William A. Goddard (engineer)
William A. Goddard (born July 10, 1913 in St. Joseph (Missouri) , † September 29, 1997 in Chico (California) ) was an American engineer at IBM who was part of the team there in the 1950s that ran the first hard drive developed.
Goddard received a bachelor's degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles and worked as a physics teacher in high school for some time before entering the aviation industry (North American Aviation), where he developed wind tunnels . He was initially supposed to work on similar projects at IBM, but then came to the team that developed the hard drive under Reynold B. Johnson at the IBM research center in San José ( IBM 305 RAMAC , 1956). With John Lynott (who had just as little experience with computers and was previously a mechanic in the Navy), he developed a central innovation, a freely movable read and write head that was attached to the rotating magnetic memory very closely on an air cushion, but did not touch it. With Lou Stevens, Ray Bowdle, Jim Davis, Dave Kean and John Lynott he held the patent on a data storage system (1954) and with Lynott he received US patent 3503060 Direct Access Magnetic Storage Disk Device in 1970 .
In 2007 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame with Lynott .
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Goddard, William A. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 10, 1913 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | St. Joseph, Missouri |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 29, 1997 |
| Place of death | Chico (California) |