Presidential Address to the ACM

In behalf of the ACM I want to thank our host, the University of Pennsyl-vania, the many other organizations that have contributed in material and in the time of their personnel, and the numerous individuals who have worked to make this meeting a success. I hesitate to name any since I would assuredly omit others unjustly. As I received the minutes of the meetings of the Local Arrangements Committee from time to time I was much impressed by the thoroughness of their planning and their forethought in providing for all contingencies. I am sure that even at the outset you are beginning to see the results of their care. Speaking for the ACYf, I know that many nonmembers have registered and are presumably here in this audience. I want to welcome you here, and I hope that you will find pleasure and profit in our company and our program to induce you to join our organization • On the printed program you will find a brief history of the ACM and a statement of its alms. This I shall not repeat.~-Btttun less than a decade the Association has grown from nothing to an organization'whose membership is approaching 2000.. I assume that you all, whether members of the ACM or not, and-whe~li~r you intend to join or not, hive at least certain aims and interests in common with the organization, since dtherwise you woul~t not be here. ~:Th6 i:apld growth ~ Of the organization has inspired and encouraged those of us who have worked to promote it. The first meeting I attended was the one held in Oak Ridge in March of '49. Attendance at that meeting was of the order of 10~; attendance expected here is of the order of l0 s. At that time there was much hope but very little machinery. We did have one new gadget to exhibit, and it attracted much-attention. It was the IBM 604, just out. I believe the very first one was sent to "Oak Ridge. It is superfluous to mention how vastly different the situation is today. In 1949 our aims were simple and direct. We wanted to hasten the development of automatic computing machinery. So we got together to exchange ideas • and information, on components, on design, on plans and expectations, on ways :; and means. Some were engineers whose job it was to develop and build; some were, like …