Adin D. Falkoff (19 December 1921 – 13 August 2010) was an engineer and computer systems and programming systems designer who was mostly known for his work on the programming language APL and systems for

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Career

Falkoff, born in

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, received a

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(B.Ch.E.) from the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

in 1941, and a

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(M.A.) in

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from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1963. He was a researcher and manager at

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since 1955 for over forty years before retiring.Cf
bio
in letter of recommendation for his wife, Dr. Linda D. Misek-Falkoff, to the Internet Governance Caucus IGF Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group He collaborated with Ken Iverson from 1960 to 1980 on the design, development, and use of the APL programming language and interactive environment. Of special note is his landmark article, ''A Formal Description of System/360'', describing the then new

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

computer system, formally, in APL programming notation. Falkoff was a visiting member of the faculty of IBM's Systems Research Institute, and taught

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. He was one of the researchers who established and managed the IBM

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Scientific Center and received many awards for his work, especially with APL.

Representative publications

*Adin D. Falkoff, "Algorithms for Parallel-Search Memories".

Journal of the ACM The ''Journal of the ACM'' (''JACM'') is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering computer science in general, especially theoretical aspects. It is an official journal of the Association for Computing Machinery. Its current editor-in-chief is ...

9:4:488-511 (1962) *Adin D. Falkoff, Kenneth E. Iverson,

Edward H. Sussenguth Jr. Edward H. Sussenguth Jr. (October 10, 1932 – November 22, 2015) was an American engineer and former IBM employee, known best for his work on Systems Network Architecture (SNA). He was also a contributor to the architecture of IBM's Advanced Comp ...

"A Formal Description of System/360"
''

IBM Systems Journal ''IBM Journal of Research and Development'' is a former, peer-reviewed bimonthly scientific journal covering research on information systems. This Journal has ceased production in 2020. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'' in 2019, the jo ...

'' 3:3:198-262 (1964) *Falkoff, A.D., and K.E. Iverson, ''APL\360 User’s Manual'', IBM Corporation, August 1968
full text in PDF
*Falkoff, A.D., and K.E. Iverson, "The Design of APL", ''

IBM Journal of Research and Development ''IBM Journal of Research and Development'' is a former, peer-reviewed bimonthly scientific journal covering research on information systems. This Journal has ceased production in 2020. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'' in 2019, the jo ...

'' 17:4, July 1973
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*Falkoff, A.D., and K.E. Iverson, "The Evolution of APL", ''ACM SIGPLAN Notices'' 13:8, August 1978

*Falkoff, A.D., and K.E. Iverson, ''A Source Book In APL'', APL Press, 1981 *Falkoff, A.D., "The IBM Family of APL Systems", ''

'' 30:4, December 1991
full text in PDF

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falkoff, Adin IBM employees APL implementers City College of New York alumni Yale University alumni 1921 births Engineers from New Jersey 2010 deaths People from Pleasantville, New York