Applied Data Research
Founded | 1959 |
---|---|
Founder | Martin Goetz, Sherman Blumenthal, Ellwood Kauffman, Dave McFadden, Bernard Riskin, Robert Wickenden, and Stephen Wright |
Defunct | 1986 |
Fate | Acquired |
Successor | Ameritech |
Headquarters | , |
Services | independent contract programming |
Applied Data Research (ADR) was a large software vendor from the 1960s until the mid-1980s. ADR is often described as "the first independent software vendor".[1]
Founded in 1959, ADR was originally a contract development company. ADR eventually built a series of its own products. ADR's widely used major packages included: Autoflow for automatic flowcharting, which is often cited as one of the first commercial software applications;[2] Roscoe, a remote job submission environment; MetaCOBOL, an extensible macro processor for the COBOL language; and The Librarian, for source-code management.
The company's original office was in a small office building along U.S. Route 206 in Princeton Township, New Jersey.[3] Later during the 1960s, they were part of a data center located on Route 206 across from Princeton Airport. The center was destroyed by fire in 1969 when a light plane crashed into it on approach to the airport, but there were no serious injuries among either the pilot or the workers in the building.[4] In 1980, the company moved to a facility further along Route 206, that was just north of Princeton in Montgomery Township, New Jersey.[5]
First software patent
ADR received the first
ADR IBM lawsuit
ADR instigated litigation in Federal Court against IBM[8] with accusations that IBM was "retarding the growth of the independent software industry" [8] and "monopolizing the software industry", leading to IBM's famous unbundling of software and services in 1969. Legal actions against IBM also had the support of ADAPSO.[2]
In 1970, ADR and Programmatics, a
The Librarian
A popular ADR product was
Roscoe
Roscoe (Remote OS Conversational Operating Environment, originally marketed as ROSCOE, was a software product for IBM Mainframes.[12] It is a text editor and also provides some operating system functionality such as the ability to submit batch jobs similar to ISPF[a] or XEDIT.
The ability to support 200+ concurrent active users and still have low overhead is based on a Single address space architecture.[14][dubious ]
The RPF (Roscoe Programming Facility)[15][b] is a scripting language with string processing capability.[17]
Compass
ADR bought Massachusetts Computer Associates, also known as Compass, in the late 1960s.[18]
Datacom/DB and IDEAL
ADR later purchased the
Dispute with Nixdorf
ADR licensed DATACOM/DB to TCSC, a firm which sold modified versions of IBM's
Acquired, twice
ADR was sold to Ameritech in 1986 and was kept intact as a subsidiary.
In 1988 Ameritech sold ADR to
Computer Associates subsequently integrated the company into its Systems Products Division and new Information Products Division.[22] Roscoe was marketed as CA-Roscoe,[12] and The Librarian became known as CA Librarian.[23]
Notes
- ^ There were capabilities available in ISPF and not in Roscoe; ditto for vice versa.[13]
- ^ Not to be confused with another RPF, "Rob's Programming Facility ... developed by Rob Prins ... of the ING Bank in Amsterdam" systems programming group, which subsequently "stopped using ROSCOE" for system/administrative tasks.[16]
References
- ^ "Prerelational DBMS vendors — a quick overview". Software Memories. February 9, 2006. Retrieved August 5, 2011.
- ^ a b c Lee, Timothy B. (March 28, 2014). "In new case, Supreme Court revisits the question of software patents". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014.
- S2CID 3031867.
- ^ "Light Plane Hits Building in Princeton". Asbury Park Press. Associated Press. November 14, 1969. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Ditzel, Herb (January 31, 1980). "Montgomery: barbecues, brooks before business". The Courier-News. Central New Jersey. p. D-11 – via Newspapers.com.
- United States Patent Office, Patent number: 3380029
- ^ New York Times , June 12, 1968, "Computer Program Patent", p. 69
- ^ a b The Washington Post, April 23, 1969, Dow Jones News Service, "Suit Against IBM Charges Violations", p. D9
- ^ New York Times , Douglas W. Cray, August 21, 1970, "A.D.R. Trust Suit Settled by I.B.M.", p. 50
- ISSN 0010-4841,
The Librarian from Applied Data Research, Inc, Panvalet from Pansophic Systems, Inc. and the Westinghouse Disk Utility from Westinghouse Electric Corp. continue to top the "systems" list with more than 3,000 sites to each of their credits.
- ^ "Nearly 6,500 ... (C) 1988. "The LIBRARIAN - Total Control of Your Software Asset" (PDF).
- ^ a b "CA Roscoe Interactive Environment". CA Technologies.
- ^ "ROSCOE RPF Facility and ISPF Functional Differences". Archived from the original on 2019-05-12. Retrieved 2019-05-12.
- ^ "CA Roscoe Interactive (PRODUCT SHEET)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-05-10. Retrieved 2019-05-10.
- ^ "Step 2 — Create an RPF to Invoke File-AID".
The RPF (ROSCOE Programming Facility) shown ...
[permanent dead link] - ^ "RPF User's Guide Version 1 Release 9.7" (PDF).
- ^ ROSCOE Handbook. Applied Data Research.
SR00-20-20
- ^ Rosemary Hamilton, "Computervision turns believer after Compass helps convert software", Computerworld, July 14, 1986, p. 20
- ISSN 0010-4841
- ISSN 0010-4841
- ^ Petronico, Theresa (November 21, 1988). "The Swift and Traumatic Firings At Applied Data Research". NJBiz.com.
- Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
- ^ "Computer Associates: News ..." Computerworld (Advertisement). October 8, 1990. p. 37.
External links
- www.softwarehistory.org – Martin A. Goetz, "How ADR Got Into the Software Products Business and Found Itself Competing Against IBM" (1998)
- Oral history interview with Martin Goetz, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
- Software Memories – Some basic facts about ADR