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Interviews and Oral Histories

Abstract

A curated gateway to primary voices: external interviews and oral-history recordings in which the people covered by this encyclopedia tell their own stories. Every entry links the person’s article in this vault and at least one interview held by an archive or broadcaster, with an archived copy where one exists.

Major Collections

These archives hold most of the material below and are the first places to look for anyone not yet listed.

  • Computer History Museum, Oral Histories (Mountain View, CA): over a thousand in-depth interviews, most with full transcript PDFs and many with video on YouTube.
  • Charles Babbage Institute, Oral Histories (archived) (University of Minnesota): hundreds of research-grade interviews since 1979, transcripts in the University Digital Conservancy.
  • ACM A.M. Turing Award interviews: full-length video interviews with Turing laureates, each with transcript, plus short classroom clips.
  • IEEE History Center oral histories on ETHW: engineering-focused interviews, full transcripts on the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.
  • Smithsonian Computer Oral History Collection (National Museum of American History): the earliest systematic program, run with AFIPS from 1967, covering the first generation of machine builders.
  • Web of Stories: long life-story interviews in short searchable segments, including several computing pioneers.
  • GBH Open Vault: raw, uncut interview footage shot for the 1992 WGBH/BBC series The Machine That Changed the World.
  • Silicon Genesis (Stanford University Libraries): oral histories of semiconductor technology started in 1995 by engineer Rob Walker, streaming video with transcripts, centred on Fairchild, Intel and the wider chip industry.
  • Science History Institute, oral histories (Philadelphia): deep coverage of the materials science and chemistry behind computing, including the semiconductor industry, with transcripts and audio.
  • An Oral History of British Science (British Library, National Life Stories): long biographical life-story interviews, its “Made in Britain” strand covering computing and engineering pioneers, audio and video with transcripts (highlights curated on the “Voices of Science” resource).
  • Oral-History.Digital (Freie Universität Berlin): a DFG-funded cross-collection search portal for audiovisual Zeitzeugen interviews, aggregating over 3,700 interviews from more than 40 German archives, museums, and foundations. Metadata search is open; viewing the recordings requires a free account.
  • German holdings to check per person: the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum and the Deutsches Museum both hold interview and Zeitzeugen material (the Deutsches Museum among the archives indexed by Oral-History.Digital).

Interviews A–Z

A

Alfred Aho · Aho and Ullman: The Dragon Book

  • Turing Award oral history, ACM and Computer History Museum, interviewed by Ken Thompson. Video. ACM interview page

Howard Aiken · Howard Aiken and the Harvard Mark I

  • Oral history, Smithsonian Computer Oral History Collection (AFIPS/NMAH Archives Center), 26–27 February 1973, interviewed by Henry Tropp and I. Bernard Cohen. Transcript, 182 pages. The Mark I proposal, IBM, the Mark II to IV. Transcript PDF

Frances Allen · Frances Allen and Compiler Optimization

  • Oral history, IEEE History Center, 2001, interviewed by Janet Abbate. Transcript. IBM career from FORTRAN teaching to Stretch-Harvest and PTRAN. ETHW (archived)
  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 2008, interviewed by Al Kossow. CHM catalog (archived)

Gene Amdahl · Gene Amdahl and the System/360

  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, 1986 and 1989, interviewed by Arthur L. Norberg. Transcript, 147 pages. The WISC machine, the IBM 704 and System/360 architecture, founding Amdahl Corporation and Trilogy. University Digital Conservancy
  • Biography and materials, IEEE History Center. ETHW

Marc Andreessen · Marc Andreessen and Netscape

  • Video history, Smithsonian Institution, interviewed by David K. Allison (Computerworld Smithsonian Awards). Transcript. NCSA Mosaic, founding Netscape with Jim Clark, the browser wars. NMAH

Bill Atkinson · Bill Atkinson and HyperCard

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, June 8, 2004, interviewed by Grady Booch, with Andy Hertzfeld. Transcript. QuickDraw, the Lisa and Macintosh user interface, MacPaint, the road to HyperCard. CHM catalog

B

John Backus · John Backus and FORTRAN

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, September 5, 2006, interviewed by Grady Booch. Video and transcript. FORTRAN team, BNF, function-level programming. CHM catalog (archived); ACM hosts the transcript (archived)

Ralph Baer · Ralph Baer and the Magnavox Odyssey

  • Oral history, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Archives Center. The “Brown Box” prototype and the Magnavox Odyssey, the birth of home video gaming. Ralph H. Baer Papers oral history
  • Interviews in the Smithsonian Video Game Pioneers Oral History Collection. SOVA, NMAH.AC.1498

Paul Baran · Paul Baran and Packet Switching

  • Oral history, IEEE History Center. Transcript. RAND, survivable communications, the eleven-volume “On Distributed Communications.” ETHW
  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, January 12, 1988, interviewed by James L. Pelkey. Transcript. Packet switching and its slow path to ARPANET. CHM catalog

