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George Stibitz

January 20, 2023

George Robert Stibitz (April 30, 1904[1] – January 31, 1995)[2] was a Bell Labs researcher internationally recognized as one of the fathers of the modern digital computer. He was known for his work in the 1930s and 1940s on the realization of Boolean logic digital circuits using electromechanical relays as the switching element.

George Stibitz
Born(1904-04-30)April 30, 1904
York, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedJanuary 31, 1995(1995-01-31) (aged 90)
Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.
Alma materCornell University
Union College
Denison University
AwardsHarry H. Goode Memorial Award (1965)
IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award (1977)

Stibitz was born in York, Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor's degree from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, his master's degree from Union College in 1927, and his Ph.D. in mathematical physics in 1930 from Cornell University.

Computer

 
Plaque in McNutt Hall at Dartmouth College

In November 1937, George Stibitz, then working at Bell Labs (1930–1941),[3] completed a relay-based adder he later dubbed the "Model K"[4] (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which calculated using binary addition.[5] Replicas of the "Model K" now reside in the Computer History Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the William Howard Doane Library at Denison University and the American Computer Museum in Bozeman, Montana, where the George R. Stibitz Computer and Communications Pioneer Awards are granted.

Bell Labs subsequently authorized a full research program in late 1938 with Stibitz at the helm. Their Complex Number Computer, completed in November 1939 and put into operation in 1940, was able to do calculations on complex numbers.[6] In a demonstration to the American Mathematical Society conference at Dartmouth College in September 1940, Stibitz used a modified teletype to send commands to the Complex Number Computer in New York over telegraph lines.[7][8] It was the first computing machine ever used remotely.[9]

Wartime activities and subsequent Bell Labs computers

After the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Bell Labs became active in developing fire-control devices for the U.S. military. The Labs' most famous invention was the M-9 Gun Director,[10] an ingenious analog device that directed anti-aircraft fire with uncanny accuracy.[11] Stibitz moved to the National Defense Research Committee, an advisory body for the government, but he kept close ties with Bell Labs. For the next several years (1941–1945),[3] with his guidance, the Labs developed relay computers of ever-increasing sophistication. The first of them was used to test the M-9 Gun Director. Later models had more sophisticated capabilities. They had specialized names, but later on, Bell Labs renamed them "Model II", "Model III", etc., and the Complex Number Computer was renamed the "Model I". All used telephone relays for logic, and paper tape for sequencing and control. The "Model V", was completed in 1946 and was a fully programmable, general-purpose computer, although its relay technology made it slower than the all-electronic computers then under development.[12]

After the war, in 1945, Stibitz did not return to Bell Labs, but instead went into private consulting work.[13][3]

Use of the term "digital"

In April 1942, Stibitz attended a meeting of a division of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), charged with evaluating various proposals for fire-control devices to be used against Axis forces during World War II. Stibitz noted that the proposals fell into two broad categories: "analog" and "pulse". In a memo written after the meeting, he suggested that the term "digital" be used in place of "pulse", as he felt the latter term was insufficiently descriptive of the nature of the processes involved.[better source needed][14]

Awards

Stibitz held 38 patents, in addition to those he earned at Bell Labs. He became a member of the faculty at Dartmouth College in 1964 to build bridges between the fields of computing and medicine, and retired from research in 1983.

Computer art

In his later years, Stibitz "turned to non-verbal uses of the computer". Specifically, he used a Commodore-Amiga to create computer art. In a 1990 letter, written to the department chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science department of Denison University he said:

I have turned to non-verbal uses of the computer, and have made a display of computer "art". The quotes are obligatory, for the result of my efforts is not to create important art but to show that this activity is fun, much as the creation of computers was fifty years ago.

The Mathematics and Computer Science department at Denison University has enlarged and displayed some of his artwork.

Publications

  • Stibitz, George Robert (1943-01-12) [1941-11-26]. "Binary counter". Patent USA 2307868. Retrieved 2020-05-24. (4 pages)
  • Stibitz, George Robert (1954-02-09) [1941-04-19]. "Complex Computer". Patent US2668661A. Retrieved 2020-05-24. (102 pages)
  • Stibitz, George; Larrivee, Jules A. (1957). Mathematics and Computers. New York: McGraw-Hill.

