Computer History Museum | Oral History of Tony Wasserman @ComputerHistory | Uploaded May 2023 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
Interviewed by John Mashey on 2023-02-02 in Mountain View, CA
© Computer History Museum
An an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, Tony Wasserman was studying math and physics, but as sometimes happened to such students, got exposed to computing, finding a relatively little-used IBM 1620 in a physics lab, and eventually deciding to go on for a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin in the very early days of computer science departments, finishing in 1970.
He became a Professor of Medical Information Science at the University of California at San Francisco, of course one of the world’s leading health science universities, which offered a wealth of problems to which computers might be applied.
He remained connected with Berkeley, of course a hotbed of university Unix development, and got an early Unix system at UCSF. Although full-time at UCSF, his department chair let him teach courses at Berkeley to keep up with computer scientists there. However, as he was trying to build applications, his focus became software engineering, which in the 1970s was starting to become better defined as discipline overlapping with traditional computer science, but with other needs.
He cofounded ACM SIGSOFT (Special Interest Group on Software Engineering), wrote many papers on the topic and helped organize conferences. He and his students built various software engineering tools, and as often happens, others asked how they could get them.
To commercialize this work, in 1983 Tony left UCSF, then founded and was CEO of Interactive Development Environments (IDE), which eventually grew to 200 employees internationally.
After mergers and experiences at some other software companies, Tony moved back to academe in 2005, joining Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley Software branch as Professor of the Practice, Software Management.
There he has taught many students over the years about realities of software engineering and software product management, for which his industry experience was crucial in bringing real-world experience to education.
In recent years he has also been involved in Open Source organizations.
* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102792812
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.
Catalog Number: 102792813
Acquisition Number: 2023.0029
Interviewed by John Mashey on 2023-02-02 in Mountain View, CA
© Computer History Museum
An an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, Tony Wasserman was studying math and physics, but as sometimes happened to such students, got exposed to computing, finding a relatively little-used IBM 1620 in a physics lab, and eventually deciding to go on for a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin in the very early days of computer science departments, finishing in 1970.
He became a Professor of Medical Information Science at the University of California at San Francisco, of course one of the world’s leading health science universities, which offered a wealth of problems to which computers might be applied.
He remained connected with Berkeley, of course a hotbed of university Unix development, and got an early Unix system at UCSF. Although full-time at UCSF, his department chair let him teach courses at Berkeley to keep up with computer scientists there. However, as he was trying to build applications, his focus became software engineering, which in the 1970s was starting to become better defined as discipline overlapping with traditional computer science, but with other needs.
He cofounded ACM SIGSOFT (Special Interest Group on Software Engineering), wrote many papers on the topic and helped organize conferences. He and his students built various software engineering tools, and as often happens, others asked how they could get them.
To commercialize this work, in 1983 Tony left UCSF, then founded and was CEO of Interactive Development Environments (IDE), which eventually grew to 200 employees internationally.
After mergers and experiences at some other software companies, Tony moved back to academe in 2005, joining Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley Software branch as Professor of the Practice, Software Management.
There he has taught many students over the years about realities of software engineering and software product management, for which his industry experience was crucial in bringing real-world experience to education.
In recent years he has also been involved in Open Source organizations.
* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102792812
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.
Catalog Number: 102792813
Acquisition Number: 2023.0029
