John Backus
Pioneer in computer programming languages, IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University, 1950-52
For profound, influential, and lasting contributions to the design of practical high-level programming systems, notably through his work on FORTRAN, and for seminal publication of formal procedures for the specification of programming languages.
John Backus died at his home in Ashland, Oregon, March 17, 2007.
In 2004 I had the following correspondence with him, after an introduction:
____________________________
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 12:06:14 EST
From: Frank da Cruz <fdc@columbia.edu>
To: John Backus <jbackus1@xxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Columbia University Computing History
Hi John, it's great to make contact with you. Ever since I came to work in what we still call Watson Lab, you have been the local hero.
I first encountered computing and Fortran in 1965 in the Army, and had arrived at Columbia by 1966 (when IBM was still here, in the very building I'm sitting in right now, but I didn't know it at the time). In those days, Watson Lab was still littered with plugboards, card decks, and little wires. I still have somebody's 1940s Steelcase desk and a pile of EAM manuals (my first "programming" experience was on the 407).
Paul [McJones] pointed out my web thing on Columbia computing history:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/which, as I guess you have seen, can be followed through endless links to sub-pages on people, equipment, and events, plus several online books and papers. I started working on this when I discovered I had become (almost) the oldest guy around here, and everybody's favorite source for nostalgia.
Once I started writing, however, I became far more interested in the Eckert and Watson Lab eras than in whatever I remember first-hand. Especially once I started receiving calls and emails from veterans of those years, including Herb Grosch, Eric Hankam, Ellie Krawitz, Ken Schreiner, and Seymour Koenig, all of whom you probably remember (and most reachable by email), as well as many others from the years after you left. Eric still lives in the same apartment, right around the corner. Ellie is at NYU. Herb is at the University of Toronto.
This place has one heck of a history, one that's largely unknown at Columbia, never mind the rest of the world. Coincidentally, Columbia is having its 250th Anniversary this year, and I've become the de facto computer historian for the occasion, slowly but surely getting material into the C250 website:
http://www.columbia.edu/c250/e.g. Hollerith (and soon Eckert) as "Columbians Ahead of Their Time", as well as into the commemorative volume ("Stand Columbia").
If you look through the computing history pages, you'll see I've tried to identify a fair number of firsts (some of them arguable) that can be claimed by Columbia and/or Watson Lab at Columbia such as the first automated scientific computation, the founding meeting of the ACM, and (this one is in your ballpark) the SSEC, about which there is a school of thought that claims it is the first true von-Neumann architecture computer (in that it was capable of stored-program operation and mixing instructions and data in the same store, even though that was not its normal mode of operation, and even though its internal memory was tiny):
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/ssec.htmlWell, I don't want this note to be too long, so I'll break off by saying that I'd be delighted to hear from you and to incorporate (with credit of course) anything you'd like to add, as well as any corrections. I have a very flimsy biographical sketch here:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/backus.htmland would love to flesh it out, particularly in any matters relating to Columbia or Watson Lab. (There's a current thread on the Alt.Folklore.Computers newsgroup about where the first Fortran installations were. I'm wondering if you stayed in touch with Watson Lab after you left and sent them early versions for their 650 or NORC.)
Also if you have any recollections of Wallace Eckert, I could add them to his profile:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/eckert.htmlbefore C250 goes public with it.
Thanks!
- Frank
Frank da Cruz
The Kermit Project
Columbia University
612 West 115th Street
New York NY 10025-7799
USA
____________________________
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:00:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Frank da Cruz <fdc@columbia.edu>
To: "John Backus" <jbackus1@xxxxxxx.xxx>
cc: "Dr. Herbert R.J. Grosch" <hgrosch@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Columbia Computing History (again)
Hi John, Herb [Grosch] encouraged me to try contacting you again. I don't have a lot to add to my first message, except that I've done a fair amount of excavating since then and, as Herb noted, have some new material on Eckert's time the Naval Obervatory:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/navalobservatory.html
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/almanac.html
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/tableprinter.html
Even though this stuff has little to do with Columbia, beyond the Eckert connection, I find the War years fascinating, probably because both my parents were in the War so I grew up with it. I even have a little library of wartime Air Almanacs on my bookshelf!
I was looking through Backus material on the Web just now and noticed some parallels:
- You went to the University of Virginia, but left early and joined the Army. Me too (I don't know what UVA was like when you were there but in the early 1960s, all anybody did was drink themselves into a stupor).
- You had some technical training in the Army; me too (it's where I learned key-punching, board wiring, etc, and first saw Fortran and the *mobile* IBM 1410, where it was used for programming the very first "command and control information systems" -- if that was good or bad I don't know but it's history).
