In 1955, the computer scientists at the General Motors Research Laboratories became recognized as a separate group within the Special Problems Department. Donald Hart was appointed assistant department head with George Ryckman and Edwin Jacks as supervisors. The group was named Data Processing since computer science was not yet recognized. The group was later made into a separate department in 1961.

The Beginning

In 1955, Thurber Moffett an aeronautical engineer for General Dynamics Corporation in San Diego, had speak with an IBM engineer named Robert Cortney to Develop an engineering computer system for the Defense Department. Moffett and Cortney spent five months in San Diego working up a proposal. One of their aims was to show engineering data as graphs on the computer screen. But evenings after work, they speculated about matters that went beyond the task at hand. "Bob and I used to have dinner together two or three nights a week at the King's Inn," Moffett recounted, "and we diagramed what we thought an interactive computer graphics system should look like on the tablecloths. We did it just to amuse ourselves. We had no real notion what would come out of it."

Moffett remembered the ho-human reaction from corporate executives who saw presentations of Sketchpad (1962) "They would look at it and go away thinking that it was some witchcraft, something they did not have to worry about until maybe 2010. There was probably not one in a thousand who realized what Ivan's had done."

Under the leadership of Donald Hart, two major departmental activities were undertaken. George Ryckman's group was responsible for operation of a computing center, at that time, included an IBM 704 computer, keypunch stations, and off-line card-to-tape and tape-to-printer equipment, together with the system programs to support their operation. The remainder of the department, under the supervision of Edwin Jacks, consisted of a programming staff devoted to the development of software applications. Both systems and applications were very fertile areas for work at that time. The systems group was just beginning to gain recognition in the IBM user community as a leader in the development of computer batch operating systems.

Early experiments among GMR, North American Aviation, and IBM led to the development of a batch operating system Program for an IBM digital computer. Most of the programming was still being performed in IBM assembly language, but by 1958 a new Fortran compiler from IBM was being tested at selected customer sites, including GMR.

In 1964 at the Joint Computer Conference where DAC-1 was unveiled, Thurber Moffett recalled that people lined up two hours ahead of time to get in to see the DAC-1 demonstration. The technicians operating the machine "showed a structure rotating on the screen," Moffett said. "Nobody had ever seen that before." As Moffett walked from the conference rooms after the demonstration, he heard someone call his name. It was Robert Cortney. Moffett asked his old friend if he had been involved in the GM graphics system."That's my baby," Cortney replied. "You son of a gun," Moffett exclaimed, "you saved those tablecloths".