Bruce Arden

Who is Bruce Arden?

Bruce Wesley Arden is an American computer scientist.

He graduated from Purdue University with a BS in 1949 and started his computing career in 1950 with the wiring and programming of IBM's hybrid Card Programmed Computer/Calculator at the Allison Division of General Motors. Next he spent a short period as a programmer for computations being done at the University of Michigan's Willow Run Laboratory using the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer.

He then became a Research Associate at the University of Michigan's Statistical Research Laboratory and later an Associate Director of the University's Computing Center after its establishment in 1959. While at Michigan he co-authored two compilers, GAT for the IBM 650 and MAD for the IBM 704/709/7090, was involved in the design of the architecture and negotiations with IBM over the virtual memory features that would be included in what became the IBM System/360 Model 67 computer, and in the initial design of the Michigan Terminal System time-sharing operating system.

U-M Vice President for Research Geoffrey Norman, writing in 1976, gave special credit to a triumvirate of Michigan computer specialists who contributed greatly to the future of computing at Michigan and in the nation as a whole. "Bartels, Arden, and Westervelt," Norman has said, "were a team that we took great care should not be broken up or induced to leave the University. Westervelt, the hardware expert, Arden, brilliant in software and logic, and Bartels orchestrating their progress-these three put together a superb timesharing computer system. The University and their faculty colleagues owe them much."