Preserving the History of the Software Industry

• Published in: IEEE annals of the history of computing Vol. 42; no. 3; pp. 70 - 75
• Main Authors: Johnson, Luanne, Walden, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington IEEE 01-07-2020; IEEE Computer Society; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Business; Companies; Computer industry; Computer software; History; Software; Software industry
• ISSN: 1058-6180; 1934-1547
• DOI: 10.1109/MAHC.2020.3005581

The following three anecdotes describe the journey and methods of Burt Grad and Luanne Johnson in collecting software business history. Burt Grad and Luanne Johnson were from industry and were not academically trained historians, but they saw software companies coming and then disappearing with their histories being lost. Thus, they decided to do something about it. The story they tell is extraordinary—an example of how a couple of individuals on a mission can begin a project, get advice and involvement from other people and institutions, and over time build a sustainably entity that is still growing and collecting computing history 16 years later.