Elliott Irving Organick (February 25, 1925 – December 21, 1985) was a computer scientist and pioneer in operating systems development and education. He was considered "the foremost expositor writer of computer science", and was instrumental in founding the ACM Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education.[1]

Elliott Organick
BornFebruary 25, 1925
DiedDecember 21, 1985(1985-12-21) (aged 60)
Alma materUniversity of Michigan B.S. M.S. Ph.D.
Known forFounder of ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education
AwardsSIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education(1985)
Scientific career
InstitutionsManhattan Project
M. W. Kellogg Company
United Gas Corporation
University of Houston
University of Michigan
MIT CSAIL
University of Utah
Thesis Prediction of Hydrocarbon Vapor-Liquid Equilibria  (1950)
Doctoral advisorDonald L. Katz
George Granger Brown

Career

edit

Organick described the Burroughs large systems in an ACM monograph of which he was the sole author, covering the work of Robert (Bob) Barton and others. He also wrote a monograph about the Multics timesharing operating system. By the mid 1970s he had become "the foremost expositor writer of computer science"; he published 19 books.

He was editor of ACM Computing Surveys (ISSN 0360-0300) between 1973 and 1976.

In 1985 he received the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education.[2]

He died of leukemia on December 21, 1985.

He taught at the University of Utah, where a Memorial Lecture series was established in his name.

Publications

edit
  • The Multics System: An Examination of its Structure. MIT Press, 1972, ISBN 0-262-15012-3. Still available from the MIT Libraries [1] as a digital reprint (Laser-printed copy or PDF file of a scanned version.)
  • Computer Systems Organization: The B5700/B6700. ACM Monograph Series, 1973. LCN: 72-88334

References

edit
  1. ^ Lindstrom, G. (1986). "Elliott I. Organick (1925–1985)". Communications of the ACM. 29 (3). ACM: 231. doi:10.1145/5666.6325. S2CID 46437633.
  2. ^ "SIGCSE: Awards". Archived from the original on 2008-08-28. Retrieved 2008-09-10.
edit