Wilfried de Beauclair

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilfried de Beauclair (born April 4, 1912 in Ascona , Switzerland ; † April 22, 2020 in Ulm ) was a German engineer and computer scientist . Through his work on automated computing technology, he was one of the first generation of computer pioneers.

Life

De Beauclair was born in the spring of 1912 as the second son of the painter couple Alexander Wilhelm de Beauclair and Friederike de Beauclair. Krüger and grew up with his brother Gotthard de Beauclair in the artists' colony on Monte Verità . In 1920 the mother moved with the two children to Darmstadt , where the family came from. From 1921 to 1930 he went to school in Darmstadt.

In 1930 de Beauclair began studying general mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt . After completing his studies, he was initially taken on as a research assistant, then as an assistant at the Institute for Practical Mathematics (IPM) headed by Alwin Walther . There he was involved in the construction of a computer with punched tape programming, which, like the entire IPM, was destroyed in the bombing of Darmstadt. He also worked on the development of devices for Fourier analysis . From 1939 he developed together with Hans-Joachim Dreyer, both sent from the IPM to the OTT company in Kempten , a new type of electromechanical cutting wheel integration system for solving differential equations, the DGM-IPM-Ott , of which there are still assemblies in the inventory of the Deutsches Museum in Munich are located.

In 1942 he met Konrad Zuse in Berlin , who demonstrated the Z3 computer to him. As head of the precision mechanics workshop of the IPM, de Beauclair then supported Zuse with the work on the Z4 : Among other things, the IPM supplied punching devices for punched tapes, which were used to control the program sequence and to save intermediate results. Zuse and de Beauclair became friends. In January 1945, de Beauclair was awarded a PhD with Alwin Walther at the TU Darmstadt with a thesis on multidimensional Fourier synthesis . PhD.

In April 1945, while traveling to the Allgäu to visit his family, he was interned like many other men by the French military for no specific reason and brought to Alsace . In December 1945 his civilian status was recognized and de Beauclair was released from internment. However, he was seriously ill with tuberculosis, was unable to work and had to be hospitalized from 1946 to 1950. In 1949 his doctoral thesis could be published.

After being released from the hospital, the family moved to Stuttgart at the end of 1950 . De Beauclair initially worked in sales for the Göttingen company PHYWE , then from 1955 as a development engineer and laboratory manager at SEL , where Dr.-Ing. Dreyer was active. There he was involved in the development of the ER 56 electronic computer and matching peripheral devices. After the SEL-Informatik-Werk was closed in 1960, he moved to the Deutsche Bundespost , where he worked as head of department at the Central Post Office in Darmstadt on the computerization of postal check and savings bank services, where he was responsible in particular for programming the IT systems. He headed the project for microfilming receipts in the course of automatic document reading. The microfilming should ensure that the documents can be called up in the EDP even after they have been processed and thus remain legally valid. In addition, in the early 1960s, the banks tried to save storage space. The microfilming was a key project for the success of banking automation .

In 1968 his book Rechnen mit Maschinen , a picture history of computing technology from its origins to 1964, was published. a. by the FAZ , reviewed and reprinted in 2005 by Springer-Verlag. In 1977, at the age of 65, he retired as Chief Post Director.

At the turn of the year 2019/2020, most of his academic legacy was taken over from the archive of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Awards and honors

In May 2002 he was awarded the Prochorov Order of the International Informatization Academy (Moscow) at the Deutsches Museum in Munich . In April 2004 he received the title of honorary professor for his work in the field of computer science from the renowned Moscow Technical University MIREA (Moscow Institute for Radio Technology, Electronics and Automation).

Personal

Wilfried de Beauclair was married to Gertrud Schäfer († 1968) since 1942 and is the father of a daughter and a son. His second wife Martha, with whom he had moved to Freiburg im Breisgau , died in 1994. From 1986 to 2001 Wilfried de Beauclair lived in Freiburg and from 2001 to 2017 with his daughter in Blaustein . Since 2017 he has lived in an old people's home in Ulm . On April 4, 2019, he celebrated his 107th birthday there and at that time was the oldest citizen of the city of Ulm.

Shortly after his 108th birthday, Wilfried de Beauclair died on April 22, 2020 as a result of a serious fall.

