Honeywell, Inc., X3.2 Standards Subcommittee records

In 1960, the International Standards Organization (ISO) initiated plans to form a technical committee on computers and information processing, TC 97. At the first meeting of this committee six working groups were set up:

In the United States, the American Standards Association (ASA) was charged with responsibility to represent American positions on standards. The ASA, in 1966 became the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI), and in 1969 was renamed the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ANSI recognized the Business Equipment Manufacturers Association (BEMA, later the Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association, CBEMA) as the sponsor for standardization work in data processing. In 1960 BEMA formed a data processing group of sponsoring companies, one of which was Minneapolis-Honeywell. This data processing group formed a Plans and Policies Committee, which in turn formed an Engineering Committee. The Engineering Committee formed the X3 Committee, which was recognized by the ASA as a sectional committee.

At its founding, X3 included ten manufacturers' representatives, eleven general interest members, and ten user group members. Honeywell was represented by R. F. Clippinger. General interest members came from groups such as the Association for Computing Machinery, the Department of Defense, and the American Management Association; user groups represented were such groups such as the Air Transport Association and the American Bankers Association. Various subcommittees were formed, such as:

Task groups within these subcommittees were formed to work on specific problems. Members of task groups were not necessarily members of the parent group.

X3 was charged with developing national standards, submitting them to ISO, and developing a United States position on proposals coming form ISO. X3 strove to achieve consensus on standards. Each company was concerned that new standards did not define their equipment as obsolete, yet also did not want to hinder future developments. Honeywell seems to have been particularly involved in the controversy over ASCII magnetic tape standards.

R. F. Clippinger was Honeywell's first representative on the X3 ASA Sectional Committee. The first Honeywell representatives to the X3 subcommittees were:

By 1963 Theodore R. Bousquet had become Honeywell's representative to X3.2. In 1964 it became Honeywell's turn to act as secretary for this subcommittee, and Bousquet took this duty as secretary pro tem. Richard M. Muise acted as his alternate. By 1968 R. E. Turnberg was Honeywell's representative to X3.2, with Bousquet as alternate.