Herbert Samuel Bright (13 September 1919 - 28 November 1986) earned a BS in Physics from the University of Michigan in 1943 and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of California-Berkeley in 1963. After completing his BS, Bright became an electrical engineer working with radar and gunfire control systems at Western Electric. Three years later, he joined the electrical engineering department of the Antenna Laboratory at the University of California-Berkeley.
In the early 1950s, Bright began developing general purpose computer applications while chief of the laboratory instrumentation branch at the Radiological Defense Laboratory. As supervising scientist of the computational planning section at Westinghouse Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, he worked on FORTRAN applications for large scale engineering calculations. He continued his work with FORTRAN when he joined the Data Processing Group of CBEMA as director of engineering. Bright later served as Secretary of the ANSI-X3.4.3 FORTRAN Working Group from its inception in 1963 to the publication of American Standard FORTRAN in 1966. At Philco, Bright was responsible for the planning design, development, distribution and maintenance of all product-line software. This included a wide range of programs such as assemblers, compilers, operating systems, and generalized applications. While at Philco, Bright served as the chair of the Philco Corporate Technical Committee on Computer Aids to Engineering and Research, TAC-63-8, from its inception in 1963 to 1965. As director of programming at Informatics, Inc., Bright completed systems programming studies and development projects.
In 1966, Bright founded Computation Planning, Inc. (COMPLAN). This computation consulting firm focused on the analysis, design, programming and management of computation systems. Under Bright's management as president and technical director, COMPLAN concentrated its operations after 1975 on information security through cryptographic control. Bright co-invented a patented encryption system used by many major firms and government agencies for data security. His professional interest in encryption led to his active participation in the ANSI-X9.E9 Working Group on Financial Institution Cryptographic and Authentication Key Management.
Bright was also active in professional associations. In the Association for Computing Machinery, Bright served as Secretary (1962-1964), Vice-President (1964-1966), and Council Member at Large (1966-1978). He also served as the Technical Program Chairman for the 1964 ACM conference and as National Program Committee Chairman on several occasions. Bright served two terms on the AFIPS Board of Directors (1963-1965; 1972-1974), secretary and vice president of SHARE (IBM users' group), president of TUG (Philco users' group), and president (1970) and later member of the board of directors (1971), of the Association on Independent Software Companies.
The collection includes correspondence, memoranda, technical reports and notes, subject files, minutes, manuals, photographs, audio tapes, videotapes, publications, presentations, and a deposition related to Herbert Bright's work in the computer industry and with computer professional groups. Records from Philco and COMPLAN include chronological files for brief periods.
The Philco records also contain a series of subject files. The Informatics, Inc., records include technical notes, correspondence, and reports. The deposition was taken when Bright was an expert witness for the Burroughs Corporation in the legal action of South Jersey Wallpaper Co. vs. Burroughs Corporation. The records from the standards organizations--the American National Standards Institute (formerly the U.S.A. Standards Institute and before that the American Standards Association) and the International Standards Organization--contain committee minutes, correspondence, reports, and working papers. Also included in the collection are some personal papers and photographs that partially document the period from 1924-1956.
The materials in this collection are arranged into the following groups:
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
The records were given to the Charles Babbage Institute by Lee E. M. Bright in 1988 and 1989.
Access to the collection is unrestricted.
The Charles Babbage Institute holds the copyright to all materials in the collection, except for items covered by a prior copyright (such as published materials). Researchers may quote from the collection under the fair use provisions of the copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).
Herbert S. Bright Papers (CBI 42), Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.
The companies series includes records from Bright's firm, COMPLAN, as well as Informatics, Inc., Philco Corporation's Computer and Electronics Division, and Westinghouse-Bettis's Computation Planning Section. The records from the various firms contain chronological files, correspondence related to computer programming and various professional associations, advertisements, technical notes on computer programs, and reports on programming languages and computer systems. The Philco Corporation subseries contains a file series about programming consultants which includes descriptions of translator programs for Philco computers. Also included in this series is Bright's deposition as an expert witness for the Burroughs Corporation in a lawsuit brought by South Jersey Wallpaper Co.
The conferences series consists of records created when Bright assisted in planning conferences, papers which Bright gave at conferences, and material from conferences that Bright attended. The related series, Recordings, contains session recordings of some conference sessions in which Bright participated.
The personal papers series contains biographical data, personal
papers, photographs of Bright, air-burst nuclear testing information, copies of
Bright's degrees and awards, and a copy of Bright's Master's thesis,
Circa 60 minutes on VHS cassette; sound and image quality both poor.
The professional papers series contains a paper on computer user groups and compilations of reviews and articles created by Bright. Other articles and reviews can be found in the Professional and Trade Associations series.
The professional and trade associations series includes records of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS); the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM); the Association of Independent Software Companies; the Data Transmission Study Group;, the International Association for Cryptologic Research; and the Data Processing Group of the Office Equipment Manufacturers Institute. The records consist of correspondence and chronological files, session papers, reports, newsletters, publications, committee working papers, correspondence and reports.
Cassette: Bright's speech,
Session participants include Alan J. Perlis, C.A. Phillips, R.E. Utman, and a Mr. Clippinger.
2 reel to reel tapes (second tape contains last five minutes of question and answer session).
The standards organizations series includes records from standards groups in the United States and international organizations. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) began as the American Standards Association (ASA) which became the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI) in 1966 before changing its name to ANSI in 1969. Aside from the ASA publication on sectional committees and the X3 Facts Book, the records consist of correspondence, reports, working papers and minutes of the various operational divisions of ANSI responsible for creating voluntary standards for the computing and data processing industry. This series also includes some minutes from TC 97, the corresponding committee of the International Standards Organization.