Government funding of computer research

While the popular version of the story of the information age tends to focus on lone inventors in garages or would-be entrepreneurs working out of college dorm rooms, many of the fundamental technologies underlying computers and net-works have been the results of government-funded projects.

ENIAC, the first operational full-scale electronic digi-tal computer, was an Army Ballistic Research Labora-tory project developed during and just after World War II. Early computers were also sponsored and used by the army and navy in areas such as guided missile develop-ment, and in national laboratories such as Los Alamos, where nuclear weapons were being developed. (Later the Atomic Energy Agency and its successor in the Department of Energy would play a similar role in obtaining computers, in particular developing an appetite for the more powerful machines—see supercomputer.)

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) played an impor-tant role in developing the underlying theory and design for computer architecture (see von Neumann, John), as well as sponsoring many of the early conferences on computer science, helping the discipline emerge.

As the cold war got underway, an increasing amount of funding went to military-related technology. Since com-puters were becoming essential for designing or operating complex technologies in aerospace, weapons systems, and other areas, it is not surprising that computer scientists have received a significant share of government research dollars.

A pattern of cooperation emerged between government agencies and companies such as Univac and particularly IBM, who were creating the computer industry. AT&T Bell Laboratories (see Bell Labs) received support for com-munications and semiconductor technology. Leading-edge research funded for military purposes tended to turn up five or ten years later in new generations of commercial products.

Begun in the late 1950s, one of the biggest defense com-puting projects was the ambitious (but only marginally suc-cessful) SAGE automated air defense system. It began with Whirlwind, the first computer designed for multitasking and continuous, real-time operation and data storage using magnetic core memory. Equally innovative were the user consoles, which pioneered such features as CRT-based out-put and a touch interface using a light pen.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Established in 1958 and sometimes known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), this agency through its Information Processing Technology Office has funded or contributed to some of the most important developments of the information age, including:

•  time-sharing computer and operating systems (MIT Project Mac)

•  packet-switched networks; the Internet (implemented as ARPANET)

•  NLS, an early hypertext system (see hypertext)

•  artificial intelligence topics including speech recogni-tion

ARPA was unusual as a government agency in its agile management. Managers were given considerable latitude to bring together the most innovative computer scientists and turn them loose with a minimum of bureaucratic oversight.

Funding Academic Research and Computer Science

Although military-related research has been the largest portion of government funding for computer science, other government agencies have also played important roles. Vannevar Bush worked tirelessly to create a new national research infrastructure, and this eventually bore fruit in the National Science Foundation (NSF). Starting in the 1960s the NSF began with a focus on providing computer support for the sciences, but soon concluded that univer-sity researchers were being crippled by lack of both com-puters and people who could design software. The agency began to directly support the funding of university com-puter purchases and the development of computer science programs. By 1970 the NSF was also supporting the devel-opment of computer networks as a way for institutions to share resources. NSF funding for computer science and related activities continued to grow. In the mid-1980s NSF set up the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which in turn set up regional centers from which researchers could tap into supercomputer power through a high-speed network.

Industrial Competitiveness

By the 1980s strong competitive threats to the U.S. com-puter industry (notably from Japan) and some government funding began to go to helping the American industry coor-dinate its research. An example is SEMATECH, the semi-conductor manufacturing research consortium. (DARPA also played an important role in the development of VLSI [very large-scale integration] circuits.)

Another effort of this era was the Strategic Computing Initiative, which was also in part a response to Japanese developments—their Fifth Generation Computer Program. SCI aimed to develop hardware and software for advanced artificial intelligence projects, starting with a military focus, such as autonomous vehicles, voice-controlled “glass cockpit” aircraft interfaces, and expert systems for battle management.

Although there is always fluctuation and changing polit-ical priorities, there is no reason to believe that government funding will not continue to play a very important role in computer-related research and development. There will also continue to be debates over the uses to which governments put computing technology, particularly in the military, intelligence, and national security areas.