Douglas T. Ross -- Chairman Emeritus, Ret., SofTech, Inc.

Lecturer, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT

A true pioneer in computing, known simply as "Doug Ross" everywhere, Mr. Ross received a BS Cum Laude in Mathematics, Oberlin College, 1951; MS in EE at MIT, 1954; and had completed full course requirements for a Pure Mathematics PhD by the summer of 1956, but, as Head of the MIT’s Computer Applications Group, he had no time to complete exams or thesis. He started programming in July 1952 on the MIT Whirlwind computer and later, through collaboration of his MIT Computer-Aided Design Project with MIT’s Project Mac, on the pioneering Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS). The following are some key "firsts":

1954 first hand-drawn input to a computer

1957 first general use machine-tool programming language, APT (ISO Standard, today)

1959 coined the term "computer-aided design" (CAD)

1960 first object-oriented design approach for things and software

supervised first CAD Masters Theses (in EE and in ME)

1962 - 1969: MIT Computer-Aided Design Project (with Project MAC)

first software engineering language (AED, Algol Extended for Design)

... and portable software-building tool system (the AED Approach)

first Finite State Machine lexical generator, RWord;

first table-driven language-definition system, AED Jr.;

first device-independent IOBCP (Input/Output Buffer Control Package)

first library of adaptable, reusable components ("Integrated Packages")

 

CAD prize-winning papers Spring Joint Computer Conference, 1963 and 20th Anniversary National Conference of the ACM, 1967

Mr. Ross has not done all these things alone, of course. To augment staff and students at MIT, and continuing at SofTech, he also pioneered in industry, government, and academic collaborative projects:

• The MIT/AlA APT Project (some 55 programmers from 19 companies of the Aircraft Industries Association, 1957-1960);

  it spawned CAM-I, Computer-Aided Manufacturing - International, Inc. -- still active worldwide.

• The MIT CAD Project (with MIT ME Dept. participation, 1960-65, and Project MAC for Display hardware and software, 1963-69), included
  the 1964-1969 AED Cooperative Program (35 staff from 22 organizations, for 9-18 months each).
• The ICAM Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing Program (with SofTech as Air Force Prime Contractor for an industrywide coalition in 1970s and 1980s). The IDEF methodologies were one major result.
• The AF-sponsored EIP Enterprise Integration Project SofTech-led 1991-1993 industry coalition was shut down by a DoD shift of funds.

Recipient of the Joseph Marie Jacquard Memorial Award of the Numerical Control Society, in 1975, the Distinguished Contributions Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 1980, and Honorary Engineer of the Year Award from the San Fernando Valley Engineer’s Council, 1981 --

Mr. Ross also is listed in nine of the Marquis Who’s Who publications, including Who’s Who in the World, in America, in Science and Engineering, in Frontier Science and Technology, in Finance and Industry, and in Society.

Most satisfactorily and splendidly, the First Occupant of the Chair, for a term of three years now is:

Associate Professor Daniel Jackson, of The Laboratory for Computer Science, MIT

At 06:46 PM 7/13/99 -0400, John Guttag wrote:

>Doug,