Friedrich L. Bauer · Friedrich L. Bauer

  • Oral history OH 128, Charles Babbage Institute, 17 February 1987, Munich, interviewed by William Aspray. Transcript. PERM, the stack, ALGOL and European computing. UMN Conservancy
  • SIAM oral history, 21 and 26 July and 9 August 2004, Munich, interviewed by Ulf Hashagen. Transcript. Numerical analysis, Munich informatics, cryptology. SIAM history site; CHM catalog

Andy Bechtolsheim · Andy Bechtolsheim and Sun

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, interviewed by Douglas Fairbairn. Transcript. The Stanford University Network workstation, CAD tools, founding Sun Microsystems, the early check to Google. CHM catalog

Tim Berners-Lee · Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web

  • Oral history, IEEE History Center, April 9, 2004, interviewed by Robert Colburn. Transcript. CERN, the 1989 proposal, the first browser and server, founding the W3C. ETHW
  • Interview, British Computer Society. Transcript. BCS

Donald Bitzer · Donald Bitzer

  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, February 19, 1988, interviewed by Sheldon Hochheiser in Champaign. Transcript, 24 pages, with audio. PLATO’s commercialisation by Control Data and his disagreements over marketing and courseware. University Digital Conservancy
  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, July 27, 2022, interviewed by Marc Weber. Transcript. The 1960 proposal, the plasma panel, CERL, NC State. CHM transcript PDF
  • PLATO@50 conversation with Ray Ozzie, Computer History Museum, June 2010. Video. CHM catalog

Manuel Blum · Manuel Blum: From Complexity to CAPTCHA

  • Turing Award interview, ACM, October 26, 2017, interviewed by Ann Gibbons in Pittsburgh. Video and transcript, over three hours. Complexity theory, program checking, cryptography, the CAPTCHA. ACM interview

Karlheinz Brandenburg · Karlheinz Brandenburg and MP3

  • Interview, Internet History Podcast, 2015, for MP3’s 20th birthday. Audio, English. Erlangen origins, the listening tests, licensing. Internet History Podcast (archived)
  • Interview, Deutscher Zukunftspreis Wissenschaftspodcast. Audio, German. The MP3 story told for a general audience. Deutscher Zukunftspreis (archived)

Dan Bricklin · Dan Bricklin and VisiCalc

  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, May 7, 2004, interviewed by Martin Campbell-Kelly and Paul Ceruzzi, with Bob Frankston. Transcript. MIT Multics, the idea for VisiCalc at Harvard Business School, the first spreadsheet. University Digital Conservancy
  • “The Creation and Destruction of VisiCalc,” personal account, Computer History Museum. CHM catalog

Fred Brooks · Fred Brooks and the Mythical Man-Month

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, September 2007, interviewed by Grady Booch in Cambridge, UK. Transcript. Managing the IBM System/360, the OS/360 overrun behind The Mythical Man-Month, founding UNC computer science. CHM catalog

Nolan Bushnell · Nolan Bushnell and Atari

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 2024, interviewed by Hansen Hsu. Video and transcript. Computer Space, founding Atari with Ted Dabney, Pong, the Magnavox lawsuit, Chuck E. Cheese. CHM catalog
  • Oral history, Smithsonian Video Game Pioneers Collection. Transcript. NMAH transcript PDF

C

Charles Bachman · Charles Bachman and the Integrated Data Store

  • Oral history, ACM, September 25–26, 2004, Tucson, Arizona, interviewed by Thomas Haigh. Transcript. Dow, SHARE and 9PAC, IDS at GE, CODASYL, the 1974 debate with Codd, OSI, Cullinane, Bachman Information Systems. ACM Digital Library

Chester Carlson · Chester Carlson

  • Interview, December 16, 1965, New York City, tape-recorded by Joseph J. Ermenc of Dartmouth College; edited typescript published as “Interview of Chester F. Carlson, the Inventor,” New York Law School Law Review 44, no. 2 (2001), 247–285. The childhood, the library research that led to photoconductivity, Astoria, the rejections, Battelle and Haloid, in Carlson’s own words. NYLS Digital Commons

Ed Catmull · Ed Catmull

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, March 1, 2013, interviewed by John Hollar (2013 Fellow Award). Video. Utah, Applicon, the NYIT graphics lab, Lucasfilm, Pixar and Disney. CHM catalog

Charles Csuri · John Whitney and Charles Csuri

  • Oral history OH 180, Charles Babbage Institute, October 23, 1989, Columbus, Ohio, interviewed by Kerry J. Freedman. Transcript. His art education, the move to computer graphics in the mid-1960s, the computer in the creative process. CBI / UMN Conservancy

Vint Cerf · Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, November 7, 2007, interviewed by Donald Nielson. Transcript, 41 pages. ARPANET, TCP/IP design, DARPA years. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Oral history, IEEE History Center. Transcript. ETHW (archived)

Morris Chang · Morris Chang and TSMC

  • Interview, Silicon Genesis, Stanford University Libraries, August 24, 2007. Streaming video. Sylvania and Texas Instruments, the Stanford PhD, running ITRI, and founding TSMC as the first pure-play foundry. Silicon Genesis

Lynn Conway · Lynn Conway and VLSI

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum (2014 Fellow), interviewed by Dag Spicer. Video. The IBM ACS project and her firing, the Mead-Conway VLSI design method, the MPC79 chip-fabrication run. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Biography and materials, IEEE History Center. ETHW (archived)

