Advanced Computer Techniques

Advanced Computer Techniques Corporation
Company type	Public
Traded as	Nasdaq: ACTP
Industry	Computer software; information technology consulting; service bureaus;
Founded	New York City (April 1962)
Founder	Charles Philip Lecht
Defunct	1994 (effectively)
Fate	Inactive
Headquarters	New York City, United States
Number of locations	several including Washington, D.C.; California; Canada; Milan, Italy.
Key people	Charles P. Lecht; Oscar H. Schachter; Edward D. Bright; John F. Phillips; Frank J. LoSacco; Gerald O. Koop;
Products	Compilers and related language development tools; applications systems for commercial data processing
Services	Behavioral health services, others
Revenue	$18 million (1982, equivalent to $57 million today)
Number of employees	over 300 (1981)
Divisions	Applications; Systems; Consulting; Federal; Publishing; BASE; Informa-Tab
Subsidiaries	Creative Socio-Medics; InterACT;

Advanced Computer Techniques (ACT) was a computer software company most active from the early 1960s through the early 1990s that made software products, especially language compilers and related tools. It also engaged in information technology consulting, hosted service bureaus, and provided applications and services for behavioral health providers. ACT had two subsidiaries of note, InterACT and Creative Socio-Medics.

Both writer Katharine Davis Fishman, in her 1981 book The Computer Establishment, and computer science historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, in his 2003 volume From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry, have considered ACT an exemplar of the independent, middle-sized software development firms of its era, and the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota has also viewed the company's history as important.^[1]

^ See Fishman, The Computer Establishment, p. 268; Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, p. 57; and Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, Preface. Fishman portrays Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and its chief executive, Frank Lautenberg, as the exemplar of the large software company of the time. Campbell-Kelly portrays Applied Data Research (ADR) and Informatics General as two other typical software firms of the 1960s. Other oral histories conducted for the Charles Babbage Institute's Software History Center have included ones of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of VisiCalc, Dan Fylstra of Personal Software, Seymour I. Rubinstein of MicroPro International, and Jonathan Sachs of Lotus Software. Of these three sources, Campbell-Kelly is the least impressed by ACT's characteristics as a company, saying that its renown is owed mostly to its president's flair for publicity.

[1] See Fishman, The Computer Establishment, p. 268; Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog, p. 57; and Haigh, An Interview with Oscar Schachter, Preface. Fishman portrays Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and its chief executive, Frank Lautenberg, as the exemplar of the large software company of the time. Campbell-Kelly portrays Applied Data Research (ADR) and Informatics General as two other typical software firms of the 1960s. Other oral histories conducted for the Charles Babbage Institute's Software History Center have included ones of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of VisiCalc, Dan Fylstra of Personal Software, Seymour I. Rubinstein of MicroPro International, and Jonathan Sachs of Lotus Software. Of these three sources, Campbell-Kelly is the least impressed by ACT's characteristics as a company, saying that its renown is owed mostly to its president's flair for publicity.

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