Assignment #1
Zach Rinker
CIS 120 M/W
10/6/03
Computer
History
Mina S. Rees
Mina Rees was born August 2, 1902 in Cleveland, Ohio. Rees attended Hunters
College in New York and in 1923 received her BA. In 1925 she graduated from Columbia
with her MA and went on to get her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of
Chicago six years later. (Green 866)
Mina Rees was a proficient member of the Applied Mathematics Panel of the
National Defense Research Committee during World War II. She was well known for
her help in fabricating policies concerning mathematical research, federal
support of science, and graduate education. ("Computer")
After the war Rees was invited to go to Washington D.C. were she became head
of the mathematics branch of the Office of Naval Research. As a director she
helped in the development of mathematical statistics and computer theory. Not
only this, but Rees wrote articles on computers and computing. (Green 867)
Mina Rees past away in 1997 but her contributions live on. Without hard
working people like Rees who were dedicated to moving forward and making life a
little easier, life would be very different today.
1.Computer: Looking.Back <http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/50th/August.html>
2. Green, Judy and Jeanne LaDuke, Saunders MacLane, Uta C. Merzbach.
"Mina Spiegel Rees (1902-1997)", Notices of the American Mathematical
Society, August, 1998, 866-873.
James Russell
Compact Disks also known as CD’s are as commonly used as furniture these
days. Compact disks are used to hold data, music, and even computer software.
CD’s are cheap and easy to find.
But CD’s haven’t always been around. It wasn’t until the late 1960’s when an
avid music listener who was frustrated with the old audiophiles and the sound
they produced decided to come up with something better. His name was James
Russell.
James Russell was born in 1931 in Bremerton, Washington. As a child Russell
was very experimental. In 1953 Russell earned his BA in Physics from Reed
College in Portland, Oregon. After college Russell was hired as a physicist at
General Electric where he performed many experimental instrumentation projects.
("Inventor")
On the weekends Russell worked on making a better way to listen to music, a
way that would record and replay sound without physical contact between its
parts. The best way to do this he figured would be with the use of light. After
years of work he successfully invented the first compact disk used to record and
playback. ("Inventor")
He continued to improve the CD and has acquired many patents. Thanks to him
we can easily record, and listen to music and well as store data, movies,
pictures, and even programs. This was an excellent invention in my eyes.
1. "Inventor of the Week Archive." Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Dec. 1999<http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/russell.html>
Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon in 1925. After graduating
high school in 1942 he went on to the Oregon State University were he planned
on studying electrical engineering. ("Douglas")
In his sophomore year Engelbart was drafted, and after the war came back to
OSU to finish his bachelors of Science. Later in 1951 Engelbart decided he
wanted to get into the computer field. He went to graduate school at the
University of California-Berkeley. ("Douglas")
Later Engelbart took a position at the Stanford Research Institute. Then in
1963 he came up with the mouse. At the time patents were assigned to the employers
so Engelbart got no royalties and hardly any credit. (Port)
Doug Engelbart has written over 25 publications and about 20 patents. He has
also received numerous honors, including:
* 1987 PC Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award 23A
* 1990 ACM Software System Award 23B
* 1991 Coors American Ingenuity Award, presented at the NAM Congress of
American Industry in Washington, D.C. 23C
* 1992 Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer of the Electronic Frontier
Award 23D
* 1993 IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 23E
* 1994 Price Waterhouse Lifetime Achievement Award, presented at the 1994
Computerworld-Smithsonian awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. 23F
* 1994 Honorary Doctorate Degree from Oregon State University 23G
("Douglas")
1. "Douglas Engelbart, Ph.D." Bootstrap
Institute.11December 2000
<http://www.thocp.net/biographies/engelbart_douglas.html>
2. Port, Otis. "The Man Behind the
Mouse." Business Week Online. 15 June 1997
Dennis Ritchie
Dennis Ritchie was born in Bronxville, New York in
1941. After high school he went on to Harvard University where he received his
B.S. in physics in 1963 followed by a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1968. (Ritchie)
Shortly after or at the time of experiencing
graduate school, Ritchie decided that he was not as interested in physics as he
was in computers. So in 1967 he joined Bell Labs were he helped to create Unix,
which soon became a well-established operating system. (Ritchie)
During the production of UNIX Ritchie created a new
programming language known as C. (Ritchie) C then led to C++, both very popular
and widely used to this day.
1. Ritchie, Dennis. Home Page. 5 October 2003
<http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bigbio1st.html>
Daniel Bricklin
Daniel Bricklin was born in Philadelphia in 1951. He attended the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology starting in 1969. He started his college
career as mathematics major but later changed to computer science. (Fleming)
After college Bricklin worked a couple different jobs and then decided he
wanted to go back to school and get his MBA in business administration at
Harvard Business School. It was here that he would come up with something that
would change the business and computer world altogether. (Fleming)
His plan was to develop a program that could perform error-free
calculations, something that humans had to tediously perform by hand. With the
help of his friend Bob Franksten, Bricklin put his plan into full effect,
calling it VisiCalc. (Fleming)
This spreadsheet program was made available to the public in 1979 and could
be ran on Apple computers, and shortly after an IBM version was also produced.
(Fleming) This program has helped to make business and computers go hand in
hand. It has paved the way for programs such as Lotus 123 and Excel, which are
widely used today. It was a huge step then and without it we might still be
crunching numbers in our heads or spending hours with accounting problems.
1. Fleming, Adam. Daniel Bricklin. <http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/BRICKLIN.Fleming.HTML>