Ambros Speiser

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Ambrosius Paul Speiser (born November 13, 1922 in Basel ; † May 10, 2003 in Aarau ) was a Swiss engineer and scientist . He directed the construction of the first Swiss computer .

Life

Ambros Speiser was born as the son of the politician Ernst Speiser . He studied electrical engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), where he graduated in 1948 with a diploma in low-voltage technology . In 1948 and 1949 he stayed with Eduard Stiefel and Heinz Rutishauser at Harvard with Howard H. Aiken and in Princeton with John von Neumann , where they got to know the American computers developed during the Second World War , such as the Mark III . Although the Institute for Applied Mathematics at ETH , founded in 1948, was able to acquire Konrad Zuse's Z4 in 1950 , there were no other programmable computers available commercially that would have been suitable for scientific work. That led to the idea of ​​an in-house development. Under Speiser's technical direction, the first electronic calculating machine in Switzerland, ERMETH , was built between 1950 and 1955 .

Speiser earned his doctorate and habilitation while ERMETH was being developed, but began an industrial career by moving to IBM in 1955 . From 1956 to 1966 he was director of the IBM research laboratory in Rüschlikon . In 1966, Brown, Boveri & Cie. the assignment as Research Director to set up group-wide research and the research center in Dättwil .

In 1962 the ETH appointed Speiser as adjunct professor . There he held the optional lecture on digital computing systems before the ETH had a formal program for studying computer science and a corresponding institute. His book of the same title served as the basis for lectures. In 1986 she awarded him an honorary doctorate for his pioneering work in the field of computer science. The Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences elected Speiser to its board of directors in 1987 as President and made him an honorary member when he stepped down in 1993. Speiser was also a member of the Swiss School Council , Board of Trustees of the Swiss National Science Foundation and from 1983 to 1988 President of the suburb (today Economiesuisse ).

Fonts

  • Ambros P. Speiser: Design of an electronic computing device with special consideration of the requirement of a minimal material expenditure with given mathematical performance. Dissertation ETH Zurich, 1950.
  • Heinz Rutishauser, Ambros Paul Speiser, Eduard Stiefel: Program-controlled digital computing devices (electronic computing machines). Basel: Birkhäuser, 1951.
  • Ambros P. Speiser: Digital computing systems. Berlin: Springer, 1961 (further editions followed).
  • Ambros P. Speiser: Changes in the relationship between science and technology in the machine industry. In: Festschrift for the 60th birthday of Prof. Dr. hc E. Baumann. Hasler Works Foundation. Working Group for Electrical Communications Technology (AGEN), Zurich 1969, No. 10, pp. 10–13
  • Ambros P. Speiser: About the future of technology. A global view. Presentation and discussion at the 33rd meeting of the Energy Perspectives Study Group, Baden, January 28, 1988.
  • Ulf Hashagen:  Speiser, Ambros Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 654 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Speiser, Ambros
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Speiser, Ambrosius Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 2003
Place of death Aarau , Switzerland