Lee, John A. N., Papers John A. N. Lee Papers, 1973-1990 Ms.1973.005

John A. N. Lee Papers, 1973-1990 Ms.1973.005


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Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech

Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries (0434)
560 Drillfield Drive
Newman Library, Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
Business Number: 540-231-6308
specref@vt.edu
URL: http://spec.lib.vt.edu

John M. Jackson, Archivist

Repository
Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech
Identification
Ms.1973.005
Title
John A. N. Lee Papers 1973-1990
Quantity
30 Cubic Feet, 20 boxes
Creator
Lee, John A. N.
Location
Please note: Most of this collection is located in off-site storage and requires 2-3 days for retrieval. Contact Special Collections for further information.
Language
The materials in the collection are in English.
Abstract
The collection contains correspondence, computer programs, publications, and meeting notes all relating to Lee's work for the National Bureau of Standards to develop a standard for the BASIC programming language. Included in the papers are a survey of twenty-seven descriptions of BASIC and a collection of published works relating to the language up to 1973. Also contains records (1977-1990) from the editorial staff of the Annals of the History of Computing .

Administrative Information

Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use

The copyright status of this collection is unknown. Copyright restrictions may apply. Contact Special Collections and University Archives for assistance in determining the use of these materials. Reproduction or digitization of materials for personal or research use can be requested using our reproduction/digitization form: http://bit.ly/scuareproduction . Reproduction or digitization of materials for publication or exhibit use can be requested using our publication/exhibition form: http://bit.ly/scuapublication . Please contact Special Collections and University Archives (specref@vt.edu or 540-231-6308) if you need assistance with forms or to submit a completed form.

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open to research.

Preferred Citation

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: [identification of item], [box], [folder], John A. N. Lee Papers, 1973-1990, Ms1973-005, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.

Source of Acquisition

The John A. N. Lee Papers were donated to Special Collections in 1973 and 1982; the Annals of the History of Computing editorial files were donated in 1992.

Processing Information

The John A. N. Lee Papers are unprocessed. The guide is a preliminary inventory, created in 2005.


Biographical Note

John A. N. Lee, a professor of computer science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, was born in Coventry, England. After earning his doctoral degree at the University of Nottingham, Lee worked as a civil engineer with Freeman, Fox & Partners, where he served on teams which designed the Medway Bridge near London, the Firth of Forth Road Bridge, and Australia's Sydney Opera House. In 1959, Lee joined the faculty of Queens University (Kingston, Ontario), where he initiated computer classes and a computer center. Lee moved in 1964 to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he established a computer science program and served as its first department head. During this time, he authored The Anatomy of a Compiler (1967) and Computer Semantics (1971). In 1973, the National Bureau of Standards contracted with Lee to form a "nucleus standard for the BASIC programming language."

Lee joined the faculty of Virginia Tech in 1974. Here, he assisted in the development of a graduate program and extended the undergraduate program. He served as chairman of the undergraduate program for many years and developed several new courses.

The recipient of several distinguished awards, Lee has made significant contributions to the development of computer language standards, the history of computing, and professional development. His interest in history led Lee to organize the 1982 25th anniversary commemoration of FORTRAN programming. Among his many other activities, he served as editor and editor-in-chief of the Annals of the History of Computing from 1987 to 1995.

Scope and Content

This collection contains the papers of John A. N. Lee, civil engineer, professor of computer science, author and editor. The collection is essentially comprised of two sets of materials:

Boxes 1-3 contain materials relating to Lee's involvement with the National Bureau of Standards in establishing standardization of the BASIC computer programming language. The files include the project contract, correspondence, surveys, meetings reports, printed materials, and the final report resulting from Lee's work. (Also included in Box 1 is some background material for a 1973 lecture by Grace Hopper.)

Boxes 4-20 contain the editorial files of the Annals of the History of Computing , from 1977 to 1990. The files contain such material as correspondence, drafts, rejected manuscripts, background material and office records.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged by subject.

Separated Material

Several published works were transferred out of the collection in 2004. A list of these works is available in the collection's administrative folder.


Subjects and Indexing Terms

  • Faculty and staff
  • Science and Technology
  • University History
  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (1970-)

Rights Statement for Archival Description

The guide to the John A. N. Lee Papers by Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, is licensed under a CC0 ( https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ ).