See also

References

  1. ^ Henry S. Tropp, "Stibitz, George Robert," in Anthony Ralston and Edwin D. Reilly, eds., Encyclopedia of Computer Science, Third Edition (New York: van Nostrand Rheinhold, 1993), pp. 1284–1286. Some accounts give April 20 as his birth date, but the Tropp citation is the most authoritative.
  2. ^ Saxon, Wolfgang. "Dr. George Stibitz, 90, Inventor Of First Digital Computer in '40". Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  3. ^ a b c "Computer Pioneers - George Robert Stibitz". history.computer.org.
  4. ^ "Model K" Adder (replica)
  5. ^ Ritchie, David (1986). "George Stibitz and the Bell Computers". The Computer Pioneers. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 35. ISBN 067152397X.
  6. ^ Ritchie 1986, p. 38.
  7. ^ Ritchie 1986, p. 39.
  8. ^ Metropolis, Nicholas (2014-06-28). History of Computing in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier. p. 481. ISBN 9781483296685.
  9. ^ Dalakov, Georgi. "Relay computers of George Stibitz". History of Computers: Hardware, Software, Internet. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  10. ^ "BLOW HOT-BLOW COLD - The M9 never failed". Bell Laboratories Record. XXIV (12): 454–456. December 1946.
  11. ^ Eames, office of Charles and Ray, A Computer Perspective: Background to the Computer Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1973, 1990), p. 128
  12. ^ Ceruzzi, Paul E. (1983). "4. Number, Please - Computers at Bell Labs". Reckoners: The Prehistory of the Digital Computer, from Relays to the Stored Program Concept, 1935-1945. Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated. ISBN 9780313233821.
  13. ^ "The relay computers at Bell Labs : those were the machines, part 2". Datamation. The relay computers at Bell Labs : those were the machines, parts 1 and 2 | 102724647 | Computer History Museum. part 2: pp. 49. May 1967. After the time that the designs for Model V were completed I resigned from Bell Labs to go into independent consulting work.
  14. ^ Bernard O. Williams, "Computing with Electricity, 1935–1945," PhD Dissertation, University of Kansas, 1984 (University Microfilms International, 1987), p. 310
  15. ^ (PDF). IEEE. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 24, 2010. Retrieved March 20, 2021.

Further reading

  • Melina Hill, Valley News Correspondent, A Tinkerer Gets a Place in History, Valley News West Lebanon NH, Thursday March 31, 1983, page 13.
  • Brian Randall, ed. The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1975), pp. 237–286.
  • Andrew Hodges (1983), Alan Turing: The Enigma, Simon and Schuster, New York, ISBN 0-671-49207-1. Stibitz is mentioned briefly on pages 299 and 326. Hodges refers to Stibitz's machine as one of two "big relay calculators" (Howard H. Aiken's being the other one, p. 326).
"The second American project [Aiken's being the first] was underway at Bell Laboratories. Here the engineer G. Stibitz had first only thought of designing relay machines to perform decimal arithmetic with complex numbers, but after the outbreak of war had incorporated the facility to carry out a fixed sequence of arithmetical operations. His 'Model III' [sic] was under way in the New York building at the time of Alan Turing's stay there, but it had not drawn his attention." (p. 299)
Stibitz's work with binary addition has a peculiar (i.e. apparently simultaneous) overlap with some experimenting Alan Turing did in 1937 while a PhD student at Princeton. The following is according to a Dr. Malcolm McPhail "who became involved in a sideline that Alan took up" (p. 137); Turing built his own relays and "actually designed an electric multiplier and built the first three or four stages to see if it could be made to work" (p. 138). It is unknown whether Stibitz and/or McPhail had any influence on this work of Turing's; McPhail's implication is that Turing's "[alarm]about a possible war with Germany" (p. 138) caused him to become interested in cryptanalysis, and this interest led to discussions with McPhail, and these discussions led to the relay-multiplier experiments (the pertinent part of McPhail's letter to Hodges is quoted in Hodges p. 138).
  • Ritchie, David (1986). "George Stibitz and the Bell Computers". The Computer Pioneers. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 33–52. ISBN 067152397X.
  • Smiley, Jane, The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer, Random House Digital, Inc., 2010. ISBN 978-0-385-52713-2.
  • Obituary by Kip Crosby of the Computing History Association of California
  • Relay computers of George Stibitz (Detailed descriptions)
  • Reckoners: the Prehistory of the Digital Computer, from Relays to the Stored Program Concept, 1935–1945 (Westport CT: Greenwood Press 1983), Chapter 4 (Detailed description and history)
  • The relay computers at Bell Labs : those were the machines, parts 1 and 2 | 102724647 | Computer History Museum. www.computerhistory.org. By Stibitz, George R. as told to mrs. Loveday, Evelyn. May 1967. Retrieved 2017-10-11.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

External links

  • George R. Stibitz website at Denison University
  • Home of the George R. Stibitz Computer and Communications Pioneer Awards
  • Biography of Stibitz on the Pioneers website – By Kerry Redshaw, Brisbane, Australia
  • The Papers of George Stibitz at Dartmouth College Library

