Rex Rice

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Rex Rice (born January 27, 1918 in Douglas , Arizona , † May 16, 2004 in Menlo Park , California ) was an American computer engineer.

biography

Rice studied mechanical engineering (mechanical engineering) at Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in 1940. He then worked for Douglas Aircraft on the development of tools and from 1946 for Northrop Aircraft , where he performed calculations of the mechanical stress on wings on computers. From 1952 to 1955 he was deputy head of the calculation department and, among other things, was responsible for the construction of special digital computers at IBM for Northrop in 1954 , which at the time were the record holders for inverting large matrices.

In 1955 he moved to IBM in their development laboratory in Poughkeepsie , where he was involved in building the first fully transistorized computer from IBM, the IBM 608 , and was project manager for a forerunner of the IBM 7070 system. He was also involved in a study on the hardware implementation of a high-level programming language (ADAM). He continued this research direction at Fairchild Semiconductor with the SYMBOL Computer, the first realization of a computer with hardware implementation of a high-level programming language. He was also involved in improving the LSI memory and was a co-inventor of the dual in-line package (DIP) (1965 with Don Forbes, Bryant "Buck" Rogers).

From 1970 to 1972 he headed the storage systems department at Fairchild. Among other things, he was responsible for the development of the first large semiconductor memory modules for the ILLIAC IV and for the IBM System / 360 (model 67). After other managerial positions at Fairchild - including director of Advanced Systems Development - he retired from Fairchild in 1980 and then worked as a consulting engineer.

He was on the Council of the IEEE Computer Society, whose Compcon conferences he initiated, and from 1969 a Fellow of the IEEE. In 1982 he received the W. Wallace McDowell Award and in 1984 the Richard E. Merwin Award from the IEEE Computer Society. He received the McDowell Award for his outstanding contributions to computer technology and management through the invention of the universal dual in-line package and the design and manufacture of the first large LSI semiconductor memory systems.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2004/2004_06_02.obit.shtml
  2. ^ William R. Smith, Rex Rice, Gilman D. Chesley, Theodore A. Laliotis, Stephen F. Lundstrom, Myron A. Calhoun, Lawrence D. Gerould, Thomas G. Cook SYMBOL: a large experimental system exploring major hardware replacement of software , Proc. AFIPS 71. Photo of the computer at Iowa State University, Computer History Museum . See also Stanley Mazor Fairchild Symbol Computer , IEEE Annals, Volume 30, 2008, No. 1, pp. 92-95
  3. ↑ Computer History Museum on the invention of the DIP
  4. ↑ Laudation: For his outstanding technical and managerial contributions to computer development through the invention of the universally utilized dual-in-line semi-conductor component package, and the design and production of the first large LSI semi-conductor memory systems
personal data
SURNAME Rice, Rex
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Douglas (Arizona)
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 2004
Place of death Menlo Park