Interviewed by Jim Strickland, on May 27, 2014, in Mountain View, California, X7177.2014 © Computer History Museum Fredrick “Fritz” Trapnell is the man who delivered on the promises made by IBM when they announced System/360 and its revolutionary software. That announcement, on April 7, 1964, was not specific about software for the System/360 family, but it suggested that the operating system would encompass the entire range of computer hardware. But in mid-1965, Dr. Fred Brooks—one of the chief architects of the System/360 and in charge of the huge, widely diversified software development project—was to leave IBM to fulfill his promise to start the computer science program at the University of North Carolina. Fritz Trapnell was brought back to the United States from IBM's laboratory in Hursley, United Kingdom, to take over. On Trapnell’s watch, unmakeable products were redefined, unmakeable schedules were reset, products were delivered, and IBM was able to install all those System/360s that were so profitable for IBM and that remade the computer industry. Trapnell played a significant role in IBM's adoption of micro-code, which was the vehicle that enabled the many processors of the System/360 family to run the same instruction set. Later in his career he was vice president of software for Amdahl, leading development of Amdahl's UTS. And still later, he managed software development projects for Tandem (which became part of Compaq and Hewlett-Packard.) Visit http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.

• published: 21 Nov 2014
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