Charles William Bachman III (December 11, 1924 – July 13, 2017) was an American
computer scientist, who spent his entire career as an industrial researcher, developer, and manager rather than in academia. He was particularly known for his work in the early development of
database management system
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases span ...
s.
His techniques of layered architecture include his namesake
Bachman diagrams.
Biography
Charles Bachman was born in
Manhattan, Kansas
Manhattan is a city and county seat of Riley County, Kansas, United States, although the city extends into Pottawatomie County, Kansas, Pottawatomie County. It is located in northeastern Kansas at the junction of the Kansas River and Big Blue ...
, in 1924, where his father,
Charles Bachman Jr., was the head football coach at
Kansas State College. He attended high school in
East Lansing, Michigan
East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city lies within Ingham County with a smaller portion extending north into Clinton County. At the 2020 Census the population was 47,741. Located directly east of the state capital ...
, where his father served as head football coach at
Michigan State College
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. ...
from 1933-1946.
In
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
he joined the United States Army and spent March 1944 through February 1946 in the
South West Pacific Theater serving in the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Corps in New Guinea, Australia, and the Philippine Islands. There he was first exposed to and used fire control computers for aiming 90 mm guns.
After his discharge in 1946 he attended
Michigan State College
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. ...
and graduated in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, ...
, where he was a member of
Tau Beta Pi.
In mid-1949 he married Connie Hadley.
He then attended the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...
. In 1950, he graduated with a master's degree in mechanical engineering, and had also completed three-quarters of the requirements for an MBA from the university's
Wharton School of Business
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
.
Bachman died on July 13, 2017, at his home in
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was firs ...
, of
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...
at the age of 92.
Work
Bachman spent his entire career as a practicing software engineer or manager in industry rather than in academia.
In 1950 he started working at
Dow Chemical
The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational corporation, multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three List of largest chemical producers, larges ...
in
Midland, Michigan
Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Michigan. The city's population was 42,547 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area, part of the larger Saginaw-Midland-Bay City Co ...
.
In 1957 he became Dow's first data processing manager. He worked with the
IBM user group
SHARE on developing a new version of
report generator software, which became known as
9PAC. However, the planned
IBM 709 order was cancelled before it arrived.
In 1960 he joined
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
, where by 1963 he developed the
Integrated Data Store (IDS), one of the first
database management systems using what came to be known as the
navigational database model, in the Manufacturing Information And Control System (MIACS) product.
Working for customer
Weyerhaeuser Lumber, he developed the first multiprogramming network access to the IDS database, an early
online transaction processing system called WEYCOS in 1965.
Later at GE he developed the "dataBasic" product that offered database support to
Basic language timesharing users.
In 1970, GE sold its computer business to
Honeywell Information Systems, so he and his family moved from
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the o ...
to
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was firs ...
.
In 1981, he joined a smaller firm, Cullinane Information Systems (later
Cullinet), which offered a version of IDS that was called
IDMS
The Integrated Database Management System (IDMS) is a network model (CODASYL) database management system for mainframes. It was first developed at B.F. Goodrich and later marketed by Cullinane Database Systems (renamed Cullinet in 1983). Since ...
and supported IBM mainframes.
Bachman Information Systems
In 1983, he founded Bachman Information Systems, which 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
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
of obsolete mainframe databases,
# data modeling,
#
forward engineering to new physical databases, and
# optimization of physical database designs for performance and DBMS specifics.
In 1991 Bachman Information Systems had their
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...
, trading on the
NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
with the symbol BACH. After reaching a high of $37.75 in February 1992, the price hit $1.75 in 1995.
In 1996, his company merged with Cadre Technology to form Cayenne Software.
He served as president of the combined company for a year, and then retired to
Tucson, Arizona
, "(at the) base of the black ill
, nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town"
, image_map =
, mapsize = 260px
, map_caption = Interactive ...
. He continued to serve as chairman of the board of Cayenne, which was acquired by
Sterling Software in 1998.
Awards
* Bachman received the
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
from the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
(ACM) 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.
* In 2012, Bachman was awarded a
National Medal of Technology and Innovation "for fundamental inventions in database management, transaction processing, and software engineering."
* He was named an
ACM
ACM or A.C.M. may refer to:
Aviation
* AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile
* Air chief marshal
* Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting
* Air cycle machine
* Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia
Computing
* ...
Fellow in 2014 “''For contributions to
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...
technology, notably the
integrated data store”.''
* In 2015, he was made a Fellow of the
Computer History Museum
The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact ...
''for his early work on developing database systems.''
Publications
Bachman published dozens of publications and papers.
[ 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.] 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." 1973 ACM
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
lecture. In: ''Communications of the ACM'' vol. 16, no. 11, November 1973.
pdf
* 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.
After his retirement, Bachman volunteered to help record the history of early software development.
In 2002 he gave a lecture at the
Computer History Museum
The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact ...
on assembling the Integrated Data Store,
and an oral history for the ACM in 2004.
Bachman papers from 1951 to 2007 are available from the
Charles Babbage Institute
The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...
at the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
.
In 2011, he contributed an oral history to the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...
.
See also
*
Bachman diagram
*
Navigational database
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bachman, Charles
1924 births
2017 deaths
American computer scientists
Database researchers
Fellows of the British Computer Society
American software engineers
Turing Award laureates
People from Manhattan, Kansas
People from Midland, Michigan
People from East Lansing, Michigan
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Michigan State University alumni
University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni