Applied Data Research

Applied Data Research (ADR) was a large software vendor from the 1960s until the mid-1980s. ADR is often described as "the first independent software vendor".[1]

Applied Data Research
Founded1959
FounderMartin Goetz, Sherman Blumenthal, Ellwood Kauffman, Dave McFadden, Bernard Riskin, Robert Wickenden, and Stephen Wright
Defunct1986
FateAcquired
SuccessorAmeritech
Headquarters
Princeton, New Jersey
,
United States
Servicesindependent contract programming

Founded in 1959, ADR was originally a contract development company. ADR eventually built a series of its own products. ADR's widely used major packages included: Autoflow for automatic flowcharting, which is often cited as one of the first commercial software applications;[2] Roscoe, a remote job submission environment; MetaCOBOL, an extensible macro processor for the COBOL language; and The Librarian, for source-code management.

The company's original office was in a small office building along U.S. Route 206 in Princeton Township, New Jersey.[3] Later during the 1960s, they were part of a data center located on Route 206 across from Princeton Airport. The center was destroyed by fire in 1969 when a light plane crashed into it on approach to the airport, but there were no serious injuries among either the pilot or the workers in the building.[4] In 1980, the company moved to a facility further along Route 206, that was just north of Princeton in Montgomery Township, New Jersey.[5]

ADR's modest first office, at 759 State Road (U.S. Route 206) in Princeton
During the 1960s, ADR had a data center on this ground across Route 206 from Princeton Airport
During the 1980s, ADR was headquartered in this office complex off Route 206 north of Princeton – all these as seen in 2023

First software patent

ADR received the first patent issued for a computer program, a sorting system, on April 23, 1968.[6] The program was developed by Martin Goetz.[7] In this effort, ADR enlisted support of the Association of Data Processing Service Organizations (ADAPSO), which argued that being able to patent software innovations was vital to smaller companies being able to succeed in the market against larger companies, who would otherwise be able to imitate a product and bundle it as a free addition to their other offerings.[2]

ADR IBM lawsuit

ADR instigated litigation in Federal Court against IBM[8] with accusations that IBM was "retarding the growth of the independent software industry" [8] and "monopolizing the software industry", leading to IBM's famous unbundling of software and services in 1969. Legal actions against IBM also had the support of ADAPSO.[2]

In 1970, ADR and Programmatics, a wholly owned subsidiary of ADR, received an out-of-court settlement of $1.4 million from IBM. IBM also agreed to serve as a supplier of Autoflow, which meant another potential $600,000 in revenues for ADR.[9]

The Librarian
Main article: The Librarian (version control system)

A popular ADR product was The Librarian, a version control system for IBM mainframe operating systems. In 1978, it was reported that The Librarian was in use at over 3,000 sites;[10] by a decade later that number had doubled.[11]

Roscoe

Roscoe (Remote OS Conversational Operating Environment, originally marketed as ROSCOE, was a software product for IBM Mainframes.[12] It is a text editor and also provides some operating system functionality such as the ability to submit batch jobs similar to ISPF[lower-alpha 1] or XEDIT.

The ability to support 200+ concurrent active users and still have low overhead is based on a Single address space architecture.[14]

The RPF (Roscoe Programming Facility)[15][lower-alpha 2] is a scripting language with string processing capability.[17]

Compass

ADR bought Massachusetts Computer Associates, also known as Compass, in the late 1960s.[18]

Datacom/DB and IDEAL
Insyte Datacom logo

ADR later purchased the Datacom/DB database management system from Insyte Datacom and developed the companion product, IDEAL (Interactive Development Environment for an Application’s Life), a fourth-generation programming language.

Dispute with Nixdorf

ADR licensed DATACOM/DB to TCSC, a firm which sold modified versions of IBM's DOS/360 and DOS/VS operating systems, known as Edos. When, in 1980, Nixdorf Computer bought TCSC, Nixdorf sought to continue the licensing arrangement; ADR and NCSC went to court in a dispute over whether the licensing arrangement was terminated by the acquisition.[19] ADR and Nixdorf settled out of court in 1981, with an agreement that Nixdorf could continue to resell ADR's products.[20]

Acquired, twice

ADR was sold to Ameritech in 1986 and was kept intact as a subsidiary.

