Robert H. Cushman

Robert H. Cushman
Born	Robert Herman Cushman (1924-01-26)January 26, 1924 Illinois
Died	January 27, 1996(1996-01-27) (aged 72) Essex, Connecticut
Nationality	United States
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Professional Children's School Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Occupation	Electrical engineering journalist

Robert (Bob) Herman Cushman (16 January 1924 Illinois — 27 January 1996 Essex, Connecticut)^[1] was an American trade magazine journalist who had written extensively across several engineering disciplines, two in particular during the vanguard of rapid technological advances and ensuing market boom of their respective technologies. In the late 1950s, at the beginning of the Space Race, Cushman had been an editor at Aviation Week & Space Technology.^[2] From 1962 to the late-1980s, he was an editor for Electronic Design News. He started out at EDN as the East Coast editor and soon rose to Special Features Editor covering microprocessing. Cushman was widely known within the microprocessing industry for his influential writings in Electronic Design News about microprocessors during its infancy in the early 1970s, through its period of rapid growth and development in the 1980s. His articles, collectively, chronicle the birth and early milestones of microprocessors and, at the time, helped bridge technical development with applications. Citations of his work are prevalent in documents produced by academicians, engineers, the military, and NASA.

At the time of Cushman's death, he and his wife were residents of Old Lyme, Connecticut. Before retiring, he and his wife had been a long-time residents of Port Washington, New York.

Early career

Cushman earned a high school diploma in 1942 from the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.^[3] After the start of World War II, he entered the U.S. Navy as a Lt. J.G.. Upon earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he served in China. After the war, Cushman, an avid sailor, spent two years as a yacht designer with Philip L. Rhodes,^[4] who later designed the Weatherly. In 1959, after serving as Associate Editor of Automatic Control, Cushman accepted a position as Public Relations Director of Daystrom, Inc., San Diego,^[5] which was acquired by Schlumberger in 1962, but continued to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary.^[6] Cushman had retired as Senior Editor at Cahners Publishing,^[1] a longtime division of Reed Elsevier and, at the time, parent of EDN.

Growing up

Cushman had been a child actor. At the age of fifteen — from January 21, 1939, to June 1, 1939, and from July 17, 1939, to September 23, 1939 — Cushman had acted in the Broadway play, The American Way, in the role of Young Alex Hewitt at that RKO Roxy Theatre. The play ran for 244 performances.^[7]

Selected articles

<div= style="-moz-column-width:100em; column-width:100em; font-size:90%;"> Aviation Week & Space Technology, McGraw-Hill — ISSN 0005-2175

• GE Bids for Helicopter Market With T58, Vol. 64, Issue 23, June 4, 1956, pg. 60
• Cornell Instruments For Shock Tubes, Vol. 65, Issue 18, October 29, 1956, pg. 80
• Rocket-Tube Ejector Adds To Escape Margin For Jet Pilots, Vol. 65, Issue 20, November 12, 1956, pp. 71–77
• Lewis Pushes Work on Rocket Engines, Vol. 66, Issue 22, June 3, 1957, pp. 10–83
• Air Problems Attacked in Mid-Manhattan, Vol. 67, Issue 1, July 8, 1957
• F-103 Demise Clouds Dual Cycle Future, Vol. 67, Issue 10, September 9, 1957, pg. 101
• GM Seeks 'Fluidity' in $60 Million Engine R&D Facility, Vol. 67, Issue 14, October 7, 1957 OCLC 247469174
• Hypersonic Tunnels Yield Practical Data, Vol. 67, Issue 16, October 21, 1957
• Scientist Study Mach 7 Ramjet Theory, Vol. 68, Issue 1, January 6, 1958, pp. 57–59 & 63

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Automatic Control, Reinhold Publishing Company — OCLC 2066225

