Charles Bachman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Charles W. Bachman | |
| Born | December 11, 1924  Manhattan, Kansas |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Computer Science |
| Institutions | Dow Chemical General Electric Cullinet Bachman Information Systems |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
| Known for | Integrated Data Store |
| Notable awards | ACM Turing Award |
Charles William Bachman (Dec 11, 1924, Manhattan, Kansas) is an American computer scientist, who spent his entire career as an industrial researcher rather than in academia. He is particularly known for his work in the area of databases.
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[edit] Biography
Born during 1924 in Kansas, Bachman attended high school in East Lansing, Michigan before joining the Army Anti Aircraft Artillery Corp, with which during World War II he spent two years in the Southwest Pacific Theater, March 1944 through February 1946 in New Guinea, Australia and the Philippine Islands. Here he was first exposed to and used fire control computers for aiming 90 mm guns. After his discharge from the military, he attended Michigan State College and graduated in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering (Tau Beta Phi). In 1950 he graduated with a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. At the same time he had attended Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and completed three quarters of the requirements for an MBA.[1]
Bachman spent his entire career as practising software engineer rather than in academia. Initially starting work in 1950 at Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan, he rose to the position of Data Processing manager before leaving in 1960 to join General Electric, where he developed the Integrated Data Store (IDS), one of the first database management systems. Working in conjunction with Weyerhaeuser Lumber, he developed the first multiprogramming access to the IDS database. Later at GE he developed the "dataBasic" product that offered database support to the Basic Language timesharing users. Later in his career, he joined a smaller firm, Cullinane Information Systems (later called Cullinet), which offered a version of IDS that was called IDMS and supported the IBM mainframes.
He received the ACM Turing Award in 1973 for "his outstanding contributions to database technology". He was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 1977 for his pioneering work in database systems. He is listed in the Database Hall of Fame.
Bachman papers[2] from 1951 to 2007 are collected at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. This collection contains detailed archival material describing database software development. Includes documentation on Dow Chemical (1951-1960), General Electric (1960-1970), Honeywell Information Systems (1970-1981), Cullinane Database Systems/Cullinet (1972-1986), Bachman Information Systems, Inc. (1982-1996) as well as several professional organizations.
[edit] Work
[edit] Operation research
At Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan, Bachman worked as an engineer, focusing on operation research issues, including work on the development of methods for return-on-investment calculations, using punched card machines. In 1957, he was appointed the first head of Dows Central Data Processing department, where he was responsible for preparing the way for the arrival of its first big digital computer. Bachman organized a feasibility study to select a new machine and hired a staff of programmers and analysts. He became involved in the design of programs to simply the file maintenance and report generation process, and also worked on the information theory .[3]
[edit] Generic manufacturing information and control system
In 1961, Bachman went to work for General Electric in New York City, where he worked for a corporate staff group providing internal consulting services. He was assigned to an integrated systems project to produce a generic manufacturing information and control system (MIACS) for GE departments, using the firms new GE 225 computer.[3]
The MIACS application system that came from this project contained many elements, which underlay most, current day, manufacturing control systems. It did manufacturing planning, parts explosion, factory dispatching, handled factory feedback and replanning as required to handle new orders and correct for changing factory circumstances. The MIACS system contained the first version of the Integrated Data Store (IDS) database management system which was the basis for General Electrics IDS and IDS II, Cullinet's IDMS and a host of other DBMS based on Bachman's network data model. IDS was the first disk-based database management system used in production. It seized a number of new opportunities available at that time and created a unique product. It was built upon a "virtual memory" system that was being applied to the storage and retrieval of dynamic and permanent data.[1]
[edit] Database management systems
In 1964, Bachman transferred to GEs Computer Department in Arizona, where he worked on a number of other database related projects including the GE 400 IDS, GE 600 IDS, DataBASIC, a personal data storage system, and WEYCOS 1 and 2, both built for Weyerhaeuser Lumber. The latter two were an attempt to build a complex online management information system around a database. Bachman believes WEYCOS 2 produced the first database management system able to support multiple application programs executing simultaneously against the same database. Bachman also worked with Warren Simmons, Bill Olle and others on the CODASYL Data Base Task Group during the late 1960s. The database standards produced by this group were heavily influenced by IDS and by Bachman's ideas.[3]
[edit] Role data models
When Honeywell acquired GEs computer business in 1970, Bachman worked for the merged operation in Honeywell's advanced research group, in Boston. He continued to work on database topics, investigating what he called the role data model and serving on an ANSI-SPARC committee intended to standardize database systems. While failing in this objective, this committee made a highly influential distinction between external, conceptual, and internal database schemata. In 1974 Bachman had a well known meeting with Ted Codd, creator of the relational data model, where he debated Codd on the merits of the two approaches.[3]
[edit] Three schema approach
Bachman also chaired the ISO committee working on Open Systems Interconnection (OSI), well known for its elaboration of a seven layer model for computer communication.[3] He served as Vice Chairman with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) SPARC's Study Group on DBMS, to explore the possible standardization database management languages. The group report spelled out the first architectural statement about the various interfaces and protocols required to support the data independence concept and established what is now broadly known as the "Three schema approach"[1].