Fernando Corbató · Fernando Corbató and Time-Sharing

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, February 1, 2006, interviewed by Steven Webber. Transcript. Whirlwind, the Compatible Time-Sharing System, Project MAC, Multics. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, two sessions April 18, 1989 and November 14, 1990, interviewed by Arthur L. Norberg. Transcript. University Digital Conservancy

Seymour Cray · Seymour Cray and Supercomputing

  • Video interview, Smithsonian Institution, May 9, 1995, interviewed by David K. Allison. Transcript. Control Data, the CDC 6600, founding Cray Research, his one-person design philosophy. NMAH

Ward Cunningham · Ward Cunningham and the Wiki

  • “An Evening with Wiki Inventor Ward Cunningham,” Computer History Museum, April 24, 2006, in conversation with John Gage. Video. The origin of WikiWikiWeb, design patterns, Extreme Programming. CHM event page, video on YouTube

Dave Cutler · Dave Cutler and Windows NT

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, February 25, 2016, interviewed by Grant Saviers. Video and transcript. RSX-11 and VMS at DEC, the cancelled Prism project, building Windows NT at Microsoft. CHM catalog

D

Donald Davies · Donald Davies

  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, 17 March 1986, National Physical Laboratory, interviewed by Martin Campbell-Kelly. Transcript. Pilot ACE, ACE, the NPL Computer Science Division and data transmission. UMN Conservancy
  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 27 May 1988, London, interviewed by James L. Pelkey. Transcript. Packet switching and computer communications. CHM catalog
  • Oral history with Derek Barber, IEEE History Center, 17 March 1996, Sunbury-on-Thames, interviewed by Janet Abbate. Transcript. NPL Mark I and II networks, the European Informatics Network, X.25. ETHW

Tom DeFanti · Tom DeFanti

  • “Conference Chair Interview: 1979 Conference Chair Tom DeFanti”, ACM SIGGRAPH History Archives, August 6, 2023, interviewed by Ed Kramer for the SIGGRAPH 50th anniversary. Video. The 1979 conference and the early SIGGRAPH years. SIGGRAPH History Archives

Michael Dell · Michael Dell

  • Interview, American Academy of Achievement, July 3, 2008, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Video with transcript. The dorm-room start, the direct model, returning as CEO in 2007. Academy of Achievement

Whitfield Diffie · Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman

  • Interview, Computer History Museum, March 28, 2011, interviewed by Jon Plutte. Public-key cryptography and the 1976 “New Directions in Cryptography” paper with Martin Hellman. CHM catalog

Edsger Dijkstra · Edsger Dijkstra and Structured Programming

  • Oral history OH 330, Charles Babbage Institute, August 2, 2001, interviewed by Philip L. Frana in Austin, Texas. Transcript. One of the few recorded long-form interviews with Dijkstra, a year before his death. University Digital Conservancy (archived)

E

Rana el Kaliouby · Rana el Kaliouby

  • CHM Live conversation, Computer History Museum, 8 June 2017, in conversation with museum chief executive John C. Hollar. Video, 64 minutes. Affectiva’s face and emotion algorithms, the MIT autism and mental-health research they came out of, and the market-research customers. CHM catalog
  • CHM Live conversation on Girl Decoded, Computer History Museum, 18 May 2020, interviewed by Aarthi Shahani of NPR. Video. Growing up in Cairo and Kuwait, Cambridge, and building Affectiva. CHM event page

Douglas Engelbart · Douglas Engelbart and the Mother of All Demos

  • Oral history series, Stanford University Libraries, four sessions December 1986 to April 1987, interviewed by Henry Lowood and Judy Adams. Transcripts. Augmentation research before and after the 1968 demo. Stanford (archived)
  • Interview, Smithsonian Institution (Computerworld Smithsonian Awards program). Transcript. NMAH (archived)

Hartmut Esslinger · Hartmut Esslinger

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, April 20, 2011, Mountain View, interviewed by Barry Katz. Transcript, 28 pages. The Black Forest, Wega and Sony, the Snow White competition, the $2 million Apple fee, zero-draft moulding, Jobs’s departure and NeXT, the Flextronics sale. CHM catalog, transcript PDF

F

Federico Faggin · Federico Faggin and the Microprocessor

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 2004, interviewed by Gardner Hendrie. Transcript, 139 pages. Silicon-gate MOS at Fairchild, the Intel 4004 and 8008, founding Zilog. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Oral history, IEEE History Center. Transcript. ETHW (archived)
  • Interview, Silicon Genesis, Stanford University Libraries, March 3, 1995. Streaming video with transcript. The silicon-gate process at Fairchild and the first microprocessors at Intel. Silicon Genesis

Edward Feigenbaum · Edward Feigenbaum and the Expert System

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, June 20 and 27, 2007, interviewed by Nils Nilsson. Video and transcript. Carnegie Tech and Simon’s “thinking machine,” EPAM, Berkeley, Lederberg and DENDRAL, the Fifth Generation. CHM catalog · transcript PDF
  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 2007, interviewed by Donald Knuth. CHM catalog
  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, March 3, 1989, interviewed by William Aspray.

