Robert M. Graham Biographical Sketch
I was born in Michigan
at the beginning of the Great Depression (1929). My father, like so many
others, was unemployed. Fortunately, we were able to live with my grandfather
(my mother's father) on his farm in central Michigan. Many of these small farms were
nearly self-sufficient, so we did not suffer. My earliest recollections are of
life on a farm, the most vivid being the rooster that rushed at me whenever I
went into the barnyard. My mother, also unemployed, taught me to read. When I
was six my father got a job in a near-by town. We moved there and I entered
school in the first grade, while my mother resumed teaching high school
mathematics. Growing up in a small mid-western town was mostly uneventful.
Later fond memories are of trips to Kincardine, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada
where my father was born. His father emigrated from Scotland, as did many of the other
residents of Bruce Country. We would visit Kincardine in the summer during
their Highland Games. As a young boy of Scottish descent, the games were very
exciting (I am still stirred by the sound of bagpipes).
After high school I studied mathematics at the University of Michigan
until drafted into the US Army near the end of the Korean action. At the completion
of my training I was sent to Tokyo, Japan as a clerk in the Far
East headquarters of the Army Security Agency. While there I
became interested in computers. After being discharged, I returned to the University of Michigan where I finished my undergraduate
and graduate degrees. In my first year I took the only computer courses offered
by the University, a total of two -- "Introduction to Programming"
and "Numerical Analysis". With this background I obtained a graduate
assistantship in the University's newly established academic computing center.
During my tenure with the computing center, I co-authored two compilers (GAT
for the IBM 650 and MAD for the IBM 704/709/7090), implemented a concurrent IO
system for the IBM 709/7090, and wrote numerous other programs.
In 1963 I moved to MIT to participate in the development of MULTICS, their
pioneering time-sharing system. This was a major project that took about seven
years from the initial planning until the system was in daily use by a large
community of users. I was one of the principle designers, with particular
responsibility for protection, dynamic linking, and other key system kernel
areas.
Following MIT, I spent two years at the University
of California at Berkeley and three years at City College of
New York. In 1975 I moved to the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst for a five year stint as Chairman of
the Computer Science Department. After that I continued as an
"ordinary" faculty member in the Computer Science Department. I
officially retired in 1996 but continued to teach one course each semester
until the end of 2003. I now devote my time to writing another book,
consulting, production of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and my home town's
conservation commission.