Warren, Jim C., Jr., 1936-

Jim Clarke Warren, Jr., was born July 20, 1936, in Oakland, California. Warren taught math at the high school level for two years before earning his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and education in 1959 from Southwest Texas State Teachers College, now known as Southwest Texas State University. He then went on to earn three master’s degrees: in mathematics and statistics from University of Texas at Austin in 1964, medical information science from University of California Medical Center in 1974, and computer engineering from Stanford University in 1977. He was also a PhD candidate in computer engineering at Stanford, and he chaired the mathematics department at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California, from 1965 to 1967. During his college years, Warren also taught mathematics and computer courses at the college level, including at San Jose State University, San Francisco State University, and Stanford. During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Warren took on freelance work as a minicomputer programmer and consultant under the name Frelan Associates, with most of his work concentrated on custom-built realtime data-acquisition/process-control applications in biomedical research settings at Stanford University and its School of Medicine. During this same time, he chaired the Association for Computing Machinery's regional chapters of SIGPLAN and SIGMICRO, and the San Francisco Peninsula ACM. From 1968 to 1969, he was the general secretary of the Midpeninsula Free University.

In 1977, Warren founded the West Coast Computer Faire, a conference that promoted personal computer use and showcased to the public pre-assembled personal computers and kits for building your own computer. The Apple II and Commodore PET were both introduced at the first Computer Faire, which was considered a significant event in the history of personal computing. Warren chaired the Faire until he sold it in 1983, and during this time, he also published the Silicon Gulch Gazette, a newspaper that promoted the Faire. The last Computer Faire was held in 1991.

Warren founded, edited, and published several other periodicals that focused on the computer industry and technology. He was the founding editor of the programming and microcomputing periodical Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia; Running Lite without Overbyte from 1976 to 1978 (published by the People’s Computer Company), and the founder and publisher of Intelligent Machines Journal (later sold and renamed InfoWorld) from 1978 to 1979 and DataCast magazine from 1982 to 1983. Warren also published a newsletter called Jim’s Industry Notes from around 1977 to 1978 that focused on the computer hobbyist industry.

Warren was active in the antiwar efforts of the 1960s, and he returned to those activist roots in the 1980s and 1990s when he became more publicly involved in the politics around public policy and electronic civil liberties, access, and privacy. In the 1980s, he was elected as a trustee of the San Mateo County Community College District, serving from 1985 to 1989, and he published an occasional newspaper focused on local politics called the Peninsula Citizens' Advocate. He was the founding chair of the 1991 Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, and he assisted Assemblywoman Debra Bowen with key technical language for California Assembly Bill 1624, a bill she introduced and authored in 1993 that stated that computerized public legislative records must be made available to the public online and at no cost. He served on the Secretary of State's Electronic Filing Advisory Panel in 1995, which made recommendations on the digitization and online accessibility of political-campaign financial statements. He also served on the Senate Task Force on Electronic Access to Public Records in 1997.

From 1990 to 1995, Warren was on the board of Autodesk Inc. and chaired the company’s CEO search in 1994. He continued writing, and was a columnist for the magazines MicroTimes, Government Technology, and BoardWatch up to 2000. Warren currently lives in Hansville, Washington.