[edit] Enterprise database design
In 1981, Bachman went to work for Cullinane Database Systems, a major software company built around IDMS. While at Cullinane, he supported marketing, and continued the ISO/OSI committee work, while working on tools to model high level schemata for enterprise database design and translate them into data definitions. He also worked on the partnership set data model, which was granted a US patent, and used as the basis for an enhanced network data model and conceptual schema modeling.[3]
[edit] Bachman Information Systems
In 1983, he founded Bachman Information Systems that developed a line of Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) products. The centerpiece of these products was the BACHMAN/Data Analyst, which provided graphic support to the creation and maintenance of Bachman Diagrams. It was featured in IBM's Reengineering Cycle marketing program, combining:
- the reverse engineering of obsolete mainframe databases,
- data modeling,
- forward engineering to new physical databases, and
- optimization of physical database designs for performance and DBMS specifics.
The company obtained venture capital funding, grew rapidly and made a successful IPO. Despite enjoying success with its Data Analyst product with its reverse and forward engineering capabilities, the firm struggled financial and managerially, including an initially successful, but ill-fated, spell as an IBM Business Partner. It eventually merged with Cadre Systems to create Cayenne Software, which was acquired by Sterling Software in 1998, which was subsequently acquired by Computer Associates. Since then Bachman has worked as a database consultant to Constellar Systems and in 2006 was still working with Cbr Systems.[3]
[edit] Publications
Bachman published dozens of publications and papers[5], a selection:
- 1962. "Precedence Diagrams: The Key to Production Planning, Scheduling and Control." In: ProCo Features. Supplement No 24, August 24. .
- 1965. "Integrated Data Store." in: DPMA Quarterly, January 1965.
- 1969. "Software for Random Access Processing." in: Datamation April 1965.
- 1969. "Data Structure Diagrams." in: DataBase: A Quarterly Newsletter of SIGBDP. vol. 1, no. 2, Summer 1969.
- 1972. "Architecture Definition Technique: Its Objectives, Theory, Process, Facilities, and Practice." co-authored with J. Bouvard. in: Data Description, Access and Control: Proceedings of the 1972 ACM-SIGFIDET Workshop, November 29-December 1, 1972.
- 1972. "The Evolution of Storage Structures." In: Communications of the ACM vol. 15, no. 7, July 1972.
- 1972-73. "Set Concept for Data Structure." In: Encyclopedia of Computer Science, 1972-1973.
- 1973. "The Programmer as Navigator." In: Communications of the ACM vol. 16, no. 11, November 1973.
- 1974. "Implementation Techniques for Data Structure Sets." In: Data Base Management Systems, 1974.
- 1977. "Why Restrict the Modeling Capability of Codasyl Data Structure Sets?" In: National Computer Conference vol. 46, 1977.
- 1978. "Commentary on the CODASYL Systems Committee's Interim Report on Distributed Database Technology." National Computer Conference vol. 47, 1978.
- 1978. "DDP Will Be Infinitely Affected, So Managers Beware!" in: DM, March 1978.
- 1980. "The Impact of Structured Data Throughout Computer-Based Information Systems." In: Information Processing 80, 1980.
- 1980. "The Role Data Model Approach to Data Structures." In; International Conference on Data Bases, March 24, 1980.
- 1982. "Toward a More Complete Reference Model of Computer-Based Information Systems." Co-authored with Ronald G. Ross. In: Computers and Standards 1, 1982.
- 1983. "The Structuring Capabilities of the Molecular Data Model." In; Entity-Relationship Approach to Software Engineering. C. G. Davis, S. Jajodia, and R. T. Yeh. eds. June 1983.
- 1987. "A Case for Adaptable Programming." In: Logic vol. 2, no. 1, Spring 1987.
- 1989. "A Personal Chronicle: Creating Better Information Systems, with Some Guiding Principles." In: IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering vol. 1, no. 1, March 1989.
[edit] See Also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Charles W. (Charlie) Bachman (Dec. 11, 1924 - ) at www.computerhistory.org.
- ^ Charles W. Bachman papers 1951-2007
- ^ a b c d e f g Thomas Haigh (2006) Interviewer. "Charles W. Bachman interview: September 25-26, 2004; Tucson, Arizona". Source: ACM Oral History interviews table of contents. Article No. 2, 2006.
- ^ Jean-Baptiste Waldner (1992). CIM: Principles of Computer Integrated Manufacturing. John Wiley & Sons.
- ^ Charles W. Bachman Papers, 1951-- at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota -- Collection contains archival materials detailing database software development. Includes documentation on Dow Chemical (1951-1960), General Electric (1960-1970), Honeywell Information Systems (1970-1981), Cullinane Database Systems/Cullinet (1972-1986), Bachman Information Systems, Inc. (1982-1996), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) (1971-1982), American National Standards Institute (ANSI) (1978-1983) as well as several international standard organizations.
[edit] External links
- Charles W. Bachman Papers, 1951-2007 at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
- Charles W. (Charlie) Bachman at www.computerhistory.org.
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