Murray F. Freeman papers

This collection consists of documents belonging to Murray F. Freeman (1927-2000), a Haverford alumnus and mathematical engineer. They record his work to develop standards for programming languages such as SQL and FORTRAN, for information interchange and interpretation, and for describing specifications outside of programming languages. They also record his work at Bellcore, General Electric, and Philco. Some personal documents are included as well.

FORTRAN (later Fortran, short for FORmula TRANslation) is a programming language, and the first high-level programming language. Originally developed by IBM in the 1950s to replace assembly language, it was adopted as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard. X3J3 was the ANSI committee responsible for developing the FORTRAN standard. These documents consist of X3J3 meeting minutes and publications, along with miscellaneous financial and other documents related to MFF's standards work around FORTRAN; MFF's requests for support by Bellcore for his standards activities; miscellaneous handwritten presentation transparencies; notes and presentation materials for MFF's 1983 presentation for the Lab 5813 Speaker Series talk: "The ANSI programming language standardization process, as exemplified by FORTRAN"; ‘Memoranda for Record' related to FORTAN; notes, handouts, syllabus, and supplementary materials related to an Advanced FORTRAN Masters course taken by MFF; materials related to MFF's presentation "Standardization of Computer Languages - The Next FORTRAN Standard" at the University of Scranton; photocopied slides and handwritten and printed transparencies related to FORTRAN 8X; microform copies of FORTRAN 77 and a related document; articles regarding FORTRAN; documents, including reference documents and draft standards, related to "Information Technology--Open Systems Interconnection;" FORTRAN-related humor, including a booklet of computer programming jokes, an article "Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL," and two humorous drawings portraying FORTRAN as a monster; a fragment of paper computer tape, MFF's desk nametag, correspondence (including the letter appointing MFF to the X3T2 Vice Chairmanship), a German FORTRAN handbook, and a report on portable FORTRAN programming; Software System user documentation; Department of Defense supplement to FORTRAN 77; F4SELECT program description; USA Standard FORTRAN, 1966; unofficial copy of FORTRAN 77; Public comments on dpANS FORTRAN, 1976; FORTRAN 90, 1991.

The T2 subcommittee of X3 (later NCITS and INCITS) is responsible for "Information Interchange and Interpretation." MFF was heavily involved in this subcommittee, culminating in his being its acting chair, beginning in 1999. A large portion of the collection as a whole is devoted to official X3T2 documents produced by X3T2 in the process of writing standards. They include memoranda debating the merits of various aspects of standards, proposals and suggestions, as well as meeting minutes and agendas. There is also an index to these official X3T2 documents, a set of X3T2 meeting minutes, MFF’s X3T2 meeting notes, and emails sent to or from MFF related to X3T2. The T2-related documents include many travel documents related to Murray Freeman's trip to the conference location, draft and final agendas, draft and final minutes, and other documents used by Freeman at the meeting. Not all types of documents are present for every meeting. Also included are miscellaneous materials related to the work of the X3T2 committee, which are not specifically related to a meeting or part of the series of official documents; working documents, Freeman's notes, emails regarding T2 matters, amendments to draft specifications, memoranda, and other documents.

The H2 subcommittee of X3 is responsible for "Standards and Syntax." During the time that MFF served on this committee, it was largely tasked with developing and extending the SQL (Structured Query Language) standard. Included in this series are lists of X3H2 participants, a collection of X3H2 official documents, and X3H2 meeting documents.

ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22/WG11 "is the international standardization working group working on binding techniques for programming languages: how to make specifications independent of programming languages, and then apply these specifications to the programming languages." MFF was involved in this organization, and many emails he exchanged as a member of this group are included.

Finally, Bellcore, GE, and Philco employment-related materials, miscellaneous trip information miscellaneous standards-related documents, and personal and miscellaneous documents are included.