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today) | operating_income = | net_income = | aum = | assets = | equity = | owner = | num_employees = over 300 (1981) | parent = | divisions = Applications; Systems; Consulting; Federal; Publishing; BASE; Informa-Tab | subsid = | homepage = | footnotes = | intl = yes }} Advanced Computer Techniques (ACT) was a computer software company most active from the early 1960s through the early 1990s that made software products, especially language compilers and related tools. It also engaged in information technology consulting, hosted service bureaus, and provided applications and services for behavioral health providers. ACT had two subsidiaries of note, InterACT and Creative Socio-Medics. Both writer Katharine Davis Fishman, in her 1981 book ''The Computer Establishment'', and computer science historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, in his 2003 volume ''From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry'', have considered ACT an exemplar of the independent, middle-sized software development firms of its era, and the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota has also viewed the company's history as important.〔See Fishman, ''The Computer Establishment'', p. 268; Campbell-Kelly, ''From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog'', p. 57; and Haigh, ''An Interview with Oscar Schachter'', Preface. Fishman portrays Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and its chief executive, Frank Lautenberg, as the exemplar of the large software company of the time. Campbell-Kelly portrays Applied Data Research (ADR) and Informatics General as two other typical software firms of the 1960s. Other oral histories conducted for the Charles Babbage Institute's Software History Center have included ones of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of VisiCalc, Dan Fylstra of Personal Software, Seymour I. Rubinstein of MicroPro International, and Jonathan Sachs of Lotus Software. Of these three sources, Campbell-Kelly is the least impressed by ACT's characteristics as a company, saying that its renown is owed mostly to its president's flair for publicity.〕 ==Founding and early history== Advanced Computer Techniques was founded in New York City in April 1962 by Charles P. Lecht.〔Fishman, ''The Computer Establishment'', p. 269.〕〔〔Campbell-Kelly, ''From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog'', p. 58.〕 It had an initial capitalization of $800, one contract, and one employee.〔 Lecht, in his late twenties at the time, was a mathematician and entrepreneur whose involvement with the computer industry dated back to the early 1950s.〔〔Lecht, ''The Waves of Change'', back cover.〕 The new firm's first job was fixing a language compiler on the UNIVAC LARC computer, which was being used by the United States Navy.〔 UNIVAC awarded a $100,000 contract for the work; Lecht hired some programmers and the company's first office was in former servant quarters atop the Plaza Hotel.〔Fishman, ''The Computer Establishment'', p. 276.〕 The firm was one of 40–50 software companies started in the early 1960s, many of which would go on to be forgotten.〔 Creating compilers became a key part of the company's early efforts; its first compiler, for the FORTRAN language, was developed in the mid-1960s. This was followed by a COBOL compiler later in that decade, then a FORTRAN 77 compiler and a Pascal compiler both in the late 1970s.〔 As the 1960s went on, ACT built a customer list of established companies and developed a reputation for delivering quality work on schedule.〔 The company moved to regular office space,〔Haigh, ''An Interview with Oscar Schachter'', pp. 3–4.〕 the first of several locations it would have during its lifetime, all of which were within greater Midtown Manhattan on or near Madison Avenue. In addition to UNIVAC, early customers for the firm's compiler work included IBM and Honeywell.〔Haigh, ''An Interview with Oscar Schachter'', pp. 4–6.〕 With few trained computer programmers available at the time, Lecht hired those with musical, linguistic, or mathematical backgrounds, finding them to be successful at this new activity.〔 The firm also did other system software as well as scientific programming projects, including some for the defense industry, and then started doing commercial applications development for large companies such as Union Carbide, United Airlines, Hoffman-LaRoche, and Shell Oil.〔 Lecht fostered a relaxed working environment where dress was informal and hours flexible.〔Haigh, ''An Interview with Oscar Schachter'', pp. 6–7.〕〔 He instituted a series of weekly reports that all developers had to file detailing their progress; these were communicated to the client, on the theory that "a client can get angry at us, but () can't be more than one week angry at us because we told () exactly where we were."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Advanced Computer Techniques」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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