find the names of those faculty who had urged that a committee be formed to investigate purchasing a central computer for the University. Although I had found that Dr. John Toll, Chairman of the Physics Department had been chair of such a committee, I could neither find who the members of his committee were nor who had encouraged the University to form such a committee with Dr. Toll as its Chairman. Dr. Toll has turned over his extensive files to the Hornbake Library; however they are not indexed and it would have been a prohibitive task to go through over 60 years of his files. I phoned Dr. Toll, to determine if he could recall what happened in the 1950s, but he could not remember. He thought that Dr. Monroe Martin, who was Director of the Institute for Fluid Dynamics, might have been on that committee. It took a while to find where I might reach Dr. Martin, who was over 90 years old. I found that he was in a nursing home, and phoned him. Unfortunately, he did not recall much from that period. Others who I tried to contact were either deceased, ill, or simply did not recall. Although there were impediments, I was able to piece together much of what happened in this time frame. The period starting with the search for a Director of Computing in approximately late 1960 up to the time Werner Rheinboldt was hired is covered extensively. This is also true of the period from February 1, 1962 to July 1, 1973, which covers the Computer Science Center. During this i period, Rheinboldt was engaged in developing a computing center; an educational program which eventually led to degrees at the Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy and Baccalaureate levels; and a research program. These eventually led to the formation of the Department of Computer Science. It would not have been possible for me to cover this material without the help and cooperation of John Menard, who was the Assistant Director for computing under Rheinboldt when the Computer Science Center was first formed. Menard and Rheinboldt worked together for several years before they both came to Maryland. Menard kept all of his files and took them with him when he left the Center. He sent some of his files to the Department, when he retired. Most of these files were sent to the Hornbake Library, and some were given to me. In addition, Menard kept five large notebooks that he retains in his home, and made them available to me. He also read the material I wrote, commented upon it, and sent me his personal remembrances of events in e-mail messages. His interest and help were invaluable. I checked out his personal remembrances, wherever possible with documents that I found. His memory was fantastic, but not infallible. Rheinboldt also read drafts of the paper, explained some things, corrected others, and was extremely helpful. The files of Dr. Hornbake were also invaluable. Dr. Hornbake maintained all of his correspondence. The Hornbake Library has indexed his files and I was able to access those that dealt with computing as related to this history. To my surprise, the task of reconstructing events in the period 1973–1979 was much harder than I had imagined. It is not easy to reconstruct events in the past based on memory alone. I was well aware of that problem, but thought that it would be relatively straight forward to reconstruct events after reading some of the documents available. I was correct on this point; however, to my consternation and surprise the documentation that covered the first year of the Department, and my chairmanship were not available. This was not because I was lax in keeping important documentation, but because without consulting the faculty, the documentation that I left behind in the chairman’s office was destroyed. There was a need for space for files in the department administrative offices and, rather than consulting faculty or placing the files in a repository, they were destroyed. Fortunately I was able to reconstruct events from Annual Reports that I started, which contained detailed information needed for the history of the period, and also from an ad-hoc newsletter, PRINTOUT, that I asked Dr. Richard Hamlet, who was then in the Department, to be Editor-in Chief. It was fortunate that Hamlet had retained copies of the Annual Report, and most of the PRINTOUT newsletters, and kindly made them available to me. From this material I was able to reconstruct the material from 1973–1979.
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