Albert Eugene Smith (1907-1973) was a computing pioneer who worked for the U.S. Navy following World War II. He founded the ''Digital Computer Newsletter'' published by the Navy from 1949 through 1968. Smith also participated in the development of the

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily us ...

programming language. Smith was born June 26, 1907, in

Marshall, Illinois Marshall is a city in and the county seat of Clark County, Illinois, United States, located approximately west of Terre Haute, Indiana. The population was 3,947 at the 2020 census. History Marshall was officially organized by William B. Archer ...

. He graduated from Indiana Central College (now

University of Indianapolis The University of Indianapolis (UIndy) is a private United Methodist Church-affiliated university in Indianapolis, Indiana. It offers Associate, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees. It was founded in 1902 as Indiana Central University and ...

), and completed an M.A. in physics at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

. He taught high school and junior college until the outbreak of World War II. Smith was on active duty in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1946, completing his tour as a lieutenant commander. In June, 1946, he joined the computer section of the Mathematics Branch of the

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

(ONR).

Postwar computing

While at ONR and later at the U.S. Navy's

Bureau of Ships The United States Navy's Bureau of Ships (BuShips) was established by Congress on 20 June 1940, by a law which consolidated the functions of the Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuC&R) and the Bureau of Engineering (BuEng). The new bureau was to ...

, Smith oversaw research contracts including Whirlwind and the Harvard calculators. Starting in 1951, Smith collaborated with

Mina Rees Mina Spiegel Rees (August 2, 1902 – October 25, 1997) was an American mathematician. She was the first female President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1971) and head of the mathematics department of the Office of Na ...

and

Grace Murray Hopper Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of com ...

to organize a series of seminars on computing development. In 1946, Smith represented the ONR at the

Moore School Lectures ''Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers'' (popularly called the "Moore School Lectures") was a course in the construction of electronic digital computers held at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical ...

organized by the

ENIAC ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one packa ...

team. The following year, Smith compiled summaries of active computer projects and published a survey of their activities. This led to the Navy's ''Digital Computer Newsletter''.

COBOL

In April, 1959, a group of computer manufacturers and users met at the University of Pennsylvania to plan the development of a computer language for business applications. At the time, business-oriented languages were built to work with specific computer systems. This new effort would seek to build a language whose programs could be easily adapted to run on other computers. Gene Smith represented the Navy's Bureau of Ships at that meeting. The development was divided among three task forces: * Short Range – chaired by Grace Hopper * Intermediate Range – chaired by Gene Smith * Long Range – chaired by

Saul Gorn Saul Gorn (10 November 1912 – 22 February 1992) was an American pioneer in computer and information science who was a member of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 30 years. Gorn was hir ...

The COBOL language evolved from proposals developed by the Short Range Task Force. Smith remained active in the COBOL community through the Conference on Data System Languages (CODASYL) until his retirement.

References

External links

* Archive of ''Digital Computer Newsletter'' on

DTIC The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC, pronounced "Dee-tick") is the repository for research and engineering information for the United States Department of Defense (DoD). DTIC's services are available to DoD personnel, federal governm ...

* Second archive, less numbers, better quality {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Albert Eugene 1907 births People from Marshall, Illinois University of Indianapolis alumni University of Illinois alumni United States Navy officers 1973 deaths Military personnel from Illinois United States Navy personnel of World War II