Container List

box 1
Box 1
  • Documentation for Grace Hopper's lecture (3 binders)
    March 7, 1973
  • BASIC standardization
    1961-1978, n.d.
    • UMA #11 contract documentation
      1973
    • Outgoing correspondence
      1973
    • Incoming correspondence
      1973-1974
    • BASIC surveys completed
      1974
    • UMA Dartmouth programs
    • UMA #14 ASCII character set
    • UMA #17, 22: reports of National Bureau of Standards meetings
      June-July 1973
    • UMA #13 conference attendees
      1973
    • UMA #12 mailing list
    • UMA #7 rounding (American standards)
      1961
    • UMA #10 USA Standards Institute manual of style
      [1968?]
    • UMA #9 "The Formal Definition of the BASIC Language" by Lee
      1970-1971
    • UMA #4 "The Case Against BASIC"— Datamation
      September 1, 1971
    • UMA #3 "Proposal for an American National Standard Project Under Committee X3; the BASIC Programming Language" (preliminary draft)
      1971
    • UMA #15 "Proposed American National Standard Representation of Numeric Values in Character Strings for Information Interchange" (draft)
      February 2, 1972
    • UMA #16 Federal Information Processing Standards Publication #21
      1972
    • UMA #6 ACT survey
      [1972?]
    • UMA #3 Proposal for X3 standards development project: BASIC
      1973
    • UMA #5 Navy COBOL validation users guide
      1973
    • NTIS report #NBSD-GRC 73-17 American Naitonal Standard for Minimal BASIC
      1978
    • "A Candidate Standard for Fundamental BASIC"
      1973
box 2
Box 2
  • BASIC standardization
    1961-1978, n.d.
    • 2000F: A Guide to Time-Shared Basic: For Reference and Self-Instruction (Hewlett-Packard)
      1972
    • 2000C: A Guide to Time-Shared Basic: For Reference and Self-Instruction (Hewlett-Packard)
      1972
    • BASIC/3000 Interpreter: Reference Manual (Hewlett-Packard)
      1975
    • BASIC 1 Service Reference Manual (General Electric(rev.))
      1971
    • BASIC Language (General Electric, (rev.))
      1970
    • BASIC Language: Mark III Foreground Reference Manual (General Electric, (rev.))
      1973
    • My Computer Likes Me: When I Speak in BASIC (Dymax)
      1972
    • "BASIC" (National Cash Register Company)
      1972
    • "IBM Virtual Machine Facility / 370: BASIC Language Reference Manual" (IBM)
      1973
    • "BASIC Language Reference Manual" (IBM)
      1970
    • Time-Sharing BASIC: Series 600/6000 Software (Honeywell)
      1971
    • UNIVAC 1100 Series BASIC: Programmer Reference (Sperry Rand)
      1972
    • "UMASS User's Guide" (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, (rev.))
      1971
    • Adapts User's Guide (Varian Data Machines)
      1973
    • Varian 73/620 BASIC Language Reference Manual (Varian Data Machines)
      1973
    • Xerox BASIC, Sigma 5-9 Computers: Language and Operations Reference Manual (Xerox)
      1972
    • Xerox Batch Processing Monitor (BPM), Sigma 5-8 Computers: Batch Processing and Real-Time Reference Manual (Xerox)
      1973
    • Call/370: BASIC Direct Access General Information Manual (Service Bureau Corporation)
      1972
    • Call/370: BASIC Reference Handbook (Service Bureau Corporation)
      1973
    • "BASIC: Multics" (Honeywell)
      1974
    • CAC / 3600: BASIC and BASICX Reference Manual (Call-A-Computer)
      1972
    • "Decsystem10 BASIC: Conversational Language Manual" (Digital Equipment Corporation)
      1972
box 3
Box 3
  • BASIC standardization
    1961-1978, n.d.
    • L'Abbe Wu, Nesa. BASIC: The Time-Sharing Language (Wm. C. Brown Co.)
      1975
    • Burroughs B 1700 Systems: BASIC Reference Manual (Burroughs)
      1973
    • BASIC: A Manual for BASIC "An Easy-to-Use, Conversational Problem-Solving Computer Language for Many Applications" (AL/COM)
      1969
    • Control Data Cyber 70 Computer Systems Models 72, 73, 74 6000 Computer Systems (Control Data Corporation)
      1973
    • BASIC-Plus Language Manual (Digital Equipment Corporation)
      1975
    • Spencer, Donald D., A Guide to BASIC Programming (Addison-Wesley)
      1975
    • Stevenson, Sally L., BASIC Manual (Computer Services, Environmental Research Laboratories, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