Lee Felsenstein · Lee Felsenstein

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, May 7, 2008, interviewed by Kip Crosby. Transcript, 41 pages. The Free Speech Movement, Community Memory, moderating Homebrew, the Sol-20 and the Osborne 1. CHM catalog

Jay Forrester · The Limits to Growth and World3 and Whirlwind, SAGE, and Core Memory

  • Oral history, Smithsonian Institution and Computerworld Honors Program, interviewed by David Allison. Transcript. Whirlwind, core memory, SAGE. Transcript PDF
  • Oral history, Concord Free Public Library, 6 December 1994, interviewed by Renee Garrelick. Transcript. The Servomechanisms Laboratory, Whirlwind, core memory, SAGE, the Sloan School and system dynamics. Concord Library

G

Bill Gates · Bill Gates and Microsoft

  • Video history, Smithsonian Institution, 1993, interviewed by David Allison (Computerworld Smithsonian Awards). Transcript. Lakeside, the PDP-10, founding Microsoft, the early PC products. NMAH (archived)
  • Raw interview footage, 1990, for The Machine That Changed the World. Video. GBH Open Vault

Adele Goldberg · Adele Goldberg and Smalltalk

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, May 10, 2010, interviewed by John Mashey. Video and transcript. University of Chicago, Xerox PARC and Smalltalk, founding ParcPlace Systems. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Oral history, IEEE History Center. ETHW (archived)

Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali · Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali

  • Turing Award interview with Shafi Goldwasser, ACM, November 23, 2017, interviewed by Alon Rosen at the Weizmann Institute. Video and transcript, over three hours. Probabilistic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, interactive proofs. ACM interview
  • Turing Award interview with Silvio Micali, ACM, August 5, 2016, interviewed by Stephen Ibaraki. Video and transcript. ACM interview

James Gosling · James Gosling and Java

  • Oral history in two parts, Computer History Museum, March and April 2019, interviewed by Hansen Hsu and Marc Weber. Transcripts. Emacs on Unix, the NeWS window system, Oak and the birth of Java, “write once, run anywhere.” Part 1, Part 2

Andy Grove · Andy Grove and Intel

  • Oral history, Science History Institute, two sessions July 14 and September 1, 2004, interviewed by David C. Brock and Arnold Thackray in Los Altos, California. Transcript, 41 pages, and audio. Escape from Hungary, City College of New York, Fairchild, and the management of Intel with Noyce and Moore. Science History Institute

H

Margaret Hamilton · Margaret Hamilton and the Apollo Software

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, April 13, 2017, interviewed by David C. Brock in Boston. Video and transcript. SAGE, Apollo Guidance Computer software, the Apollo 8 and 11 stories firsthand. CHM catalog (archived)

Ann Hardy · Ann Hardy

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, two sessions, 11 and 22 July 2016, Mountain View, interviewed by David C. Brock, Marc Weber and Hansen Hsu. Transcripts. IBM in 1956 and the 705 in the window, Stretch and Harvest, Livermore, the Tymshare operating system, the stock options, Key Logic and Agorics. CHM catalog, part 1 · part 2
  • Oral history, IEEE History Center, 15 July 2002, Los Altos, interviewed by Janet Abbate. Transcript. ETHW

Juris Hartmanis · Hartmanis and Stearns

  • Oral history (Interview #120), IEEE History Center, July 31, 1991, interviewed by Andrew Goldstein. Transcript. The origins of complexity theory at GE with Stearns, complexity classes, NSF funding, and the growth of the field. The interview was cut short by a telephone fault. ETHW
  • Oral history, ACM, July 26, 2009, at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. ACM Digital Library

John Hennessy · Hennessy and Patterson: The Quantitative Approach

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, September 20, 2007, interviewed by John Mashey. Transcript. Stony Brook, the Stanford MIPS project, founding MIPS Computer Systems, the road to the Stanford presidency. CHM catalog · transcript PDF

Curt Herzstark · Curt Herzstark and the Curta

  • Oral history OH 140, Charles Babbage Institute, 10–11 September 1987, Nendeln, Liechtenstein, interviewed by Erwin Tomash (interpreter Mr. Burgler). Transcript in German with English passages, 86 pages, with audio. The family firm in Vienna, Buchenwald and the Curta drawings, Rheinmetall, Contina. University Digital Conservancy

Tony Hoare · Tony Hoare and the Science of Programming

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 2006, interviewed by Jonathan P. Bowen. Transcript. Elliott 803, ALGOL 60, Quicksort, Hoare logic, CSP. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Turing Award interview, ACM, interviewed by Cliff Jones. Transcript. ACM transcript PDF (archived)

Grace Hopper · Grace Hopper: The Queen of Code

  • Oral history, Smithsonian Computer Oral History Collection, five sessions 1968 to 1972. Transcripts. Harvard Mark I, UNIVAC, the first compilers, told two decades before the late-career fame. Smithsonian SOVA, collection NMAH.AC.0196

