Charles Bachman
Engineer who created one of the first database management systems
- Lived
- 92 yrs
- 1924 – 2017
- Works listed
- 2
- Database system, Turing lecture
- Honours
- 2
- Most recent 2012
- Profile views
- 0
- 0 followers
Charles Bachman was an American engineer who built the Integrated Data Store at General Electric in the early 1960s, one of the first database management systems. His work defined how businesses store and navigate data, and he received the Turing Award in 1973.
Biography
Background
Bachman studied mechanical engineering at Michigan State University and earned a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He served in the US Army in the Pacific during the Second World War and then worked at Dow Chemical.
Integrated Data Store
At General Electric he designed the Integrated Data Store (IDS), first used around 1963–64. It let programs share a single store of business records and move between linked records, a model known as the network database. IDS was the forerunner of many commercial databases of the 1970s.
Standards and diagrams
His ideas shaped the CODASYL database standards, and the “Bachman diagram” became a common way of drawing how data records relate to each other. He was the first Turing Award winner without a doctorate and the first from industry rather than a university.
Later life
He later worked at Honeywell and Cullinane and founded his own company. In 2014 he received the US National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He died in 2017 aged 92.
Timeline
-
1924
Born in Manhattan, Kansas, United States
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1950
Joins Dow Chemical
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1961
Begins work on IDS at General Electric
-
1963
IDS enters use
-
1973
Receives the Turing Award
-
1983
Founds Bachman Information Systems
-
2014
Receives the National Medal of Technology and Innovation
-
2017
Died, aged 92
Notable works
-
1963
Integrated Data Store Database system
-
1973
The Programmer as Navigator Turing lecture
Awards and honours
-
Turing Award
1973
-
National Medal of Technology and Innovation
2012 · Medal year; presented in 2014.
Did you know?
-
1
His Turing lecture, “The Programmer as Navigator”, described moving through linked records in a database.
-
2
He was born in Manhattan, Kansas, not New York.
-
3
Relational databases later replaced his network model in most uses.
Connections
Also born on 11 December
-
Viswanathan Anand
Sports · Five-time world chess champion and India’s first grandmaster
1969
-
Dilip Kumar
Film & TV · Hindi cinema legend known as the “Tragedy King”
1922
-
Pranab Mukherjee
Politics & Leadership · Thirteenth President of India (2012–2017)
1935
-
Subramania Bharati
Literature · Tamil poet and freedom fighter
1882
Frequently asked
Who is Charles Bachman?
Charles Bachman was an American engineer who built the Integrated Data Store at General Electric in the early 1960s, one of the first database management systems. His work defined how businesses store and navigate data, and he received the Turing Award in 1973.
When did Charles Bachman die?
Charles Bachman died on 13 July 2017 at the age of 92.
Where is Charles Bachman from?
Charles Bachman was born in Manhattan, Kansas, United States.
What is Charles Bachman known for?
Charles Bachman is best known for Integrated Data Store (IDS); Bachman diagrams; Turing Award 1973.
What awards has Charles Bachman received?
Notable honours include Turing Award (1973), National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2012).
References
- Charles Bachman — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Charles Bachman — Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Charles Bachman (Q62894) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Charles Bachman”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more
External links
About this profile
- Researched by the TrackFame editorial team; reviewed by Sanjay Sokal under our editorial policy
- First published 4 November 2026
- Last updated
Cite this page
“Charles Bachman.” TrackFame, last updated 4 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/charles-bachman
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