Stephen Dunwell

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Stephen W. Dunwell (born April 3, 1913 in Kalamazoo , † March 21, 1994 in Poughkeepsie ) was an American computer engineer.

Start at IBM

From 1934 Dunwell was permanently employed by IBM in their research laboratory in Poughkeepsie. Back then and until the early 1950s, the focus was on punched card machines. Since Dunwell was a radio amateur and had an interest in electronics, he also tried to find applications for it at IBM, but this turned out to be difficult and was hardly supported. In 1938 he moved to IBM in New York and was involved with punch card machine applications for customers.

Cryptography hardware in World War II and its influence on IBM

Dunwell was in the Signal Corps from 1942 and initially dealt with the adaptation of the written transmission developed by IBM via radio for military purposes in the Pacific region, where several radio intermediate stations were required for communication with the USA.

As became known in 1992, during the Second World War he was significantly involved in the development of specially further developed punch card machines (with additional relay hardware) for the US Signal Corps, which were used for the cryptanalysis of radio messages from the Axis powers. Dunwell worked for this at a secret laboratory in Washington DC and was assigned to Thomas J. Watson by IBM at the request of William Friedman . At that time, punch card machines had the advantage over electronic machines that they used proven, reliable technology and were very well suited for cryptographic work. Using special relay-based hardware, they were able to make the equivalent of around 1 million individual comparisons per second from punch card machines at a reading speed of 150 punch cards per minute that was customary at the time. The British had known for a long time that a corresponding special electronic computer ( Colossus ) existed (and Dunwell was also familiar with the machine at the time). Dunwell did not work on the deciphering of Enigma radio messages, however, since the Navy was responsible for that. For example, they learned of reports by German spies in foreign ports about ships leaving the port and of Japanese plans for a separate peace with the Soviet Union or falsified radio reports to provoke the Americans to land on the Aleutian Islands, which had already been abandoned by the Japanese. After the war in 1946, the technological knowledge gained was incorporated into the development of the IBM 603 , the first electronic computer from IBM, and its successor, the IBM 604 , whose system was designed by Dunwell. He was not directly involved in the development of the 604, however, as he was back in customer service at the headquarters in New York.

For his work in the war he was awarded the Legion of Merit .

Stretch Project and after

Dunwell was from 1954 at the IBM laboratory in Poughkeepsie. He was not directly involved in the development of the IBM 701 before, but in the second half of the 1950s he was the technical director of the stretch project for a supercomputer, six of which were built and first shipped to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1962 . The idea arose in 1955 from discussions between Dunwell, Werner Buchholz , Gene Amdahl and the lyre of the engineering department Ralph Palmer. The aim was to develop a modern computer that used transistors and ferrite core memory and that could be used in business applications as well as for scientific purposes (there were separate computer lines for both at IBM at the time). IBM received the support of the Atomic Energy Commission (responsible at the time was John von Neumann, who died soon afterwards) after they presented the project to Edward Teller in Los Alamos and to the National Security Agency . At that time, stretch set standards not only in terms of performance, but also in the testing and development of new technologies.

After his time at IBM, he founded Data Center Computer Services in Poughkeepsie in the 1980s, the aim of which was to develop a universal cross-system computer language and thereby also worked with leading Soviet computer scientists.

In 1992 he received the Computer Pioneer Award . He had been an IBM Fellow since 1966 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the Oral History Interview 1989 (see web links) he was temporarily the only one in the laboratory in the 1930s who was interested in electronics, later Ralph Palmer was added.
  2. ↑ IBM Archives . IBM only released press releases after the NSA had lifted the secrecy and special cryptographic procedures used remain secret.
  3. ↑ Who was particularly interested in the use for processing weather data, as was von Neumann
personal data
SURNAME Dunwell, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dunwell, Stephen W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer engineer
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Kalamazoo
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1994
Place of death Poughkeepsie