Tölvumál - 01.06.1982, Side 4

4
TÖLVUMÁL
The reason for the forming of this kind
óf cooperation on conference activities
was activated as early as 1965, when the
Norwegians took the initiative to gather
representatives from all the associations
for a meeting in Oslo, where the base for
the establishment of the Nordic Dataunion
was formed. At a meeting in Helsinki on
May 22 and 23 1966 the Nordic Dataunion
was officially founded.
The major results of the NDU cooperation
is
- the NordDATA conferences, which have
reached proportions meaning that 1.500-
2.000 participants are gathered yearly
to exchange experiences and get infor-
mation on the state-of-the-art within
their special sphere .
- The publishing of magazines. In the win-
ther of 1970 it was agreed to establish
a company, which should publish a common
members' magazine. The company was named
DATA and as from the autumn of 1971 DATA
magazine was published. The magazine
is based on articles written by Nordic
professionals and as a rule in one of
the Nordic languages.
- Further it has become a tradition to
have a yearly conference, with the pur-
pose to create a dialog between politi-
cians, administrators and the EDP field
on topics relevant to society. Among
the themes I can mention: Personal Inte-
grity, the Vulnerability of society,
Data science in the 80's, and Data po-
litics.
NORDSAM CONFERENCES
Year Place
1959 Karlskrona
1960 Copenhagen
1961 Oslo
1962 (IFIP conference in Munich)
1963 Helsinki
1964 Stockholm
1965 (IFIP conference in New York)
1966 Copenhagen
1967 Oslo (cooperation with the Norske Datadager)
TIME AND PLACE F0R NordDATA CONFERENCES
YEAR TIME PLACE
1968 June 6 Helsinki
1969 June 1 1 Stockholm
1970 August 26 Copenhagen
1971 June 21 Stavanger
1972 June 14 Helsinki
1973 August 15 Copenhagen
(1974 IFIP world congress in Stockholm)
1975 June 23 Oslo
1976 June 2 Helsinki
1977 June 15 Copenhagen
1978 August 9 Stockholm
1979 June 26 Bergen
1980 May 27 Abo
1981 June 16 Copenhagen
1982 June 21 Gothenburg
NOHDIC DATAUNION MILE STONES
Contact meeting in Oslo - October 1965.
Foundation meeting in Helsinki - May 22, 1966.
NordDATA in Helsinki - June 6, 1968.
Establishment of DATA - April 2, 1971.
Prestige seminar
(politicians, administrators, etc.),
Oslo - 1975.
Meeting in Iceland with
the Icelandic Society for Information
Processing - April 23, 1982.
However, DATA was not the first magazine
of its kind in the Nordic countries as
in 1955 the former Norwegian association
started up the publishing of the magazine
"Moderne Databehandling". This magazine
was published up to the creation of the
Nordic DATA magazine. (The Danish Associat-
ion was involved in the publishing the
last 5 years being partly owner after the
establishing of the Nordic cooperation).
Danish association received the magazine
as a part of the membership service.
So, when I mention the name DATA, it is
a name of great traditions in the publish-
ing area.
At an early date we realised that DATA
was to spread other things and more than
professional impulses and as from 1975
we started up the publishing of a news
section. In 1978 this section became an
independent journal - DATA-NYTT. Today
we publish DATA on a monthly basis and
DATA-NYTT every forthnight.
I started up my lecture by mentioning
NORDSAM in Karlskrona in 1959. One of the
results of the contacts made there was
the establishing of a scientific journal
called BIT. To a large extend the journal
has for a very long period covered nume-
rical mathematics, but recently computer
science has been comprised. In spite of
BIT's relatively low subscription figure,
approx. 1.100 subscribers, the journal
is one of the world's most respected jour
nals within numerical matheraatics use of
EDP.
In short this was Nordic cooperation on
the association front.
Also the Swedish association has published
its own magazine for a long period. In
1961 the magazine DATA was started up and
run till 1965 when it was decided to have
a group subscription with a private pub-
lisher. During the time of the Swedish
publishing of DATA the Swedes and the Da-
nes cooperated so that the members of the
I would now like to draw a few lines back
as far as computers are concerned. I will
not go that far back to the different
forms of Abacus made by the Egyptians,
Chinese and Greeks, but start up in the
17th Century. However, this will not be
the time, where one normally learns about
the start of the computer age, with Pascal,