• Vanguard Control Demonstrates Minimum Hardware Approach, Vol. 9, Issue 1, July 1958, pp. 16–20
• Are Adaptive Servos Here? 1959
• Biophysical Feedback For Space Systems, Vol. 10, Issue 6, June 1959, pp. 14–24

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American Society for Metals

• Casting Techniques Developed For The Electronic Industry, 1966 OCLC 246210225

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16th Annual Wire & Cable Symposium, Atlantic City

• Die Cast and Mechanical Thermal Pulse Termination Techniques, November 29, 1967 OCLC 227466850

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Symposiuim Record — OCLC 499935577 & Advances in Electronic Circuit Packaging — OCLC 637779919 and 220759147
International Electronic Circuit Packaging Symposium (IECPS), Western Electronic Show and Convention (WesCon)
Sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers & the Western Electronic Manufacturers Association

• Mechanical Thermal Pulse Metal Joining, 7th IECPS at USC, August 22–23, 1966, pp. 4–12 OCLC 41782959 and 60178667
• Mechanical Thermal Pulse Multiple Bonding Techniques, 9th IECPS, August 19–20, 1968

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The Engineer (published by Western Electric Company)

• Fluxless Metal Joining, Vol. 10, January 1967

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Bell System Technical Journal — ISSN 0005-8580

• Lead-Acid Battery Techniques for Bonding the Positive Plates, Vol. 49, Issue 7, September 1, 1970, pp. 1419–1446 OCLC 4433598564

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EDN (formerly Electronic Design News) — ISSN 0012-7515

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• Printed-Circuit Packaging: Can It Be Carried Further? Vol. 10, Issue 9, April 26, 1962, pp. 38–51
• Hybrid Computation Gets Analog Out of Rut, Vol. 10, Issue 21, October 11, 1962, pp. 55–69
• Heat and Pressure — A Way to Better Bonds, Part I: January 1967; Part II February 1967
• Hall Effect Put in IC, November 11, 1968, pg. 87
• Schottky diodes Speed Up Digital IC's, January 1, 1969, pp. 37–40
• Transistor Responds to Magnetic Fields, February 15, 1969, pp. 73–78
• Real-Time, Two-Way Communications Between Citizens and Leaders, June 1, 1969, pp. 28, 112, and 113
• GHz Amplifiers, Now They Are Practical, Vol. 15, Issue 2, September 1970, pg. 41
• Spinel May Make MOS Faster Than T²L, January 15, 1971, pg. 35 OCLC 4926284431
• Digital Cassettes — Growing Like Wonderful Weeds, Vol. 17, February 1972, pp. 28–35

