Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
food, and carry the burden just like the recruits themselves. This was an early exam-
ple of action research on Nygaard's part, and it shows his instinct for seeing the dif-
ference between humans on the one hand and goods and machines on the other in
experimental settings or modelling situations. It also points towards his later view
which regarded program development as a social activity [19].
Nygaard later said [20] that “ my ambition was to build up OR as an experimental
and theoretical science in Norway. I wanted our group to be reckoned as being among
the top groups in the world in three to five years, and selected jobs and job strategies
accordingly ”. Nygaard was central in founding the Norwegian OR Society (NORS) in
1959, and chaired it the first five years. In 1960, acknowledging the achievements of
Nygaard and his group, The International Federation of Operational Research (IFORS)
asked NORS to arrange the 3 rd international OR conference in Oslo.
Between 1959 and 1963 Nygaard's professional life changed completely. He was
asked by representatives of Norwegian industry to establish a group for civilian OR at
The Norwegian Computing Center (NCC) [16]. 3 When Nygaard accepted the position
at NCC in 1960, much to the chagrin of the
NDRE Director, most of his NDRE OR
group followed him 4 . In the autumn of 1963
Ole-Johan Dahl also joined Nygaard at NCC.
In May 1962 UNIVAC invited about 100
European computer people to the US to see
their new UNIVAC 1107 computer. Nygaard
accepted the invitation and took along a
paper he had written about his early
SIMULA ideas. The ideas caught on in
UNIVAC and resulted in an 1107 offer to
NCC at half price in return for a SIMULA
compiler and a Linear Programming package
that NCC planned. During some hard work-
ing summer months Nygaard, by establish-
ing clever alliances, managed to convince
the Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific
and Industrial Research (NTNF) that the
1107 offer was a rare occasion of national
importance, secured initial funding for the
1107, and in October 1962 had the UNIVAC
and SIMULA contracts signed. The Oslo IFORS conference went successfully in
June 1963 and the UNIVAC 1107 arrived in August.
This very intense period has been vividly described elsewhere by Bemer [1], Dahl
and Nygaard [3], and Holmevik [9]. Holmevik also describes the cooperative process
3 NCC was established in 1952 by NTNF as a national coordinator of computing for pure and
applied research and re-established in 1958 as a research institute to promote the use of com-
puters and quantitative methods.
4 Nygaard had for some time been in conflict with the NDRE director who, according to Ny-
gaard, didn't want an OR group to do scientific research and provide support for decision
makers, but preferred researchers to point out “ the correct solution ” for the military estab-
lishment. He was “ happy to see a development that gave more power to his institute ” [20].
From right: Dahl and Nygaard explain
class and object to Sigurd Kubosch
and Bjørn Myhrhaug, central imple-
mentors of UNIVAC and IBM main-
frame SIMULA 67 compilers
Search WWH ::




Custom Search