- You went to Columbia after the Army -- me too (General Studies), on what was left of the GI Bill.
- You received Bachelors and Masters degrees at Columbia? (Me too) Some of the courses I took in EE (we didn't have a CS department yet) were the same ones originated by Herb Grosch and Wallace Eckert (e.g. Numerical Methods), then still taught by ex-Watson Labbers.
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/hankam.htmlAnyway, I'd be very grateful for whatever you might want to contribute by way of memories, corrections, or photos of your time at Columbia, or anything related to it. My little Backus biography:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/backus.htmlis still quite sketchy, and I'm sure the publication list is FAR from complete (btw, we have a manuscript in our Rare Book library called "An abstract approach to the four color problem and to a theory of maps"; is that yours?)
I guess your main project at Watson Lab was the SSEC. Here's what I have on it:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/ssec.htmlI conclude with a section called "Was the SSEC the First Stored-Program Computer?" which I'd love to get your comments on. Btw, there is a vast treasure trove of SSEC memorabilia at North Carolina State University:
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/archives/collections/pdf/brooke_mc268.pdfbut it seems the only way to access it is in person.
Thanks!
- Frank
____________________________
From: "john backus" <jbackus1@xxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "'Frank da Cruz'" <fdc@columbia.edu>
Cc: "'Dr. Herbert R.J. Grosch'" <hgrosch@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: RE: Columbia Computing History (again)
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 14:26:03 -0700
Hello Frank,
I apologize for not responding to your earlier email, but I received it the day my wife died and things have been in a turmoil since then. I'm still very busy working to edit & publish the not-quite-finished book she'd been working on for the last seven years.
I've explored only a little of the vast material you present online, but what I've seen is fascinating. It's truly amazing how you've managed to capture so many little details. I could spend forever following the intriguing links you provide.
It is amazing how our early paths coincided. And it was true when I was there, too, that all anyone seemed to do at UVA was drink themselves silly. I hope you didn't flunk out like I did! My "career" at Columbia was also financed by the GI bill. I was majoring in math.
I spent very little time at Watson Lab. But remember my stint on the SSEC fondly. (although I think it's an extreme stretch to consider it the first "stored program" computer--even though one of the programs I did used some specially prepared storage cells as the source of an instruction after some data was stored in it.) Hope I can be of some help.
There's so much to say, and so little time, it's probably easier if we talk on the phone. What's a good time to call?
-- John
____________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 12:44:27 EDT
From: Frank da Cruz <fdc@columbia.edu>
To: "john backus" <jbackus1@pacbell.net>
Cc: "'Dr. Herbert R.J. Grosch'" <hgrosch@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Columbia Computing History (again)
I apologize for not responding to your earlier email, but I received it the day my wife died and things have been in a turmoil since then.
That's just about the worst thing I can imagine, I'm so sorry. Next to that, computer nostalgia is inconsequential.I'm still very busy working to edit & publish the not-quite-finished book she'd been working on for the last seven years.
That must be hard. Can I ask what it's about?I've explored only a little of the vast material you present online, but what I've seen is fascinating. It's truly amazing how you've managed to capture so many little details. I could spend forever following the intriguing links you provide.
Thanks, it's a labor of love -- I confess some degree of nostalgia for the days when computers were designed and used by scientists to solve serious problems, compared to today, when they are mainly home entertainment and shopping devices.What I like best about this work is how it attracts people who were here long ago. The site pops up on a web search, or someone tells them about it, then they write to me, and this is how it grows. Plus I have the pleasure of putting long-lost colleagues back in touch (with their permission, of course!)
It is amazing how our early paths coincided. And it was true when I was there, too, that all anyone seemed to do at UVA was drink themselves silly. I hope you didn't flunk out like I did!
I saw the writing on the wall and left before that happened -- "you can't fire me, I quit!" :-)My "career" at Columbia was also financed by the GI bill. I was majoring in math.
The GI Bill was a wonderful thing. Without it, I don't know what my parents would have done after the War. I majored in Sociology, of all things, and soon discovered nobody will pay you to save the world, so wound up (after taxi driving and other odd jobs) working in the Columbia Engineering School and Physics Department, where some professors took me under their wing and gave me programming tasks -- in Fortran of course! -- on their early minicomputers, and encouraged me to take graduate courses. Eventually I got a graduate degree on tuition exemption, was hired at the Computer Center, and have worked here ever since, putting both of my kids through Columbia on tuition exemption too, so I can't complain.I spent very little time at Watson Lab. But remember my stint on the SSEC fondly. (although I think it's an extreme stretch to consider it the first "stored program" computer--even though one of the programs I did used some specially prepared storage cells as the source of an instruction after some data was stored in it.) Hope I can be of some help.
