AI Abrams was 45 years old and had worked in three distinct fields: accounting, teaching,
and engineering. His undergraduate college training had prepared him primarily for teaching, but
his interest in mathematics led him into graduate work preparatory for a master's degree in that field.
His quest for further knowledge carried him into electronics and he completed in excess of 150
semester hours of undergraduate and graduate study in radio engineering.
He began his business career in the tax department of New York State, but left it after two
years to take a position as test planning engineer for Northern Electronics, Inc. While there he also
began teaching electronics for the Army Air Force. Following this he ventured back to accounting and
served for a year as agent-in-charge for an Internal Revenue Service office making examinations of
the tax returns of individuals, corporations, estates, and trusts. During this period he also began
teaching freshman and sophomore engineering physics at a New York college and continued there
for seven years. Concurrently he operated his own business, preparing financial statements and tax
returns, which he continued until mid-1966. During an eight-month period he also tried various
positions with four different companies in which he reviewed tax reports, gave advice on items that
might invite examination by the I.R.S., audited books, and prepared financial statements. In late 1968
he accepted a position as a circuit and applications engi.J.1eer with Erie Tube Corporation and
remai11ed with them until he came to work for Sturdivant in April1970.
Upon coming to Sturdivant, Abrams was assigned to the missile control project where he
assisted in the preparation of the purchasing specifications for the computer. During the time lag
while the contractor was beginning production of the machine, he assisted the analysis group at
headquarters on the solution of mathematical problems. Following this he was sent to the computer
contractor's plant in Concord where he attended their school for programmers as well as assisting il1
the coordination of the equipment manufacture. It was during this period that he also began work on
programming the actual operating system to be used in Florida. At this time, the origil1al Sturdivant
computer project engineer was promoted and Eden was assigned the technical responsibility for the
computer.
Albert Abrams had spent two months at the computer contractor's school for technical
programming. During this period he learned the logic of the computer he was to work with; that is,
the characteristics of the various sections of the machine, how they functioned in relation to one
another, the forms in which data were placed in and taken from the machine, the speeds with which
computations could be handled, and many other factors that provided him with the basic tools
needed to develop the operating system.