Lawrence M. Breed

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Lawrence M. Breed was the 1973 recipient (with Richard Lathwell and Roger Moore) of the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery.

For their work in the design and implementation of APL\360, setting new standards in simplicity, efficiency, reliability and response time for interactive systems.

Larry was a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable character when I worked with him. I met him while I was working at I. P. Sharp Associates in Toronto. Larry was there as chief programmer for Scientific Time Sharing Corporation (STSC). He was as eager to teach as he was to learn.

Larry (LMB) was active and inventive in several aspects of the development of the APL programming language commercial timesharing system that evolved from the IBM type 3 product. My particular recollection is about his interest in human/machine interaction and his interest of precision in the appropriate use of digital computation and REAL numbers [an obscure but important point].

After leaving STSC, he rejoined IBM at Palo Alto and wrote several compilers for small IBM machines.

-I worked with Larry at IBM Palo Alto. He was near retiring. Last I heard, he was starting a new career as a bicycle mechanic (circa 1995). Larry was one of the brightest people I've ever met and a real pleasure to work with. --Peter Donovan