January 20, 2023
george, stibitz, this, article, includes, list, general, references, lacks, sufficient, corresponding, inline, citations, please, help, improve, this, article, introducing, more, precise, citations, february, 2011, learn, when, remove, this, template, message,. This article includes a list of general references but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations February 2011 Learn how and when to remove this template message George Robert Stibitz April 30 1904 1 January 31 1995 2 was a Bell Labs researcher internationally recognized as one of the fathers of the modern digital computer He was known for his work in the 1930s and 1940s on the realization of Boolean logic digital circuits using electromechanical relays as the switching element George StibitzBorn 1904 04 30 April 30 1904York Pennsylvania U S DiedJanuary 31 1995 1995 01 31 aged 90 Hanover New Hampshire U S Alma materCornell UniversityUnion CollegeDenison UniversityAwardsHarry H Goode Memorial Award 1965 IEEE Emanuel R Piore Award 1977 Stibitz was born in York Pennsylvania He received his bachelor s degree from Denison University in Granville Ohio his master s degree from Union College in 1927 and his Ph D in mathematical physics in 1930 from Cornell University Contents 1 Computer 2 Wartime activities and subsequent Bell Labs computers 3 Use of the term digital 4 Awards 5 Computer art 6 Publications 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External linksComputer Edit Plaque in McNutt Hall at Dartmouth College In November 1937 George Stibitz then working at Bell Labs 1930 1941 3 completed a relay based adder he later dubbed the Model K 4 for kitchen table on which he had assembled it which calculated using binary addition 5 Replicas of the Model K now reside in the Computer History Museum the Smithsonian Institution the William Howard Doane Library at Denison University and the American Computer Museum in Bozeman Montana where the George R Stibitz Computer and Communications Pioneer Awards are granted Bell Labs subsequently authorized a full research program in late 1938 with Stibitz at the helm Their Complex Number Computer completed in November 1939 and put into operation in 1940 was able to do calculations on complex numbers 6 In a demonstration to the American Mathematical Society conference at Dartmouth College in September 1940 Stibitz used a modified teletype to send commands to the Complex Number Computer in New York over telegraph lines 7 8 It was the first computing machine ever used remotely 9 Wartime activities and subsequent Bell Labs computers EditAfter the United States entered World War II in December 1941 Bell Labs became active in developing fire control devices for the U S military The Labs most famous invention was the M 9 Gun Director 10 an ingenious analog device that directed anti aircraft fire with uncanny accuracy 11 Stibitz moved to the National Defense Research Committee an advisory body for the government but he kept close ties with Bell Labs For the next several years 1941 1945 3 with his guidance the Labs developed relay computers of ever increasing sophistication The first of them was used to test the M 9 Gun Director Later models had more sophisticated capabilities They had specialized names but later on Bell Labs renamed them Model II Model III etc and the Complex Number Computer was renamed the Model I All used telephone relays for logic and paper tape for sequencing and control The Model V was completed in 1946 and was a fully programmable general purpose computer although its relay technology made it slower than the all electronic computers then under development 12 After the war in 1945 Stibitz did not return to Bell Labs but instead went into private consulting work 13 3 Use of the term digital EditIn April 1942 Stibitz attended a meeting of a division of the Office of Scientific Research and Development OSRD charged with evaluating various proposals for fire control devices to be used against Axis forces during World War II Stibitz noted that the proposals fell into two broad categories analog and pulse In a memo written after the meeting he suggested that the term digital be used in place of pulse as he felt the latter term was insufficiently descriptive of the nature of the processes involved better source needed 14 Awards EditHarry H Goode Memorial Award in 1965 together with Konrad Zuse IEEE Emanuel R Piore Award 15 1977 For pioneering contributions to the development of computers utilizing binary and floating point arithmetic memory indexing operation from a remote console and program controlled computations IEEE s Computer Pioneer Award 1982 election to the National Academy of Engineering 1981 election to the National Inventors Hall of Fame 1985Stibitz held 38 patents in addition to those he earned at Bell Labs He became a member of the faculty at Dartmouth College in 1964 to build bridges between the fields of computing and medicine and retired from research in 1983 Computer art EditIn his later years Stibitz turned to non verbal uses of the computer Specifically he used a Commodore Amiga to create computer art In a 1990 letter written to the department chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science department of Denison University he said I have turned to non verbal uses of the computer and have made a display of computer art The quotes are obligatory for the result of my efforts is not to create important art but to show that this activity is fun much as the creation of computers was fifty years ago The Mathematics and Computer Science department at Denison University has