J

Steve Jobs · Steve Jobs and Apple

  • Oral history, Smithsonian Institution, April 20, 1995, interviewed by Daniel Morrow (Computerworld Smithsonian Awards). Video and transcript, about 80 minutes. Recorded in the NeXT years, before the Apple return: candid on Apple’s decline and on the web’s future. NMAH (archived)
  • Raw interview footage, 1990, for The Machine That Changed the World. Video. GBH Open Vault (archived)

Bill Joy · Bill Joy: The Other Sun Founder

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, interviewed by Alex Bochannek. Transcript. Berkeley Unix and BSD, vi, TCP/IP in the kernel, co-founding Sun, SPARC and Java. CHM catalog

K

Bob Kahn · Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, interviewed by Vint Cerf: one internet founder interviewing the other. Transcript. CHM transcript PDF (archived)

William Kahan · William Kahan and IEEE 754

  • Oral history, SIAM History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing project, August 5–8, 2005, interviewed by Thomas Haigh. Transcript, 229 pages. Toronto, the Stanford years, HP calculators, the Intel 8087 and the making of IEEE 754. SIAM · CHM copy
  • Turing Award interview, ACM. Transcript. ACM transcript PDF

Alan Kay · Alan Kay and Smalltalk

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, November 5, 2008, interviewed by Dag Spicer. Transcript. Xerox PARC, the Dynabook, and his reading of computing’s history. CHM catalog

Brian Kernighan · Brian Kernighan and the Unix Tools

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, interviewed by John Mashey. Transcript. Bell Labs, Unix, AWK, RATFOR and Software Tools, co-writing The C Programming Language. CHM catalog

Jack Kilby · Jack Kilby and the Integrated Circuit

  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, June 21, 1984, interviewed by Arthur L. Norberg in Dallas. Transcript, 69 pages. Centralab, Texas Instruments, the 1958 integrated circuit, the pocket calculator. University Digital Conservancy
  • Oral history, IEEE History Center, December 2, 1975, interviewed by Michael Wolff. Transcript. ETHW

Russell Kirsch · SEAC and Russell Kirsch

  • Oral history, Smithsonian Computer Oral History Collection (AFIPS/NMAH Archives Center), 8 October 1970, at the National Bureau of Standards, interviewed by Richard Mertz. SEAC’s design and development. SOVA record
  • Oral history, NIST, 13 January 1995, interviewed by Karma Beal. Audio. His NBS career from 1951, SEAC input/output, DYSEAC. NIST Digital Archives
  • Lecture “History of SEAC”, Computer History Museum. Video with transcript. CHM transcript PDF

Donald Knuth · Donald Knuth and the Art of Programming

Sandra Kurtzig · Sandra Kurtzig

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, September 29, 2017, interviewed by Gardner Hendrie. Transcript, 112 pages. TRW and GE time-sharing, starting ASK in a second bedroom in 1972, MANMAN on Hewlett-Packard minicomputers, the 1981 public offering, leaving in 1984 and returning in 1989, Ingres, and Kenandy. CHM catalog

L

Butler Lampson · Butler Lampson and Xerox PARC

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, interviewed by Alan Kay. Transcript, 74 pages. Project Genie, the founding of Xerox PARC, the Alto, and computer security. CHM catalog
  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, December 11, 2014, interviewed by Jeffrey R. Yost. Transcript, focused on security research. University Digital Conservancy

Leslie Lamport · Leslie Lamport and Distributed Systems

  • Turing Award interview, ACM, August 12 and November 11, 2016, interviewed by Roy Levin. Video and transcript, over five hours across two sessions. Logical clocks, Paxos, LaTeX. ACM (archived)

Håkon Wium Lie · Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos

  • Interview, The Web Standards Project, March 31, 2005. Text. The history of HTML and CSS, Opera, and why standards matter, published days after his Acid2 challenge to Microsoft. WaSP
  • Podcast interview, Wix Engineering, Stand Up and Fight E01, with full transcript. CERN in 1994, the cascade, the fights with Microsoft. Transcript

Barbara Liskov · Barbara Liskov and Data Abstraction

  • Turing Award interview, ACM. Video and transcript. ACM (archived)

M

Benoît Mandelbrot · Benoit Mandelbrot and Fractals

  • Life-story interview, Web of Stories, recorded May 1998. Video in short segments. Childhood in Warsaw and Paris, thinking in pictures, economics, turbulence, fractals. Web of Stories

David May · David May

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, August 16, 2011, interviewed by Kevin Krewell. Transcript, 48 pages. Cambridge and Warwick, sixteen years at Inmos, the transputer from a product and engineering perspective, Bristol. CHM catalog
  • Career retrospective interview, Royal Society Library workshop “Computers and Computer People, 1950s–1990s”, March 2021. Video, about 45 minutes, on the Royal Society’s YouTube channel. Cambridge, Warwick, the transputer and occam at Inmos, XMOS. Royal Society blog with playlist link

Lore Harp McGovern · Lore Harp McGovern and Vector Graphic

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 3 November 2016, Hillsborough, CA, interviewed by Gardner Hendrie. Video and transcript, 53 pages. Coming to California, founding Vector Graphic with Carole Ely in 1976, the 1981 IPO and road show, IBM and the CP/M decision. CHM catalog · transcript PDF

