Brian Ford and the Origins of NAG

In this interview we learn about the fascinating story of how Brian founded the Numerical Algorithms Group which set a foundation for the computing industry and continues to impact its development today.

[@MultiVogon]

Well that took me back! As a student, I did my 'year in industry' in around 1993 at NAG Ltd. Brian was still in charge then, though he wouldn't have had anything to do with me, as I was the lowest of the low ;-)
I first worked on one of the Fortran 77 libraries, and also NAGGraph I think (With Astrid van Maanen). Later I learned C, and worked on incorporating libraries into, and other aspects of the IRIS Explorer for Jeremy Walton. A Line Integral Convolution module is one that I particularly remember.
I enjoyed my year there, commuting from Abingdon to north Oxford on my motorbike every day! And I've still got my 'Silicon Graphics - Helping build a better dinosaur' poster somewhere 😀

[@jms019]

and what you’ve written takes me back to when I worked in Witney in the 90s and wanted to test ride a black and red CBR600 at Abingdon Motorcycles but they claimed they couldn’t find a battery for the (at the time) best selling bike.

[@MultiVogon]

Ah yes, I used to go to the Suzuki dealer in Didcot (?) rather than Abingdon Motorcycles ;-)

[@jms019]

@@MultiVogon Was it by any chance Trevor Goodall ? The GSX600 I then bought from Thames Valley Hydraulics came from there and I’d often park my bike back there instead of the horrible slopey gravely spot outside Aquarius Diving next door.

[@MultiVogon]

@@jms019Hmm well we are talking .. holy sh*t 30 years ago, where did the time go! But quite possibly. I remember all of the staff were great apart from one person who took AGES to find anything (probably on microfiche!). I used to hang back if he was free until he was dealing with someone else, then I'd speak to another person to get my speedo cable or brake pads or whatever 😅

[@jms019]

I remember we had NAGLIB on our engineering IBM 4341 to link our FORTRAN with.