Nathaniel Rochester
Nathaniel Rochester (born January 14, 1919 in Buffalo , New York - † June 8, 2001 ) was an American computer pioneer.
Rochester studied electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in 1941. During World War II, he worked in radar development at MIT's Radiation Laboratory and then at Sylvana Electric Products on radar for the military. He was also involved in the Whirlwind computer project. From 1948 he was an engineer at IBM .
He led the development of the tape processing machine at IBM (for its variable word size architecture and for the arithmetic unit of the 701 he later received the IBM Outstanding Invention Award).
He was with Jerrier A. Haddad the main developer of the IBM 701 system , the first general-purpose computer for mass production by IBM. He was responsible for system planning with Haddad and coordinated the collaboration between the engineering department in Poughkeepsie and the IBM Applied Sciences Group. After that he was the main developer of the IBM 700 series (703, 704, 705 and start of 709). He also wrote one of the earliest symbolic assemblers for these computers.
In 1955 he went to IBM Research, where he led a group that dealt with circuit theory and various topics of artificial intelligence, such as neural networks (which he simulated with colleagues on the IBM 701 and 704), pattern recognition, automatic proof systems ( Herbert Gelernter ) and game programs ( Arthur Samuel and his checkers program, Alex Bernstein's chess program). With his support, John McCarthy (who had spent the summer doing research at IBM) and Marvin Minsky were able to hold the Dartmouth Conference in Artificial Intelligence in 1956. In 1958, Rochester supported McCarthy in developing Lisp as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . However, around 1960, IBM ended its involvement in artificial intelligence, as public attention irritated customers.
In 1961 he went to the Systems Division of IBM, led a group that among other things the first two time-sharing systems IBM developed (QWIKTRAN CPS) and the first draft of PL / I .
Rochester became an IBM Fellow in 1967 . He later worked at IBM, among other things, with circuits that contained tunnel diodes and programming languages.
In 1984, like Haddad, he received the Computer Pioneer Award .
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rochester, Nathaniel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American computer scientist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 14, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Buffalo , New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 8, 2001 |