March 1971: EDN renamed EDN/EEE

• Digital Cartridges — New steps in Right Direction, April 1972, pp. 26–29
• CMSO Finally Gets It All Together, June 15, 1972 OCLC 4926524909
• Using Computer Aided Design to Talk to Machines in the Factory, August 15, 1972, pp. 28–32
• Leapfrog Ahead With Standard-Family MSI/LSI, Vol. 18, Issue 7, April 5, 1973, pp. 30–38
• Designers Guide to Optical Couplers, Vol. 18, Issue 14, July 20, 1973
• Microprocessors Are Changing Your Future — Are You Prepared? Vol. 18, Issue 21, November 5, 1973, pp. 26–32.
• Understanding the Microprocessor is no Trivial Task, Vol. 18, Issue 22, November 20, 1973, pp. 42–49
• Understand the 8-Bit μP: You'll See a Lot Of It, Vol. 19, Issue 2, January 20, 1974
• Don't Overlook the 4-Bit μP: They're Here and They're Cheap, Vol. 19, Issue 4, February 20, 1974, pp. 44–50
• What Can You Do with a Microprocessor? Vol. 19, Issue 6, March 20, 1974, pp. 42–47
• The Intel 8080: The First of the Second-Generation Microprocessors, Vol. 19, Issue 9, May 5, 1974, pp. 30–36
• Microprocessor Design Series: Four reprints from EDN magazine, Vols. 18 & 19, published by Design News, July 22, 1974
• How to Get Acquainted With a μP, Vol. 19, Issue 18, September 20, 1974, pp. 46–52
• A Very Complete Chip Set Joins the Great Microprocessor Race — Motorola 6800, Vol. 19, Issue 22, November 20, 1974, pg. 87
• Newest μP's Split Into Divergent Paths, Vol. 19, Issue 24, December 20, 1974, pp. 31–34
• Microprocessor Instruction Sets: The Vocabulary of Programming, Vol. 20, Issue 6, March 20, 1975, pp. 35–41
• Exposing the Black Art of Microprocessor Benchmarking, Vol. 20, Issue 8, April 20, 1975, pp. 41–46
• Microprocessor Benchmarks: How Well Does the μP Move Data? Vol. 20, Issue 10, May 20, 1975, pp. 43–48
• Beware Of The Errors That Can Creep Into μP Benchmark Programs, Vol. 20, Issue 12, June 20, 1975, pp. 105–10
• 2-1/2 Generation μPs — $10 Parts That Perform Like Low-End Mini's, Vol. 20, Issue 17, September 20, 1975, pp. 36–41
• Getting Started With Microprocessors on a Shoestring Budget, Vol. 20, Issue 19, October 20, 1975, pg. 64
• How Development Systems Can Speed Up μP Design Process, Vol. 21, Issue 8, April 20, 1976. pp. 63–72
• Bare-bones Development Systems Make Good Learning Tools, Vol. 22, Issue 6, March 20, 1977
• Use Forthcoming One-Chip μC's to Achieve Lower Costs Gracefully, Vol. 23, January 20, 1978
• Are Single-Chip Microcomputers the Universal Logic of the 1980s? Vol. 24, January 5, 1979, pp. 83–89
• The Promise of Analog Microprocessors: Low Cost Digital Signal Handling, Vol. 25, January 5, 1980, pp. 127–132
• To Get to Know Analog μPs, Simulate Simple Examples, Vol. 25, February 5, 1980, pp. 137–146
• One-chip μCs, High Level Languages Combine For Fast Prototyping, Vol. 25, Issue 14, August 5, 1980, pp. 89–96 OCLC 4928701210
• Digital Simulation Techniques Improve μP-System Design, Vol. 26, Issue 1, January 7, 1981, pp. 142–149 OCLC 4928660815
• Digital Processing Tools Present Design Challenges, May 13, 1981, pp. 103–109
• Signal-Processing Design Awaits Digital Takeover, Vol. 26, Issue 13, June 24, 1981, pp. 119–128 OCLC 4928661667 and 4661381272
• Digitization Is On The Way For FFT Designs, Vol. 26, Issue 15, August 5, 1981, pp. 99–106 OCLC 4928662915
• Add the FFT to Your Box of Design Tools, Vol. 26, Issue 18, September 16, 1981, pp. 83–88
• As μP/μC Chips Mature, Support Chips Proliferate, Vol. 27, Issue 1, January 6, 1982, pp. 155–202 OCLC 4928674427
• New-Generation CRT-Controller ICs Cut Display Costs, Increase Capabilities, Vol. 27, Issue 10, May 12, 1982, pp. 39–46 OCLC 4433265520
• Digital Signal-Processing ICs ... , Vol. 27, Issue 14, July 16, 1982
• EDN Product Showcase: ICs and Semiconductors, Vol. 27, Issue 14, July 16, 1982
• Byte-Wide-Memory Standard Gains Adherents as Designers Discover Its Advantages, Vol. 27, Issue 15, August 4, 1982, pp. 53–58
• CMOS Microprocessor and Microcomputer ICs, Vol. 27, Issue 19, September 29, 1982, pp. 88–100
• TTL Enhancements and Extensions, November 24, 1982, pp. 95–102
• Hands-On Investigations Help Exploit CMOS Designs, Vol. 28, Issue 8, April 14, 1983, pg. 13 (7-1/2 pages) OCLC 4926374764 and 4660827672
• Digital Signal Processing Advances Slowly, But Steadily, Vol. 28, Issue 14, July 7, 1983, pg. 60–72
• Hands-On Network-Design Project Gives Insight Into LAN Features, Vol. 29, Issue 6, March 22, 1984, pp. 219–232 OCLC 4928688895 and 4661412845
• VLSI-Based LAN-Controller Chip Eases μP-to-Network Interface, Volume 29, Issue 9, May 4, 1984, pp. 207–220 OCLC 4928666410 and 4661411667
• Enhanced μPs Bring New Life to Old Devices, January 1985, pp. 124–138
• Microprocessor Support Chips Present a Wide Array of Choices, Vol. 30, Issue 25, March 7, 1985
• Third Generation DSPs Put Advance Functions on Chip, Vol. 30, Issue 16, July 11, 1985, pp. 59–68
• Keep Breadboard Simple in Hands-On DSP Projects, September 5, 1985, pg. 225 (10 pages)
• Support Chips Mature to Upstage the Host Microprocessor, Vol. 31, Issue 6, March 20, 1986, pp. 116–167 OCLC 4928696817 and 4661423162
• μP-Like DSP Chips, Vol. 32, Issue 18, September 3, 1987, pp. 155–186 OCLC 4928712225
• New Software Tools Run IBM PC Software on a Variety of 32-Bit μPs, February 18, 1988, pp. 93, 95–97, 100