In 1988 Ameritech sold ADR to Computer Associates (CA). Computer Associates had a reputation for mass dismissals within companies it took over; this was the case with ADR as well, as some 200 employees from the Montgomery facility were let go on the morning of October 19, 1988.[21]

Computer Associates subsequently integrated the company into its Systems Products Division and new Information Products Division.[22] Roscoe was marketed as CA-Roscoe,[12] and The Librarian became known as CA Librarian.[23]

Notes
  1. There were capabilities available in ISPF and not in Roscoe; ditto for vice versa.[13]
  2. Not to be confused with another RPF, "Rob's Programming Facility ... developed by Rob Prins ... of the ING Bank in Amsterdam" systems programming group, which subsequently "stopped using ROSCOE" for system/administrative tasks.[16]

References
  1. "Prerelational DBMS vendors — a quick overview". Software Memories. February 9, 2006. Retrieved August 5, 2011.
  2. Lee, Timothy B. (March 28, 2014). "In new case, Supreme Court revisits the question of software patents". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014.
  3. Goetz, Martin A. (October 1961). "Letter to the Editor: Internal Sorting and External Merging". Journal of the ACM. 8 (4): 649–650. doi:10.1145/321088.321104. S2CID 3031867.
  4. "Light Plane Hits Building in Princeton". Asbury Park Press. Associated Press. November 14, 1969. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Ditzel, Herb (January 31, 1980). "Montgomery: barbecues, brooks before business". The Courier-News. Central New Jersey. p. D-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. United States Patent Office, Patent number: 3380029
  7. New York Times , June 12, 1968, "Computer Program Patent", p. 69
  8. The Washington Post, April 23, 1969, Dow Jones News Service, "Suit Against IBM Charges Violations", p. D9
  9. New York Times , Douglas W. Cray, August 21, 1970, "A.D.R. Trust Suit Settled by I.B.M.", p. 50
  10. Don Leavitt (March 27, 1978), "Software winners' ranks swelling", Computerworld, IDG Enterprise, vol. 12, no. 13, p. 2, ISSN 0010-4841, The Librarian from Applied Data Research, Inc, Panvalet from Pansophic Systems, Inc. and the Westinghouse Disk Utility from Westinghouse Electric Corp. continue to top the "systems" list with more than 3,000 sites to each of their credits.
  11. "Nearly 6,500 ... (C) 1988. "The LIBRARIAN - Total Control of Your Software Asset" (PDF).
  12. "CA Roscoe Interactive Environment". CA Technologies.
  13. "ROSCOE RPF Facility and ISPF Functional Differences".
  14. "CA Roscoe Interactive (PRODUCT SHEET)" (PDF).
  15. "Step 2 — Create an RPF to Invoke File-AID". The RPF (ROSCOE Programming Facility) shown ...
  16. "RPF User's Guide Version 1 Release 9.3" (PDF).
  17. ROSCOE Handbook. Applied Data Research. SR00-20-20
  18. Rosemary Hamilton, "Computervision turns believer after Compass helps convert software", Computerworld, July 14, 1986, p. 20
  19. Marcia Blumenthal (August 18, 1980), "ADR asks ruling on Datacom rights", Computerworld, IDG Enterprise, vol. 14, no. 33, p. 76, ISSN 0010-4841
  20. Enterprise, I.D.G. (April 20, 1981), "ADR, Nixdorf Companies Settle Marketing Dispute", Computerworld, vol. 15, no. 16, p. 78, ISSN 0010-4841
  21. Petronico, Theresa (November 21, 1988). "The Swift and Traumatic Firings At Applied Data Research". NJBiz.com.
  22. Applied Data Research, Software Products Division Records, 1959-1987, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
  23. "Computer Associates: News ..." Computerworld (Advertisement). October 8, 1990. p. 37.
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