enlarged and displayed some of his artwork Publications EditStibitz George Robert 1943 01 12 1941 11 26 Binary counter Patent USA 2307868 Retrieved 2020 05 24 1 4 pages Stibitz George Robert 1954 02 09 1941 04 19 Complex Computer Patent US2668661A Retrieved 2020 05 24 2 102 pages Stibitz George Larrivee Jules A 1957 Mathematics and Computers New York McGraw Hill See also EditList of pioneers in computer science John Vincent Atanasoff Bell Labs Gray code reflected binary code Stibitz code excess 3 code Gray Stibitz code Gray excess 3 code References Edit Henry S Tropp Stibitz George Robert in Anthony Ralston and Edwin D Reilly eds Encyclopedia of Computer Science Third Edition New York van Nostrand Rheinhold 1993 pp 1284 1286 Some accounts give April 20 as his birth date but the Tropp citation is the most authoritative Saxon Wolfgang Dr George Stibitz 90 Inventor Of First Digital Computer in 40 Retrieved 2018 09 07 a b c Computer Pioneers George Robert Stibitz history computer org Model K Adder replica Ritchie David 1986 George Stibitz and the Bell Computers The Computer Pioneers New York Simon and Schuster p 35 ISBN 067152397X Ritchie 1986 p 38 Ritchie 1986 p 39 Metropolis Nicholas 2014 06 28 History of Computing in the Twentieth Century Elsevier p 481 ISBN 9781483296685 Dalakov Georgi Relay computers of George Stibitz History of Computers Hardware Software Internet Retrieved 30 March 2015 BLOW HOT BLOW COLD The M9 never failed Bell Laboratories Record XXIV 12 454 456 December 1946 Eames office of Charles and Ray A Computer Perspective Background to the Computer Age Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973 1990 p 128 Ceruzzi Paul E 1983 4 Number Please Computers at Bell Labs Reckoners The Prehistory of the Digital Computer from Relays to the Stored Program Concept 1935 1945 Greenwood Publishing Group Incorporated ISBN 9780313233821 The relay computers at Bell Labs those were the machines part 2 Datamation The relay computers at Bell Labs those were the machines parts 1 and 2 102724647 Computer History Museum part 2 pp 49 May 1967 After the time that the designs for Model V were completed I resigned from Bell Labs to go into independent consulting work Bernard O Williams Computing with Electricity 1935 1945 PhD Dissertation University of Kansas 1984 University Microfilms International 1987 p 310 IEEE Emanuel R Piore Award Recipients PDF IEEE Archived from the original PDF on November 24 2010 Retrieved March 20 2021 Further reading EditMelina Hill Valley News Correspondent A Tinkerer Gets a Place in History Valley News West Lebanon NH Thursday March 31 1983 page 13 Brian Randall ed The Origins of Digital Computers Selected Papers Berlin Heidelberg New York Springer Verlag 1975 pp 237 286 Andrew Hodges 1983 Alan Turing The Enigma Simon and Schuster New York ISBN 0 671 49207 1 Stibitz is mentioned briefly on pages 299 and 326 Hodges refers to Stibitz s machine as one of two big relay calculators Howard H Aiken s being the other one p 326 The second American project Aiken s being the first was underway at Bell Laboratories Here the engineer G Stibitz had first only thought of designing relay machines to perform decimal arithmetic with complex numbers but after the outbreak of war had incorporated the facility to carry out a fixed sequence of arithmetical operations His Model III sic was under way in the New York building at the time of Alan Turing s stay there but it had not drawn his attention p 299 dd Stibitz s work with binary addition has a peculiar i e apparently simultaneous overlap with some experimenting Alan Turing did in 1937 while a PhD student at Princeton The following is according to a Dr Malcolm McPhail who became involved in a sideline that Alan took up p 137 Turing built his own relays and actually designed an electric multiplier and built the first three or four stages to see if it could be made to work p 138 It is unknown whether Stibitz and or McPhail had any influence on this work of Turing s McPhail s implication is that Turing s alarm about a possible war with Germany p 138 caused him to become interested in cryptanalysis and this interest led to discussions with McPhail and these discussions led to the relay multiplier experiments the pertinent part of McPhail s letter to Hodges is quoted in Hodges p 138 Ritchie David 1986 George Stibitz and the Bell Computers The Computer Pioneers New York Simon and Schuster pp 33 52 ISBN 067152397X Smiley Jane The Man Who Invented the Computer The Biography of John Atanasoff Digital Pioneer Random House Digital Inc 2010 ISBN 978 0 385 52713 2 Obituary by Kip Crosby of the Computing History Association of California Relay computers of George Stibitz Detailed descriptions Reckoners the Prehistory of the Digital Computer from Relays to the Stored Program Concept 1935 1945 Westport CT Greenwood Press 1983 Chapter 4 Detailed description and history The relay computers at Bell Labs those were the machines parts 1 and 2 102724647 Computer History Museum www computerhistory org By Stibitz George R as told to mrs Loveday Evelyn May 1967 Retrieved 2017 10 11 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link External links EditGeorge R Stibitz website at Denison University Home of the George R Stibitz Computer and Communications Pioneer Awards Biography of Stibitz on the Pioneers website By Kerry Redshaw Brisbane Australia The Papers of George Stibitz at Dartmouth College Library Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title George Stibitz amp oldid 1092207426, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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