Bob Metcalfe · Bob Metcalfe and Ethernet

  • Oral history in two parts, Computer History Museum, 2006–2007, interviewed by Len Shustek. Transcripts. MIT and Harvard, ARPANET, inventing Ethernet at Xerox PARC, the DEC-Intel-Xerox standard, founding 3Com. Part 1 (archived), Part 2 (archived)
  • Oral history, IEEE History Center. ETHW (archived)

Robin Milner · Robin Milner

  • Interview, September 3, 2003, Cambridge, conducted by Martin Berger (published in Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science). Transcript. LCF and ML, CCS and the pi-calculus, the theory of concurrency. University of Sussex

Marvin Minsky · Marvin Minsky and the MIT AI Lab

  • Life-story interview, Web of Stories. Video in over 100 short segments. SNARC, the AI Lab, Kubrick and 2001, decades of AI debates. Web of Stories (archived)

Gordon Moore · Gordon Moore and Moore’s Law

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum (SEMI collection), interviewed by Craig Addison. Transcript. Semiconductor manufacturing from Shockley to Intel, and the durability of his law. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Oral history panel with Arthur Rock, Computer History Museum, July 9, 2014, moderated by Doug Fairbairn and John Hollar. Transcript, 32 pages: Intel’s founding told by founder and financier together. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Interview, Silicon Genesis, Stanford University Libraries, August 18, 1995, interviewed by Rob Walker. Transcript. Shockley Labs, founding Fairchild, and the origin of Moore’s Law. Silicon Genesis

N

Yuji Naka · Sonic Team: Naka, Ohshima and Yasuhara

  • Interview in Game Maestro Vol. 2 (Japan, 2000), English translation by shmuplations. Text. Learning to program from magazine listings, joining Sega in 1984, the Phantasy Star dungeons, quitting after Sonic, the STI years in California, Nights and the plan for Phantasy Star Online. shmuplations

Ted Nelson · Ted Nelson and Hypertext

  • Raw interview footage, 1990, for The Machine That Changed the World. Video. Hypertext and Xanadu in his own words, two years before the web spread. GBH Open Vault (archived)

Robert Noyce · Robert Noyce and Fairchild Semiconductor

  • Oral history, IEEE History Center, September 19, 1975, interviewed by Michael F. Wolff, with a 1976 addendum. Transcript. Shockley Semiconductor, the founding of Fairchild, the planar integrated circuit. ETHW

O

Naoto Ohshima · Sonic Team: Naka, Ohshima and Yasuhara

  • “Classic Game Postmortem: Sonic the Hedgehog”, with Hirokazu Yasuhara, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, 2018. Video. The mascot competition, the rejected characters, Sonic’s design, and the original planning documents. GDC Vault · YouTube

Ray Ozzie · Ray Ozzie

  • PLATO@50 conversation with Donald Bitzer, Computer History Museum, June 2010. Video. PLATO Notes and what became Lotus Notes. CHM catalog

P

David Patterson · Hennessy and Patterson: The Quantitative Approach

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, September 13, 2007, interviewed by John Mashey. Transcript. UCLA, Berkeley RISC, RAID, NOW and teaching. CHM catalog

Judea Pearl · Judea Pearl and the Causal Revolution

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum (co-sponsored with ACM), July 26, 2022, interviewed by David C. Brock in Encino, CA. Video and transcript, over three hours. Bayesian networks, causal inference, the do-calculus. CHM catalog (archived)
  • Turing Award interview, ACM, 2011, interviewed by Roger Bingham in Boston. Transcript. ACM transcript PDF (archived)

Chuck Peddle · Chuck Peddle

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 12 June 2014, Mountain View, interviewed by Douglas Fairbairn and Stephen Diamond. Video (about four hours) and transcript. GE time-sharing, the Motorola 6800, the 6502, KIM-1, PET, Victor 9000. CHM catalog; transcript PDF

David Potter · David Potter

  • Oral history, Archives of IT, April 20, 2016, interviewed by Alan Cane at WCIT Hall. Video with transcript. South Africa, Cambridge and Imperial, the duvet investment, founding Psion, the Organiser, Symbian. Archives of IT

Louis Pouzin · Louis Pouzin and the Datagram

  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute (OH 416), April 2, 2012, interviewed by Andrew L. Russell in Paris. Transcript. Bull, Simca, the French weather bureau, MIT in the early 1960s, the origins of CYCLADES, and the politics that ended it. Part of an ACM-funded set of nine interviews with European networking pioneers. University Digital Conservancy
  • Interview, Computer History Museum, November 28, 1988, interviewed by James L. Pelkey. Transcript. CHM catalog

Jon Postel · Jon Postel

  • Interview, Computer History Museum, interviewed by James L. Pelkey. Transcript. ARPANET, the RFC series, TCP/IP, and running the IANA and the internet’s numbers. CHM catalog
  • Biography and materials, IEEE History Center. ETHW

R

Larry Roberts · Larry Roberts and ARPANET

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, interviewed by James L. Pelkey. Transcript. Running the ARPANET program at ARPA’s IPTO, packet switching, the first nodes in 1969. CHM catalog

