CHANGING COMPUTING - THE COMPUTING COMMUNITY AND DARPA

Between 1962 and 1986, the Information Processing Techniques Office (I PTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency provided signifi cant support for computer science R&D. The design and implementation o f the support programs of this office was the responsibility of a smal l group of computer scientists who emerged from the growing computer s cience community. Program directors focused on radical technologies, o rganized programs to develop them, and promoted their use in various s ettings, with substantial success. A better understanding of the evolu tion of the Department of Defense's policy for computing R&D can be ga ined from an analysis of the backgrounds, research experience, interes ts, and methods of the people engaged to design and implement this pol icy in IPTO.