      n.d.
    • Waite, Stephen V. F. and Diane G. Mather, eds., BASIC (University Press of New England)
      1971
    • "If You Do Know BASIC, If You Don't Know BASIC" (Data General Corporation)
      1973
    • "Modular One Programming Handbook: BASIC 1 and 2" (Computer Technology Limited)
      1972
    • Control Data 6000 Series Computer Systems (Control Data Corporation)
      1971
    • "Extended BASIC User's Manual" (Data General Corporation)
      1973
    • OS/8 BASIC User's Manual (Digital Equipment Corporation)
      1972
    • BASIC-Plus Language Manual (Digital Equipment Corporation)
      1972
    • Hennefeld, Julien, Using BASIC (Prindle, Weber and Schmidt)
      1978
    • "CPS Terminal User's Manual"
      n.d.
    • Ahl, David H., ed., BASIC Computer Games (Digital Equipment Corporation)
      1973
    • Garland, Stephen J., Dartmouth BASIC: a Specification (Trustees of Dartmouth College)
      1973
    • Schoman, Kenneth Jr., The BASIC Workbook for Beginning Programmers (Wilbraham and Monson Academy)
      1974
    • Gottfried, Byron S. Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Programming with BASIC (McGraw-Hill)
      1975
    • Leavy, Linda C. "A Survey of Dialects of the BASIC Programming Language"
      1977
    • BASIC Self Teacher (Service Bureau Corporation)
      1973
    • BASIC (Modular Computer Systems)
      1973
    • "Microdata Micro 1600 Computer" (Microdata Corporation)
      n.d.
    • Response 1: BASIC Reference Manual (Leasco Response)
      1972
    • Response / 360 Reference Manual for the Programming Language BASIC (Leasco Response)
      1972
    • BASIC Users Manual (Microdata Corporation)
      1972
    • Isaacs, Gerald L. "Interdialect Translatability of the BASIC Programming Language" (ACT Technical Bulletin, no. 11)
      1973
    • Isaacs, Gerald L. "A Tabular Survey of BASIC Computer Systems" (ACT Technical Bulletin supplement no. 11-1)
      1973
    • "System / 370 VS BASIC Language" (IBM)
      1974
    • MBASIC (vols. 1-2) (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
      1973
box 4
Box 4
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Advertising approvals
    • Current Contents
    • Departments
      • "About This Issue"
      • "Anecdotes"
      • "Biographies"
      • "Comments, Queries & Debate"
    • Dictionary of Computer Science biographies
    • Editorial board
box 5
Box 5
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Editorial board
    • Emery air freight problem
    • First issue
    • Happenings
    • Inactive
    • Index
    • (Manuscripts), withdrawn
box 6
Box 6
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Rejected manuscripts
box 7
Box 7
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • "Reviews" Department
    • Self-study
    • Subscription fulfillment
    • Telephone
    • Travel/expense vouchers
box 8
Box 8
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Published manuscripts, authors A-H
box 9
Box 9
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Published manuscripts, authors H-M
box 10
Box 10
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Published manuscripts, authors M-S
box 11
Box 11
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Published manusrcipts, authors S-Z
box 12
Box 12
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Published manuscripts, authors A-K
box 13
Box 13
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Published manuscripts, authors A-B
box 14
Box 14
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Working files: vol. 1-7
box 15
Box 15
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Working files: vol. 8-9
box 16
Box 16
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Working files: vol. 10
box 17
Box 17
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Working files: vol. 11
box 18
Box 18
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Chronological ["Dead"?] files
      1977-1981
box 19
Box 19
  • Annals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • Chronological ["Dead"?] files"
      1981-1987
box 20
Box 20
  • Annuals of the History of Computing
    1977-1990
    • "Dead files"
      1987-1990