Fonts

Monographs
  • Methods and devices for multi-dimensional Fourier synthesis. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1949.
  • with Ulrich Sinogowitz: Phase factor table for crystallographic two-dimensional Fourier synthesis in points of a forty-eighth network . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1949.
  • Calculating with machines. A pictorial history of computing technology . Friedrich Vieweg u. Sohn, Braunschweig, 1968; Facsimile edition Springer Verlag, Berlin [u. a.] 2005, ISBN 3-540-24179-5 . ( Online at books.google.com )
  • Documentation filming . Publishing house for information technology, Herne 1971.
  • with Friedrich Genser: From the cogwheel to the chip: a visual history of data processing . 3 volumes, Superbrain-Verlag, Balje 2005, ISBN 3-00-013791-2 .
Scientific papers

De Beauclair published around 210 scientific articles between 1954 and 1981, including on the optical recognition of numbers and letters and the development of OCR-A fonts, information processing in public administration, the rationalization of documentation and operational processes with technical aids, and the history of computing :

  • “Rationalization of technical computing. Prerequisites for automatic production “, in: Industrie-Anzeiger , May 1956, pp. 517-524.
  • “The sorting of magnetic tape data in simple booking systems”, in: Electronic computer systems 3.2, April 1961, pp. 75–82.
  • “Command code for machine tools controlled by punched strips”, in: Werkstatt und Betrieb 94.7, 1961, pp. 478–481.
  • “Fundamentals of information processing”, in: Forum der Technik , Vol. 4: Zeitbild der Technik , Zurich: Metz, 1967, pp. 223–237.
  • “Fundamental to the regulation of operational processes with electronic data processing systems”, in: Werkstatttechnik , 56.5, 1966, pp. 218–221.
  • “Data processing, object and tool of rationalization”, in: Industrie-Anzeiger 90.18, March 1968, pp. 330–334.
  • “Ways to rational payment transactions”, in: Druck Print 4, 1972, pp. 242–248.
  • Mathematics without digits - analog computing devices URI: http://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/id/eprint/5383 April 2016

literature

  • Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar . 9th edition, 1961, ISSN  0341-8049 , p. 86 .
  • Stefanie Streif: From gear to chip . In: Badische Zeitung (Freiburg), April 3, 2004.
  • Johannes Jänike: Wilfried de Beauclair . In: The Past of the Future. German Computer Pioneers , ed. by Friedrich Genser, 2nd expanded edition. Düsseldorf: Friedrich Genser / Johannes Jänike, 1995.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefanie Streif called him a "pioneer in data processing" and a "computer pioneer of the first hour", in: "Vom Zahnrad zum Chip", Badische Zeitung , April 3, 2004.
  2. ↑ Cf. Friedrich L. Bauer, "Kurzer Abriß der Geschichte der Informatik 1890–1990", in: Documents for the History of Mathematics , on behalf of the German Mathematicians Association, edited by Winfried Scharlau, Volume 6: A Century of Mathematics, 1890–1990: Festschrift for the anniversary of the DMV , ed. by Gerd Fischer, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1990, pp. 113–147, here p. 126.
  3. ↑ DGM stands for "differential equation machine", IPM and Ott for the two institutions involved.
  4. ↑ See Schröder, Helmut (2012): EDP pioneering achievements in complex applications: automation of the postal check and postal savings bank service, Wiesbaden. Va chap. 7.3
  5. ↑ The FAZ wrote on November 12, 1968: "The volume stands out from the plethora of publications on calculating machines due to the conscientiousness of its presentation and its equipment."
  6. ^ Wilhelm Füssl: From Monte Verità to Ulm - On the 108th birthday of Wilfried de Beauclair . In: Archives in the Leibniz Society . April 4, 2020 ( hypotheses.org ).
  7. ↑ In his laudatory speech , Hermann Bottenbruch (Deutsches Museum München, May 2, 2002) names Wilfried de Beauclair's “Merits in the development of the computer [and] in recording the history of the computer” as the reasons for the award.
  8. ↑ The appointment document contains the phrase "Honorary Professor". This title is not linked to a teaching obligation, but is awarded for special scientific merits.
  9. ↑ Detlef Borchers: Chronicler of calculating machines: Wilfried de Beauclair turns 105. Heise online , April 4, 2017, accessed on April 4, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Oliver Helmstädter: Computer pioneer becomes 106th Augsburger Allgemeine , April 5, 2018, accessed on April 6, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Verena Schühly: One who paved the way for the computer . In: Südwest Presse . April 5, 2019, p. 18 .
  12. ↑ Detlef Borchers: On the death of Wilfried de Beauclair: Nature makes no jumps . Hot . April 2020. Accessed April 28, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Beauclair, Wilfried de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mechanic and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Ascona
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 2020
Place of death Ulm