Bob Bemer: Difference between revisions

{{Infobox personscientist

| image = BobBemerPortrait.jpg

| caption alt =

| birth_name = Robert William Bemer

| birth_place = [[Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan]], US

| death_place = [[Possum Kingdom Lake]], Texas]], US

'''Robert William Bemer''' (February 8, 1920 &ndash;– June 22, 2004) was a [[computer scientist]] best known for his work at [[IBM]] during the late 1950s and early 1960s.<ref name="thocp">{{cite web |url=http://www.thocp.net/biographies/bemer_bob.htm |title=Biography of Robert William Bemer}}</ref>

Born in [[Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan]], Bemer graduated from [[Cranbrook Schools|CranbrookKingswood School]] in 1936 and took a [[Bachelor of Arts|]] (B.A.]]) in [[Mathematicsmathematics]] at [[Albion College]] in 1940. He earned a Certificatecertificate in [[Aeronauticalaeronautical Engineeringengineering]] at [[Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute]] in 1941.

Bemer began his career as an [[aerodynamicist]] at [[Douglas Aircraft Company]] in 1941, then worked for [[RAND Corporation]] from 1951, [[IBM]] from 1957, [[UNIVAC]] /– [[Sperry Rand]] in 1965, [[Groupe Bull|Bull]] from 1965, [[General Electric]] from 1970, and [[Honeywell]] from 1974.<ref name="Bemer_Resume">{{Cite web |url=http://www.bobbemer.com/BEMER-CV.HTM |title=ArchivedResumé copyof Bob Bemer |access-date=2017-04-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170628111613/http://bobbemer.com/BEMER-CV.HTM |archive-date=2017-06-28 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

He served on the committee which amalgamated the design for his [[COMTRAN]] language with [[Grace Hopper]]'s [[FLOW-MATIC]] and thus produced the specifications for [[COBOL]]. He also served, with [[Hugh McGregor Ross]] and others, on the separate committee which defined the [[ASCII]] character codeset in 1960, contributing several [[Character (computing)|character]]s which hadwere not previously beenformerly used by computers including the [[Escape character|ESCape characterescape]] (<code>ESC</code>), the [[backslash]] character(<code>\</code>), and the [[Bracket#Curly brackets or braces .7B .7D|curly bracketbrackets]] characters(<code>{}</code>).<ref>{{cite web |author-firstlast=BobBemer |author-lastfirst=BemerBob |title=The Great Curly Brace Trace Chase |url=http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/www.bobbemer.com/BRACES.HTM |work=Computer History Vignettes |publisher=Bob Bemer |date=2002-07-07 |access-date=2009-10-11 |url-status=dead |archiveurlarchive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090604210339/http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/www.bobbemer.com/BRACES.HTM |archivedatearchive-date=2009-06-04 }}</ref> As a result, he is sometimes known as ''The Father of ASCII''.<ref name="thocp"/> In 2000, Bemer claimed to have proposed the term [[octetOctet (computing)|octet]] (rather than [[Werner Buchholz]]' "''[[byte]]"'') while heading software development at [[Cie. Bull]], France, between 1965 and 1966.<ref name="Bemer_2000"/> He also proposed the term [[hextet]] for 16-bit groups.<ref name="Bemer_2000"/>

Bemer is probably the earliest proponent of the ''[[Softwaresoftware factory|Software Factory]]'' concept. He mentioned it in his 1968 paper "The economics of program production".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bobbemer.com/FACTORY.HTM |title=The Software Factory Principle |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010406041743/http://www.bobbemer.com/FACTORY.HTM |archive-date=2001-04-06}}</ref>

Other notable contributions to computing include the first publication of the [[time-sharing]] concept in 1957 and the first attempts to prepare for the [[Year 2000 problem]] in publications as early as 1971.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lee |first1=J.A.N. |last2=Rosin |first2=Robert F |date=1992 |title=Time-Sharing at MIT |url=https://archive.org/details/time-sharing-at-mit |journal=IEEE Annals of the History of Computing |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=16 |doi=10.1109/85.145316 |s2cid=30976386 |access-date=October 3, 2022}}</ref> Acting in an advisory capacity, Bob and Honeywell employees Eric Clamons and Richard Keys developed the '''TEX''', the [[Text Executive Programming Language]]'' (TEX).<ref>''{{cite journal |date=August 1978 |title=Introduction to TEX'', p.|page=144 |journal=Interface Age - Aug 1978}}</ref>

In the late 1990s, as a retiree, Bob invented an approach to Y2K (Year 2000 (Y2K) date conversion, to avoid anticipated problems when dates without centuries were compared in programs for which [[source code]] was not availableunavailable. This involved detecting six and eight character operations at run[[Runtime time(program lifecycle phase)|runtime]] and checking their operands, adjusting the comparison so that low years in the new century did not appear to precede the last years of the twentieth century.