Virginia Rometty · Virginia Rometty

  • Conversation, Computer History Museum “Revolutionaries” series, November 18, 2014, with museum CEO John Hollar. Video. Her IBM career, the strategic-imperatives turn, Watson. CHM catalog

Ben Rosen · Rod Canion and Ben Rosen

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, September 12, 2017, interviewed by David C. Brock. Transcript. Wall Street analysis, the Rosen Electronics Letter, Sevin Rosen, Lotus and Compaq. CHM catalog

S

Jean Sammet · Jean Sammet and COBOL

  • Oral history, IEEE History Center. Transcript. The COBOL committee, FORMAC, and her lifelong history of programming languages. ETHW (archived)

Roger Schell · Roger Schell and Steve Lipner

  • Oral history, Charles Babbage Institute, May 1, 2012, interviewed by Jeffrey R. Yost in Monterey. Transcript. Multics, the 1974 evaluation with Karger, the Orange Book, Gemini and GEMSOS. University Digital Conservancy

Dana Scott · Dana Scott

  • Turing Award oral history, ACM, four sessions from November 12, 2020 to February 2021, over Zoom, interviewed by Gordon Plotkin. Video and transcript. Berkeley and Tarski, Princeton and Church, the 1957 IBM summer with Rabin, Boolean-valued models, Oxford and the D∞ model of November 1969. ACM transcript PDF · ACM interview page

Gary Starkweather · Gary Starkweather

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, August 23, 2010, interviewed by Gardner Hendrie. Transcript, 52 pages. Bausch & Lomb and Xerox, inventing the laser printer against management resistance, Apple and Microsoft; the catalog calls it “a lesson in how monopolies miss opportunities.” CHM catalog (archived)

George Stibitz · George Stibitz and the Complex Number Calculator

  • Oral history with E. G. Andrews, Smithsonian Computer Oral History Collection (AFIPS/NMAH Archives Center), 2 March 1972, interviewed by Henry Tropp. Transcript, 24 pages. The Bell Labs relay calculators Models I to VI, Boolean algebra in relay design, the founders of the ACM. Collection abstracts S–Z (PDF)

Michael Stonebraker · Michael Stonebraker and Postgres

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum (Software Industry SIG), August 23, 2007, interviewed by Burton Grad. Transcript. Ingres, Postgres, the string of database startups, the “one size fits all” argument. CHM catalog
  • Turing Award interview, ACM, 2014. Video and transcript. ACM transcript PDF

Bjarne Stroustrup · Bjarne Stroustrup and C++

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, February 5, 2015, interviewed by Paul McJones (2015 Fellow Award). Video and transcript. Aarhus and Cambridge, Simula’s influence, C with Classes and C++ at Bell Labs. CHM catalog

Ivan Sutherland · Ivan Sutherland and Sketchpad

  • Oral history in two parts, Computer History Museum, February and March 2017, interviewed by Bob Sproull and David C. Brock. Video and transcripts. Childhood projects with Edmund Berkeley, Sketchpad, ARPA, asynchronous circuits. Part 1 (archived), Part 2 (archived)

Yu Suzuki · Yu Suzuki

  • “Classic Game Postmortem: Shenmue”, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, March 19, 2014, with Mark Cerny translating. Video. The Saturn prototype and Virtua Fighter RPG, the move to the Dreamcast, a team of more than 300, the NPC schedules and the bugs they caused. GDC Vault · Internet Archive

T

Andrew Tanenbaum · Andrew Tanenbaum and MINIX

Robert Tarjan · Hopcroft and Tarjan: Depth-First Search and the Linear-Time Graph

  • Turing Award oral history, ACM, July 12, 2017, San Mateo, California, interviewed by Roy Levin. Transcript. Gardner’s columns, Stanford and Floyd, Hopcroft’s 1970 sabbatical, planarity, the Ackermann bound, Bell Labs. ACM transcript PDF
  • Interview with the 1986 Turing Award recipients (with John Hopcroft), Communications of the ACM 30 (3), March 1987. ACM Digital Library

Larry Tesler · Larry Tesler and the War on Modes

  • Oral history in three parts, Computer History Museum, 2016–2017. Transcripts. Xerox PARC, Gypsy and modeless editing, cut/copy/paste, the Lisa and Macintosh, Apple’s Advanced Technology Group. Part 1 (archived), Part 2 (archived), Part 3 (archived)

Chuck Thacker · Chuck Thacker and the Alto

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, August 29, 2007, interviewed by Al Kossow. Transcript. Berkeley and Project Genie, Berkeley Computer Corporation, the Alto and Ethernet at Xerox PARC, DEC SRC, Microsoft. CHM catalog

Ken Thompson · Ken Thompson and Unix

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 2005, interviewed by John Mashey. Transcript. Unix’s origins, B and C, Belle, Plan 9. CHM transcript PDF (archived)
  • Turing Award oral history, Computer History Museum for the ACM, March 15, 2024, Sea Ranch, California, interviewed by David C. Brock. Transcript (64 pages). Berkeley, Bell Labs and Multics, Unix and C with Ritchie, computer chess, Plan 9 with Rob Pike, security, Google Books and Go. CHM catalog

