ACM: Celebrating 75 Years

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter—Jack Benny

Jennifer Chayes, Francine Berman, Susan Dumais, Deborah Estrin, James Hendler, Michael Jordan, Butler Lampson, Valerie Taylor are the members of a special committee. This committee is charged with helping organize the 75th anniversary of the ACM. The ACM was founded on September 15, 1947; hence the 75 year celebration. During 2022 special events are planned, leading up to a memorable day in June of panels on topics central to the future of computing. The committee has members from both universities and companies:

• Jennifer Chayes (Chair), University of California, Berkeley
• Francine Berman, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Susan Dumais, Microsoft Research
• Deborah Estrin, Cornell University
• James Hendler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Michael Jordan, University of California, Berkeley
• Butler Lampson, Microsoft Corporation and MIT
• Valerie Taylor, Argonne National Laboratory and CMD-IT

In random order:

75 Years

I am 75 years old too. I do not have a committee for special events—maybe I should. I do recall what computers were in the beginning and what they have become now. I can only imagine what they might become in the next 75 years. I am thus quite interested in what the committee will do and how it might help celebrate the 75th anniversary.

Open Problems

I started doing some research into the history of computers. I had the idea to look at old magazines that were monthly publications on all aspects of computers. Especially ones that were important in the early days: Datamation is one and another was called Byte. The later opened in 1975 and closed in 2013.

As of 2022, the domain for Byte redirects to an unrelated website selling teeth aligners. That says something, no?

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