George Stibitz
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George Robert Stibitz (April 20, 1904 – January 31, 1995) is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. He was a Bell Labs researcher known for his 1930s and 1940s work on the realization of Boolean logic digital circuits using electromechanical relays as the switching element.
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.
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[edit] Computer
In November of 1937, George Stibitz, then working at Bell Labs, completed a relay-based computer he dubbed the "Model K" (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which calculated using binary addition. Bell Labs subsequently authorized a full research program in late 1938 with Stibitz at the helm. Their Complex Number Calculator, completed January 8, 1940, was able to calculate complex numbers. In a demonstration to the American Mathematical Society conference at Dartmouth College on September 11, 1940, Stibitz used a teletype to send commands to the Complex Number Calculator in New York over telephone lines. It was the first computing machine ever used remotely over a phone line.
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. Replicas of the "Model K" reside in both the Smithsonian Institute and the William Howard Doane Library at Denison University.
[edit] Computer art
In his later years, George "turned to non-verbal uses of the computer". Specifically, he used an 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.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Patents
- U.S. Patent 2,668,661 "Complex Computer" filed April 1941, issued February 1954 (102 pages)
[edit] Other
- Obituary by Kip Crosby of the Computing History Association of California
- George R. Stibitz website at Denison University
- Biography of Stibitz on the Pioneers website – By Kerry Redshaw, Brisbane, Australia
[edit] References
- Melina Hill, Valley News Correspondent, A Tinkerer Gets a Place in History, Valley News West Lebanon NH, Thursday March 31, 1983, page 13.
