Computer Usage Company (CUC) (1955–1986), sometimes called Computer Usage Corporation, was the first independent company to market

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

History

CUC is generally considered the first company to develop software independently and to have pioneered the field of programming services. Before this time, software was developed either by the users of the computers, or by the few commercial computer vendors. Computer Usage Company (CUC) was founded in March 1955 by Elmer C. Kubie (1926–2004) and John W. Sheldon. They had formerly worked together at IBM, and planned to offer services to help develop computer programs. The initial investment of US$40,000 supported the founders and a staff of five. The first offices were located in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. CUC's first project was a program written for California Research Corporation to simulate the flow of oil. On October 3, 1955, Computer Usage Company, Inc., was incorporated in

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. George R. Trimble Jr. became Corporate Technical Director in February 1956 after work on the

IBM 650 The IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine is an early digital computer produced by IBM in the mid-1950s. It was the first mass produced computer in the world. Almost 2,000 systems were produced, the last in 1962, and it was the fir ...

. Trimble headed a project to computerize the

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

system of the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

. This work was done at the National Aviation Facilities Experimental Center in

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. In 1959 an office in

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was opened, since CUC had business with the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. In April 1960 the company had an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

of stock shares, and grew to three managers, 37 mathematicians, 6 physicists, and 3 engineers. Later in 1960 CUC established a division to sell computer time and in Spring 1961 opened an office in

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Cuthbert Hurd Cuthbert Corwin Hurd (April 5, 1911 – May 22, 1996) was an American computer scientist and entrepreneur, who was instrumental in helping the International Business Machines Corporation develop its first general-purpose computers. Life Hurd w ...

joined the company as

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in 1962, a former division director from IBM. The FAA was planning to use the IBM 9020 model of the new

IBM System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applic ...

, so contracted with CUC to develop a compiler for the

JOVIAL JOVIAL is a high-level programming language based on ALGOL 58, specialized for developing embedded systems (specialized computer systems designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, usually embedded as part of a larger, more complete dev ...

computer language. The compiler was first developed on a simulator using the

IBM 7030 The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. It was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until the first CDC 6600 became operational in 1964."Designed by Seymour Cray, the CDC 6600 was almost three ...

before actual hardware was available. In early 1964, CUC developed software used by

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to track the election results. Sheldon left later in 1964. Another major contract was to implement part of IBM's first

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence ...

system,

TSS/360 The IBM Time Sharing System TSS/360 is a discontinued early time-sharing operating system designed exclusively for a special model of the System/360 line of mainframes, the Model 67. Made available on a trial basis to a limited set of cust ...

. CUC was asked to manage the TSS project, as it was seen as losing ground to competitors in time-sharing. Realizing that performance would never meet expectations, CUC declined. In 1965 the Computer Usage Education subsidiary was formed, headed by Ascher Opler, which published software books and offered courses. One of its best sellers was on Programming the IBM system/360. Carl H. Reynolds joined as President of the new Computer Usage Development Company subsidiary in 1966. Reynolds had been director of programming for the Data Systems Division of IBM during the development of the System/360. By 1967 CUC had a staff of over 700 people in 12 offices and revenues over $13 million. An office in

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was established to work on a contract with

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to develop software including an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

and a FORTRAN compiler for the

TI Advanced Scientific Computer The Advanced Scientific Computer (ASC) is a supercomputer designed and manufactured by Texas Instruments (TI) between 1966 and 1973. The ASC's central processing unit (CPU) supported vector processing, a performance-enhancing technique which was ...

. During that time, the company's vice president was H. Dean Brown. Kubie and Reynolds left in July 1968 and the company changed direction under new president Charles Benton, Jr. from IBM's Federal Systems Division. Benton hired sales people instead of technical people, and contracts did not keep up with overhead. CUC declared its first loss as a public company in 1969. Other competitors such as

Computer Sciences Corporation Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) was an American multinational corporation that provided information technology (IT) services and professional services. On April 3, 2017, it merged with the Enterprise Services line of business of HP Ente ...

were now larger.

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announced they were in discussions for an acquisition, but talks fell through. By early 1970 Benton resigned and Hurd stepped in as president, although he lived in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Other potential mergers were discussed, including

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who by now had founded his own service business

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. CUC negotiated a contract to manage computer facilities at the Firemans Fund Insurance Company, which restored profitability for a time. Hurd left in 1974. Victor Bartoletti became president, but died in 1984 and George C. Strohl from

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...

became president. However, losses continued to mount as the computer business was now very different from the field dominated by IBM 30 years earlier. By 1985, CUC lost $2.4 million on revenues of only $1.5 million. In 1986 CUC declared

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debto ...

and was liquidated in what is known as Chapter 7.

History

See also

References

Further reading