U

Jeffrey Ullman · Aho and Ullman: The Dragon Book

  • Turing Award oral history, Computer History Museum for the ACM, April 12, 2024, Mountain View, interviewed by Hansen Hsu. Video and transcript. Princeton and Hopcroft, McIlroy’s group at Bell Labs, the yacc memo, the Dragon Book cover, database theory, Sergey Brin. ACM transcript PDF

V

Guido van Rossum · Guido van Rossum and Python

  • Oral history in two parts, Computer History Museum, 2018, interviewed by Hansen Hsu. Video and transcripts. CWI and the ABC language, designing Python, indentation and modules, the Python Software Foundation. Part 1, Part 2

W

John Warnock · John Warnock and PostScript

  • Oral history in two parts, Computer History Museum, interviewed by David C. Brock. Transcripts. Xerox Interpress, founding Adobe with Charles Geschke, PostScript, font licensing, the PDF. Part 1, Part 2

Jim Warren · Jim Warren and Jerry Pournelle

  • Radio interview, KFJC Los Altos Hills, April 10, 2006, interviewed by Alison Chaiken and DJ Ann Arbor, prompted by Markoff’s What the Dormouse Said. Audio in seven parts on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Part 1

Avi Wigderson · Avi Wigderson

  • Abel Prize laureate interview, 2021, with László Lovász, interviewed by Bjørn Ian Dundas and Christian Skau. Video and transcript (published in the EMS Magazine and Notices of the AMS). Haifa, Princeton, zero knowledge, hardness versus randomness. Abel Prize 2021

Maurice Wilkes · Maurice Wilkes and EDSAC

  • Life-story interview, British Library National Life Stories (“An Oral History of British Science”), 2010, interviewed by Thomas Lean. Audio and transcript. EDSAC, subroutines, microprogramming, the Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory. British Library (archived)
  • Interview, Smithsonian Computer Oral History Collection. Transcript. Smithsonian, NMAH.AC.0196

Sophie Wilson · Sophie Wilson and ARM

  • Oral history, Computer History Museum, 2012 Fellow Award. Video and transcript. Acorn, the BBC Micro and BBC BASIC, designing the ARM instruction set with Steve Furber. CHM catalog

Niklaus Wirth · Niklaus Wirth and Pascal

  • Turing Award oral history, ACM, interviewed by Elena Trichina. Transcript. Algol-W, Pascal and the portable P-code compiler, Modula, Oberon. ACM transcript PDF (archived)
  • Biography and materials, IEEE History Center. ETHW

Steve Wozniak · Steve Wozniak: The Engineer’s Apple

Will Wright · Will Wright

  • Interview, “The Replay Interviews: Will Wright”, Game Developer (Gamasutra), 23 May 2011, interviewed by Tristan Donovan. Text. Raid on Bungeling Bay, SimCity as a toy, Maxis, The Sims. Game Developer

Y

Hirokazu Yasuhara · Sonic Team: Naka, Ohshima and Yasuhara

  • Interview by Brandon Sheffield, Game Developer magazine, August 2008. Text. The one-button problem in Sonic, his level-design theory built on Caillois’s four elements of play, and design differences between American and Japanese audiences. Game Developer
  • “Classic Game Postmortem: Sonic the Hedgehog”, with Naoto Ohshima, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, 2018. Video. See the Ohshima entry above.

Z

Lotfi Zadeh · Lotfi Zadeh

  • Oral history, IEEE History Center, July 24, 1991, interviewed by Andrew Goldstein by telephone for a study of the NSF’s role in computer science. Transcript. Columbia and Ragazzini, sampled-data systems and the z-transform, the move to Berkeley, why conventional techniques seemed “much too precise for the pervasive imprecision of the real world”, and the reception of fuzzy sets. ETHW

Hubert Zimmermann · Hubert Zimmermann and the Seven Layers

  • Interview, Computer History Museum, May 25, 1988, interviewed by James L. Pelkey at the Chorus Systèmes offices in Paris. Transcript. CYCLADES, the INWG, and getting the OSI reference model adopted as a standard. CHM catalog

Heinz Zemanek · Heinz Zemanek and the Mailüfterl

  • Oral history OH 127, Charles Babbage Institute, 14 and 16 February 1987, interviewed by William Aspray in Vienna. Transcript. Nazi-occupied Austria, wartime radar, the Mailüfterl, LOGALGOL and the early compilers, IBM’s sponsorship of the Vienna group, ALGOL and PL/I standards. University Digital Conservancy
  • Interview, Smithsonian Computer Oral History Collection, 12 December 1972. Transcript. ACM DL

Konrad Zuse · Konrad Zuse and the Z3

  • Oral history, IEEE History Center, August 28, 1994, interviewed by Frederik Nebeker. Transcript. The relay computers, the Z4, Zuse KG’s dealings with IBM and Remington Rand, and the Z3 reconstruction for the Deutsches Museum. ETHW
  • Interview segments in The Machine That Changed the World (WGBH/BBC, 1992), episode “Giant Brains”. Video. Source of his line “You could say I was too lazy to calculate, so I invented the computer.” Episodes archived at Waxy.org

📚 Sources