Howard Hathaway Aiken
When Howard Hathaway Aiken was born in Hoboken, N.J. in 1900, no one could know what a profound impact he would eventually have in the field of computer science because there was no field. In 1900, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was preparing to wow the world with the first airships, and zippers were considered a novelty. Nobody at the time had radios or air conditioning, so something as complex as a computer was inconceivable to all but science fiction authors. Who would have guessed that Aiken would go on to conceive and create what until recently was regarded as the world抯 first fully automated computer?
Aiken graduated from the Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, Ind. in 1918, before parlaying his experience as a switchboard operator during high school into a bachelor抯 of science degree in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Aiken worked for Madison Gas while he attended college, and then he took a position at Madison Gas as chief engineer after graduating, which he held until 1928. He then went to work for Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing, and then Line Material. Aiken dreamed of creating a powerful electric calculator, and in 1935 he left for Harvard University. At Harvard, Aiken received a master抯 degree in physics in 1937, and he obtained a doctorate in physics in 1939.
During his education at Harvard, Aiken drew up plans for a programmable computer that could perform complex calculations, but he had no luck convincing anyone to give him the resources to build it until 1939, when IBM president Thomas Watson agreed to fund the project. The result was the IBM ASCC (Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator; more commonly called the Harvard Mark I), which at the time was considered the first automatic electromechanical digital computer. As far as anyone at the time was concerned, Aiken and his team had ushered in the computer age. The Mark I was completed in 1943 and fully operational in 1944, running 24 hours a day for 14 years and processing three calculations per second. The Mark II, Mark III, and Mark IV followed the Mark I, with Aiken overseeing all of the projects between 1944 and 1952.
As if his legacy wasn抰 already strong enough to garner him a place as one of the most important computer scientists of all time, Aiken founded the Harvard Computation Laboratory in 1947, where he established the first computer science program and served as director until his retirement in 1961. After a move to Florida, Aiken took a position at Miami University as professor of information technology in 1961, a post he held until 1973, the year he passed away. During that time Aiken started his own consulting firm, Howard Aiken Industries, and set up both a computer science program and a computing center at Miami University.
He was awarded the first Harry M. Goode Memorial Award by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) Computer Society in 1964 with the citation: 揊or his original contribution to the development of the automatic computer, leading to the first large-scale general purpose automatic digital computer.? The award recipients are chosen on the basis of their achievements in the information processing field, either a single contribution or an accumulation of important contributions.
The IEEE awarded Aiken with an Edison Medal in 1970, 揻or a meritorious career of pioneering contributions to the development and application of large-scale digital computers and important contributions to education in the digital computer field.?This award is given out in recognition of a person抯 high attainments, over a certain number of years, in electrical engineering, electrical science, or the electrical arts.
The IEEE Computer Society also lists Aiken as Charter Recipient of its Computer Pioneer Award. This award is presented to the individual that makes significant contributions to concepts and developments in the electronic computer field.
As it turns out, Aiken and his team at Harvard were not the first people to create an electromechanical digital computer. German inventor Konrad Zuse抯 advanced Z3 machine was completed in 1941. Zuse抯 computer was developed completely independently of Aiken抯, however, and few were aware of its existence until well after World War II. Although the Mark I wasn抰 completed until 1944, it must be remembered that Aiken抯 design had a much more far-ranging influence in the field of computing than Zuse抯 design had, by simple virtue of more people knowing about it. The fact that Zuse built his machine first also does not diminish the reputation of Aiken and his team, who were unaware of Zuse抯 accomplishments while work commenced on the Mark I.
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