Yes, I know it's a stretch :-)There's so much to say, and so little time, it's probably easier if we talk on the phone. What's a good time to call?
Any time between about 9:00am and 1:00pm or 2:00pm and 6:00pm, eastern time, except this Thursday afternoon I'll be at the dentist.1 xxx xxx-xxxxThanks for getting back to me!
- Frank
(I didn't hear from him after that.)
In 2017, Eleanor Kolchin (formerly Krawitz), who was at Watson Lab in the 1940s and 50s, remarked, ”I positively did know [John] Backus. He was working on developing Fortran... I close my eyes and I can see him. We [in Watson Lab] were [some] of the first people to use Fortran. Every Xmas, we had a party, and since there were not that many people at 612 W 116th Street, and we always had a 'grabbag' ... we all knew one another. I also worked sometimes at the SSEC, we were computing the orbits of the outer planets... one computation going at the SSEC, and I had one going on our Watson Lab computers as a check. I asked to be permitted to keep working at the Watson Lab, because I was taking a masters degree at Columbia then.” (email, April 7, 2017)
Selected Publications:
- Backus, John W., "The IBM 701 Speedcoding System", IBM, New York (10 Sep 1953), 4pp.
- Backus, John W., "The IBM Speedcoding System", The Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, Vol.1 No.1 (Jan 1954), pp.4-6.
- Backus, John W., and Harlan Herrick, "IBM 701 Speedcoding and Other Automatic Programming Systems", Symposium on Automatic Programming for Digital Computers, Office of Technical Services, US Dept of Commerce, Washington DC (May 1954), pp.106-113.
- Specifications for the IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslating System, FORTRAN, IBM Applied Science Division, New York (10 Nov 1954), 43pp.
- Amdahl, G.M, and J.W. Backus, The System Design of the IBM Type 704, IBM Engineering Laboratory, Poughkeepsie NY (1955), 11pp.
- Backus, J.W., et al., The FORTRAN Automatic Coding System, Proceedings of the Western Joint Computing Conference 1957, pp.188-198.
- Backus, J.W., The Syntax and Semantics of the Proposed International Algebraic Language of Zürich ACM-GAMM Conference, Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Processing, UNESCO, 1959, pp.125-132.
- J.W. Backus, et al., and P. Naur (ed.), Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 60, CACM, Vol. 6, p. 1; The Computer Journal, Vol. 9, p. 349; Num. Math., Vol. 4, p. 420. (1963)
- J.W. Backus, "The History of Fortran I, II, and III", Annals of the History of Computing, Vol.1 No.1 (July-September 1979).
References:
- Brennan, Jean Ford, The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University - A History, IBM (1971)
- Shasha, Dennis, and Cathy Lazere, Out of Their Minds: the lives and discoveries of 15 great computer scientists, Copernicus / Springer-Verlag, New York (1995), ISBN: 0-387-97992-1.
- Papers of John W. Backus 1954-1994, US Library of Congress, 2,540 items.
Fortran and Algol References:
- "Preliminary Report, Programming Research Group, Applied Science Division, International Busines Machines Corporation, November 10, 1954, Specifications for The IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslating System, FORTRAN", in Carr. John W. and Norman R. Scott, editors, Notes: Special Summer Conference on Digital Computers and Data Processors, University of Michigan, College of Engineering (Summer 1955).
- IBM 704 Fortran Programmer's Reference Manual (15 Oct 1956).
- IBM 704 Fortran Programmer's Primer (1957).
- IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Special Issue, "FORTRAN's Twenty-Fifth Anniversary", vol.6 No.1 (January 1984).
- Ekman, Torgil, and Carl-Erik Fröberg, Introduction to Algol Programming (Lärobok i ALGOL), Studentlitteratur, Lund, Sweden (1964) and Oxford University Press, London (1967).
Links (last checked 1 July 2018):
- John Backus Oral History Interview, Computer History Museum, September 5, 2005 (transcript).
- John Backus Oral History Interview, Computer History Museum, September 5, 2005 (video).
- ACM Turing Award citation and biography, ACM website (accessed 1 July 2018).
- The IBM SSEC
- Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language Algol 60 by J.W. Backus, P. Naur, et al.
- Backus Normal Form vs. Backus Naur Form (Kelly Morrison)
- FORTRAN - The Pioneering Programming Language, IBM 100, accessed 26 December 2019.
Obituary:
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