Asianometry The Curious Database Powering America's Hospitals
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Nov 20, 2025 Explore the fascinating history of MUMPS, a unique programming language and database that transformed healthcare computing. Learn about the chaotic workflows hospitals faced in the 1970s and the pioneering efforts at Massachusetts General Hospital to create more efficient data systems. Discover how innovative minds developed MUMPS's architecture, its integration into the Veterans Health Administration, and why it continues to play a crucial role in modern healthcare despite ongoing critiques.
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Early Project Struggles And Leadership Change
- Initial BBN-built hospital system struggled because it was slow, written in assembly, and had long feedback cycles with clinicians.
- Octo Barnett joined MGH to lead a better lab effort after early deployment caused little uptake and painful development workflows.
Secret Prototype Sparks MUMPS
- MIT grads Neil Pappalardo and Kurt Marble secretly built an interpreted language prototype despite warnings and threats of firing.
- Their prototype convinced Octo Barnett to shift leadership and led to the formal start of MUMPS in 1966.
Monolithic Design For Extreme Efficiency
- MUMPS combined operating system, interpreter, and database into a single integrated system for performance on tiny machines.
- This monolithic design arose from tight resource limits like 18 KB on a PDP-7 and prioritized speed and simplicity.