Lawrence M. Breed
Larry Breed | |
|---|---|
| Born | Lawrence Moser Breed 17 July 1940 |
| Died | 16 May 2021 (aged 80) |
| Alma mater | Stanford University |
| Occupation(s) | Computer scientist, inventor, artist |
| Known for | Contributions to the programming language APL, first implementation of APL, early computer animation language, Burning Man community involvement |
Lawrence Moser "Larry" Breed (July 17, 1940 – May 16, 2021) was a distinguished computer scientist, inventor, and artist, best known for his significant contributions to the development of the programming language APL.
Career
During his undergraduate studies at Stanford University in 1961, Breed pioneered the first computer animation language and system. He applied this innovation during Stanford football halftime shows to coordinate visual displays using a 100 ft-by-100 ft grid of spectators holding colored cards.
While pursuing graduate studies at Stanford, Breed engaged in correspondence with APL's creator, Ken Iverson, collaborating to enhance the formal specification of the IBM System/360 through Iverson's notation. He completed his M.S. degree in 1965 under the mentorship of Niklaus Wirth and subsequently joined Iverson’s team at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center located in Yorktown Heights, New York. In that same year, together with Philip S. Abrams, he developed the inaugural implementation of APL, which was programmed in FORTRAN on an IBM 7090 system.
Breed went on to create APL implementations for various platforms including an experimental IBM Little Computer, the IBM 360 in 1966, and the IBM 1130. In recognition of their work on APL\360 — noted for advancing simplicity, efficiency, dependability, and interactive response times — Breed, along with Dick Lathwell and Roger Moore, received the prestigious 1973 Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery.
In 1969, Breed co-established the Scientific Time Sharing Corporation with Dan Dyer and others, where he led the creation of the APL PLUS time-sharing system. It was there in 1972 that he collaborated with Francis Bates III to develop Mailbox, one of the earliest global email systems.
Returning to IBM in 1977, Breed contributed to defining the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for APL and participated in efforts to adapt Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix for IBM hardware. His work extended to compiler development for the programming language C, standardization of floating-point arithmetic, and radix conversion until his retirement in 1992.
Retirement
After retiring, Breed played an influential role within the Burning Man community under his playa name Ember. He introduced the term "MOOP" (matter out of place) and was responsible for designing the initial trash fence aimed at capturing debris carried by wind. Among his artistic contributions was "Chaotick," a spiraling flaming sculpture that became one of the event’s longest-standing installations alongside the Man. Additionally, he innovated bicycle lighting effects as art forms. Breed also served as editor and proofreader for the Black Rock Gazette newspaper and later co-founded and directed its successor publication, the Black Rock Beacon, while overseeing other Burning Man-related editorial projects. As a founding member of Earth Guardians, he advocated strongly for the "Leave No Trace" principle, particularly focusing on thorough cleanup after events.
In both 1973 and 1974, Breed achieved first-place honors alongside co-solver Donna Breed in the Dictionary Rally.
Gray-B-Gone and Evapotrons
In connection with his involvement at Burning Man, Breed engineered evaporators known as Gray-B-Gon and Evapotron designed for graywater treatment. By 2012, more than 100 units had been constructed by Burning Man participants through workshops held in the Bay Area.
Publications
- Breed, L.M., "The APL Plus File System," presented in Proceedings of SHARE, volume 35, August 1970, page 392.
- Breed, L.M., "Extending APL Scalar Functions," ACM SIGPLAN Notices, volume 6, issue 5, July 1971, pages 12–14.
- Evapotrons website (archived).