Max Lattmann

Dr. Max Lattmann around 1957

Max Lattmann (born August 25, 1910 in Oberwinterthur ZH ; † May 10, 2011 in Rapperswil-Jona ) was a Swiss engineer .

Life

Max Eugen Lattmann attended schools up to and including Matura in 1929 in Winterthur in the canton of Zurich . This was followed by training at the Technical University of Berlin , where he studied telecommunications technology and gained international experience. In Berlin he met contemporaries such as Konrad Zuse (fellow student at the TH Berlin and later computer pioneer), the Swiss Fritz Fischer (lecturer at the TH Berlin, his later doctoral supervisor at the ETH Zurich) and also Hermann Göring in his function as the supervisor of the TH Berlin know. Although Lattmann received a job offer in the Air Force Research Office, which had already been influenced by the National Socialists, after a conversation with Göring, he preferred to return to Switzerland. He completed his studies in electrical engineering at the ETH Zurich .

Lattmann worked temporarily at Albiswerk Zürich AG from 1935, enrolled with Fritz Fischer (now professor and head of the Institute for Technical Physics at ETH Zurich) as the first doctoral candidate, completed his dissertation in optoelectronics in 1937 and obtained his doctorate in 1939. sc. techn.

After founding Contraves AG, he joined this Swiss defense engineering company and was its technical director for many years. He stayed with this company until his retirement in 1973.

Lattmann married Klara Vogt. Lattmann went blind in one eye because of an eye tuberculosis. Before his death in 2011, he provided additional information about his biography, extracts of which were published.

Services

Together with his colleague Gustav Guanella , at that time Fritz Fischer's two research associates at the ETH, Lattmann registered inventions in the field of radio reception as patents, which were granted in several countries (US 2231996) and (CA 402177).

During his work for Contraves further patents followed for motion control (US 2440147), for the rapid digitization of analog processes (CA 746178), for a beacon-guided missile (CH 325513 / US 2872131), for a target tracking computer (US 2919850) and for a tachometric computer (CA 784377). An overview of 24 patents with Max Lattmann as the inventor can be viewed.

Even during his student days, Lattmann was working on a state-sponsored project for the new anti-aircraft command unit KGT. Contraves AG , which was then founded in 1936 and initially purely a study company, continued this work in a new setting. Lattmann joined this company as head of development.

In addition to the KGT study, a measuring device for troop training, the oionoscope (= bird's vision ), was developed on behalf of the Federal Military Department (EMD) . In 1938 the EMD ordered a series of oinoscopes, which turned the study society Contraves into a development and manufacturing company.

The Second World War forced a change in the work. Now a stepless gun control as well as a height and linearization gear for telemeters of the heavy anti-aircraft cannons were required, which were developed and delivered in a very short time under the technical direction of Lattmann.

The automatic fire control device developed after the war , later called the bat , with innovative servo technology , could first be delivered to Sweden. The Super Bat followed in the 1960s , and its international distribution through license manufacturing in Japan, Great Britain, the USA and Saudi Arabia documents the quality of this product.

Lattmann made a name for himself primarily through the early introduction of digital technology from 1957 in electronics and computer technology. After the Second World War he was appointed to the research commission for the construction of computing devices . Zuse offered its Zuse Z4 computer for sale in 1948 . In 1949 the ETH decided to rent a Z4 computer for several years, which was the first powerful computer with relay technology to be used at a continental European university and as a forerunner of ERMETH .

As early as 1959, Lattmann commissioned his engineers, headed by Peter Toth, to develop a fully transistorized computer, which was put into operation in 1963 as the CORA 1 process computer and was one of the first digital computers to be optimized (word length, program instruction set , algorithm ) using transistor technology for the control of real-time processes was. The practical use of CORA 1 did not take place in fire control devices (it was still too slow for that), but in cartography and as a machine tool control. A total of 60 such computers were used. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne has exhibited a CORA 1 computer in its Bolo Museum as a pioneering Swiss achievement . As a follow-up project, Contraves AG then developed the CORA 2 computer, which was successfully used to control the Sky Guard anti-aircraft system . Today the corresponding business activities belong to Rheinmetall Air Defense AG, Zurich.

See also

• List of engineers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ About the production of a thermal light source that can be modulated with sound frequencies. Dissertation, ETH Zurich, 1939.
2. ↑ Thomas Gmür: Contraves. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
3. ^ Contraves company history from the point of view of the municipality of Zurich-Seebach
4. ↑ Max Lattmann: Looking back into the future - The Contraves as a pioneer of digital technology . In: Franz Betschon et al. (Ed.): Engineers build Switzerland - first-hand history of technology. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-03823-791-4 , pp. 423-438.
5. ↑ Patent US2231996 - Frequency variation response circuit. In: google.com. February 18, 1941, accessed February 8, 2015 . 
6. ^ Government of Canada, Industry Canada, Canadian: CIPO - Patent - 402177. In: patents.ic.gc.ca. Retrieved February 8, 2015 . 
7. ↑ http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2440147.pdf
8. ^ Government of Canada, Industry Canada, Canadian: CIPO - Patent - 746178. In: patents.ic.gc.ca. Retrieved February 8, 2015 . 
9. ↑ Patent US2872131 A - DE 960412 C: Conversion device in a beacon-controlled rocket
10. ↑ Max E. Lattmann: US2919850. In: worldwide.espacenet.com. January 19, 2015, accessed February 8, 2015 . 
11. ^ Government of Canada, Industry Canada, Canadian: CIPO - Patent - 784377. In: patents.ic.gc.ca. Retrieved February 8, 2015 . 
12. ↑ Patent list with search term "Max Lattmann" ( Memento of the original from August 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ^ Stefan Betschon: Computer history: Secret talks between two founding fathers. In: nzz.ch. June 14, 2012, accessed February 8, 2015 . 
14. ↑ Stefan Betschon: The wall between man and machine - 50 years ago, the first fully transistorized digital computer in Switzerland was presented on the occasion of the Expo 1964 in Lausanne. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , No. 111, May 15, 2014, p. 58.
15. ↑ Herbert Bruderer: IT history: the first Swiss transistor computer. In: computerworld.ch. November 21, 2011, accessed February 8, 2015 . 
16. ↑ Michael Soukup .: A transistor calculator for cadastre, maps and coordinates. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. November 23, 2011, accessed February 8, 2015 .