ACES originated from a Computer Modeling/Electromagnetics Workshop, announced in a memo circulated in January and February of 1985. This memo appears in Appendix A. The primary goal of the Workshop was to initiate a forum for exchange of information about computer modeling tools like the Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC). This code had evolved from an earlier code developed at MB Associates of San Ramon, California and subsequently transferred to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, then the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory) of Livermore, California, in 1971. Since then it has been continually upgraded and improved at various facilities.
This Workshop was held at LLNL on March 19-22, 1985, with the title First Annual Review of Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC) Applications. It was chaired by Edmund K. Miller, then at LLNL. The first page of the program is included as Appendix B. Forty-six papers in six sessions featured authors from Australia, Canada, West Germany, Spain, and South Africa. These papers included such diverse topics as the IGUANA (Interactive Graphics; Utility for Automated NEC Analysis) Work Station, "Computer Movies", "Management Problem-How to Improve Availability of NEC Antenna Models", and "NEEDS Directions and Open Discussion". Part of one session was devoted to "Future NEC" or NEEDS (Numerical Electromagnetics Engineering Design System). The Review indicated the need for subsequent regular meetings and a publication. Initial plans called for a NEC Newsletter to be published semiannually, with NEC updates, code announcements, and user-applications notes. Later this Newsletter would become the ACES Journal, which would subsequently split into the two present-day publications, the ACES Journal and the ACES Newsletter.
