Howard H. Aiken

Howard Hathaway Aiken ( born March 8, 1900 in Hoboken, New Jersey, † 14 March 1973 in St. Louis, Missouri) was an American computer pioneer, who developed one of the first digital mainframe computers in the world, the Mark I.

Life

Aiken studied at the University of Chicago, the University of Wisconsin and at Harvard University, where in 1937 the degree of MA (Master of Art) and in 1939 a Ph.D. ( Doctor of Philosophy ) acquired. After several years of working in the electrical industry, he was called to a professorship at Harvard, where he taught from 1941 to 1946 Mathematics and Director of the Laboratory of Computer Technology was. The machines of Herman Hollerith used at the time could expect only positive numbers, which made them useless for scientific use. Therefore Aiken constructed from 1939 to 1944 along with Grace Hopper, who programmed the computer, and two other employees, the first digital mainframe computers in the world, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator ( ASCC ). He was later renamed Mark I. This imposing, 17 meter long and 2.50 meter high colossus went down in the history of computer technology. Mark I consisted of 760,000 items, including 3000 ball bearings and lead wire 80 kilometers. Aiken used as compute elements and storing electrically driven decadal counting wheels. The program was stored on a 24 -track tape. The project was funded in large part by IBM.

The successor Mark II owes the computer world the term debugging. Grace Hopper reported:

" The summer of 1945 was very hot, we were working in a room with no air conditioning and could therefore open the windows. Suddenly Mark II remained standing. Of course, we crawled in the machine immediately to locate the error. After a long search we found the faulty relay: stuck inside a moth, which had unfortunately passed away. Using tweezers, I got the bug out, put it in the logbook and taped it firmly with Scotch tape ( duct tape ). Now Commander Aiken had the habit of unexpectedly intrude and us with the question: ' Are you making any numbers' to embarrass. ' Powers ' we no numbers, we had to have a ready excuse. From the time of the moth on it so had no more trouble. We just argued that we are at the ' debug ' (English debugging). "

The term bug was in English among engineers for some time as a term for malfunctions in use. Grace Hopper has the moth ( "The first time that actually a bug was found. " ) In the logbook therefore with the phrase " First actual case of bug being found. " Comments. This moth, the first actual Crashbug so, can the Museum of the Naval Surface Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia, to the public. In the context of computer debugging still stands today for the detection of faults in a computer system.

In addition to his construction of computers Howard Aiken has also published articles on systems theory and developed the eponymous Aiken code, a complementary BCD code, which is used today in digital watches, pocket calculators and similar devices. For his contributions to computer technology, he has received numerous awards and honors, also from Germany.

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