A Brief History of CANPS

Richard Kouzes

July 1998

The Computer Applications in Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Technical Committee of the IEEE NPSS had its beginnings as an ad hoc committee formed after the Real-Time conference organized by Dennis Perry (LANL) in 1979 in Santa Fe. He organized the conference because he thought it had been too long since the Skytop real-time conference of 1969.

At the conference, a group of us decided that there was a need for such a conference on a more frequent basis, so we formed an ad hoc committee to organize the next conference and to carry out other activities to promote those active in real-time computing. The members of the committee (as best I remember) and their institutions at that time included Larry Cardman (U. Ill), Dave Hensley (ORNL), Dick Kouzes (Princeton), Creve Maples (LBL), Dennis O’Brien (LLNL), Dennis Perry (LANL), Bill Tippie (ANL), Lester Welch (ANL). The ad hoc committee organized the next conference in Oak Ridge for 1981, and also met on several occasions to begin activities such as creating a tape format for data storage (released as the CANPS format in 1987), and trying to obtain funding to set up a central repository for nuclear and particle physics software in the US.

The Berkeley (1983) conference was then organized by the ad hoc committee. The committee was contacted by someone from the IEEE at this point to ask if we would consider becoming a technical committee of the IEEE with a membership of the ad hoc committee plus a few members of an existing IEEE committee. The ad hoc committee felt this would be beneficial for the conference and our other activities, so in 1984, CANPS was born. The series of biennial conferences on Real Time Applications in Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Sciences has continued since that time.

My apology for missing significant individual or event.

Time Sequence of CANPS:

1969 Skytop Conference

1979 RT-1 Sante Fe (Dennis Perry, conference chair)

1979 ad hoc Real-Time Committee formed

1981 RT-2 Oak Ridge (Dave Hensley, conference chair)

1983 RT-3 Berkeley (Creve Maples, conference chair)

1984 IEEE CANPS Committee formed (Ed Barsotti CANPS chair)

1985 RT-4 Chicago (Lester Welch, conference chair)

1986 Lester Welch, CANPS chair

1987 RT-5 San Francisco (Dennis O’Brien, conference chair)

1st CANPS Award - Edwin Norbeck

1987  Lester Welch, CANPS chair
1988 Dick Kouzes, CANPS chair

1989 RT-6 Williamsburg (Roy Whitney, conference chair)

2nd CANPS Award - Rene Brun

Dick Kouzes, CANPS chair
1990 Dick Kouzes, CANPS chair
1991 RT-7 Julich (Klaus Mueller, conference chair)

3rd CANPS Award - Harry Bisby

Dick Kouzes, CANPS chair
1992 Ruth Pordes, CANPS chair

1993 RT-8 Vancouver (Renee Poutissou, conference chair)

4th CANPS Award -Lou Costrell

Ruth Pordes, CANPS chair
1994 Renee Poutissou, CANPS chair

1995 RT-9 East Lansing (Ron Fox, conference chair)

5th CANPS Award -none given

Renee Poutissou, CANPS chair
1996 Tom Kozlowski, CANPS chair

1997 RT-10 Beaune, France (Patrick Le Du, conference chair)

5th CANPS Award - Phil Ponting

Tom Kozlowski, CANPS chair
1998 Tom Kozlowski, CANPS chair

1999 RT-11 Sante Fe (Tom Kozlowski, conference chair)

6th CANPS Award – Robert Downing

Tom Kozlowski, CANPS chair
2000  Christian Boulin, CANPS chair
2001 RT-12 Valencia, Spain (Antonio Ferrer, conference chair)

Christian Boulin, CANPS chair
2002 Christian Boulin, CANPS chair
2003 RT-13 Montreal, Canada (Jean Pierre Martin, conference chair)

Christian Boulin, CANPS chair
2004         Jean Pierre Martin, CANPS chair
2005 RT-14  Stockholm, Sweden (Richard Jaconsson, conference chair)
7th CANPS Award – Ed Barsotti

Jean Pierre Martin, CANPS chair
2006   Jean Pierre Martin, CANPS chair
2007 RT-15  Batavia, Illinois (Margaret Votava, conference chair)
8th CANPS Award – TBD
Jean Pierre Martin, CANPS chair