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EDN's Annual Chip Directories

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• Fourth Annual Microprocessor Directory, Vol. 22, Issue 21, November 20, 1977, pp. 44–83
• EDN's Seventh Annual μP/μC Chip Directory, Vol. 26, Issue 20, November 5, 1980
• EDN's Eighth Annual μP/μC Chip Directory, November 11, 1981, pg. 100
• EDN's Tenth Annual μP/μC Chip Directory, Vol. 28, Issue 22, November 10, 1983, pp. 111–256
• EDN's Eleventh Annual μP/μC Chip Directory, Vol. 29, Issue 23, November 15, 1984
• EDN's 14th Annual μP/μC Chip Directory, Vol. 32, Issue 24, November 26, 1987, pp. 100–187 OCLC 4928712791

Professional affiliations and hobbies

• Member, International Society of Automation, since the late 1950s

Cushman filed several patents and copyrights.

Selected stage plays & screenplays

• Judson Mansions or The Barbarians, A melodrama in three acts, 30 March 1950^[8]
• The Scientific Approach to Getting Married in a Hurry, a filmplay by Robert Herman Cushman, 7 November 1963^[9]

Ancestry and family

Notable ancestry

Cushman, by way of his father, Clifford Howell Cushman (1891–1974), was a tenth-generation lineal descendant of Thomas Cushman (1608–1691) and wife, Mary Allerton (1616–1699) — settlers of the Plymouth Colony. The lineage is all paternal, hence the same surname.^[10] Mary Allerton was a passenger on the Mayflower, the first ship to arrive in Plymouth in 1620. Thomas Cushman was a passenger on the Fortune, the second ship to arrive in 1621. Cushman was also an eleventh generation lineal descendant of Francis Eaton, also a passenger on the Mayflower and settler of Plymouth^[11] — a fourth generation female descendant of Francis Eaton married a third generation descendant of Robert and Mary Cushman.

Nowadays, tens of millions of Americans have at least one ancestor from the Plymouth Colony, many of whom affiliated with the Mayflower Society. But, according to Galton-Watson probability, only a fraction of that number have an unbroken chain of paternal lineage maintaining the same surname.

Family
Cushman married Rose Katherine Clausing October 4, 1952, in Butler County, Ohio. They had a daughter and a son and remained married forty-three years, until his death.^[4]

References