Bob Bemer maintained an extensive collection of archival material on early computer software development still online at [https://web.archive.org/web/20140516214531/http://bobbemer.com/ www.bobbemer.com].

Bemer died at his home in [[Possum Kingdom Lake]], [[Texas]] in 2004 at age 84 after a battle with [[cancer]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4138-2004Jun24.html |title=Computer Pioneer Bob Bemer, 84 |author-firstlast=PatriciaSullivan |author-lastfirst=SullivanPatricia |page=B06 |worknewspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=2004-06-25 |access-date=2016-06-15 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/24/bemer_dead_at84/ |title=Programming pioneer Bob Bemer dies at 84 - ASCII, ESC, /, COBOL, Y2K, RIP |work=[[The Register]] |date=2004-06-24 |author-last=Vance |first=Ashlee |author-lastlink=Ashlee Vance |access-date=2016-06-16 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616021834/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/24/bemer_dead_at84/ |archive-date=2016-06-16}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3838845.stm |title=Key computer coding creator dies |publisher=[[BBC]] |date=2004-06-25 |access-date=2016-06-16 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616022108/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3838845.stm |archive-date=2016-06-16}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/06/23/obit.bemer.ap/index.html |title=Computer pioneer dies |publisher=[[CNN]] |date=2004-06-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041204092316/http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/06/23/obit.bemer.ap/index.html |archive-date=2004-12-04 }} [ftp://ftp.eecs.utk.edu/pub/shuford/terminal/ascii_history.txt]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

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<ref name="Bemer_2000">{{cite web |title=Why is a byte 8 bits? Or is it? |author-first=Robert William |author-last=Bemer |author-linkfirst=Robert William Bemer |date=2000-08-08 |work=Computer History Vignettes |url=http://www.bobbemer.com/BYTE.HTM |access-date=2017-04-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403130829/http://www.bobbemer.com/BYTE.HTM |archive-date=2017-04-03 |quote=[…] I came to work for [[IBM]], and saw all the confusion caused by the 64-character limitation. Especially when we started to think about word processing, which would require both upper and lower case. […]<!-- Add 26 lower case letters to 47 existing, and one got 73 --– 9 more than 6 bits could represent.--> I even made a proposal (in view of [[IBM 7030 Stretch|STRETCH]], the very first computer I know of with an 8-bit byte) that would extend the number of [[punch card]] character codes to 256 […].<!-- [1]. Some folks took it seriously. I thought of it as a spoof. --> So some folks started thinking about 7-bit characters, but this was ridiculous. With IBM's STRETCH computer as background, handling 64-character words divisible into groups of 8 (I designed the character set for it, under the guidance of Dr. [[Werner Buchholz]], the man who DID coin the term "[[byte]]" for an 8-bit grouping). […]<!-- [2] --> It seemed reasonable to make a universal 8-bit character set, handling up to 256. In those days my mantra was "powers of 2 are magic". And so the group I headed developed and justified such a proposal […]<!-- [3]. That was a little too much progress when presented to the standards group that was to formalize ASCII, so they stopped short for the moment with a 7-bit set, or else an 8-bit set with the upper half left for future work. --> The [[IBM System 360|IBM 360]] used 8-bit characters, although not ASCII directly. Thus Buchholz's "byte" caught on everywhere. I myself did not like the name for many reasons. The design had 8 bits moving around in parallel. But then came a new IBM part, with 9 bits for self-checking, both inside the CPU and in the [[tape drive]]s. I exposed this 9-bit byte to the press in 1973. But long before that, when I headed software operations for [[Cie. Bull]] in France in 1965-66, I insisted that "byte" be deprecated in favor of "[[octetOctet (computing)|octet]]". […]<!-- You can notice that my preference then is now the preferred term.--> It is justified by new communications methods that can carry 16, 32, 64, and even 128 bits in parallel. But some foolish people now refer to a "16-bit byte" because of this parallel transfer, which is visible in the [[UNICODE]] set. I'm not sure, but maybe this should be called a "[[hextet]]". […]<!-- But you will notice that I am still correct. Powers of 2 are still magic! --> |df= }}</ref>