Willem van der Poel

Willem van der Poel ( born December 2, 1926 in The Hague) is a Dutch computer pioneer. He is best known for designing the ZEBRA computer.

Study

Van der Poel still constructed on 1944/45, with relay parts of telephone switching points his first computer practically on his own as a student in Amsterdam. He studied physics at the TU Delft with the conclusion of 1950. Yet at the University he established contacts with the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam and developed as a research assistant Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn a relay computer which was completed by another student in 1952 and was used for lens calculations. He was programmable and very reliable, but slow (hence his name Testudo ) and was operated until 1964. 1950 visited Van der Poel courses with Maurice Wilkes in England, where computer was informed on EDSAC.

When PTT: Ptera, ZERO and ZEBRA

He was from 1950 to 1967 in the laboratory of the Dutch state phone company PTT. There he built the tube computer Ptera, which until 1958 was in operation in 1953 and the first electronic computer in the Netherlands was. He had a magnetic drum memory. The successor ZERO looked at Van der Poel as its smartest computer design anticipated many properties of the later ZEBRA ( and had a microarchitecture, which was later described as RISC).

Van der Poel was head of the mathematics department of the Laboratory of PTT ( Dr. Neher Laboratory called ) and in 1956 at the University of Amsterdam by Adriaan van Wijngaarden in mathematics doctorate ( The Logical Principles of some simple computer, the logical principles of some simple computer). The approach outlined in the dissertation computer was as ZEBRA ( Zeer Eenvoudige Binaire Reken Automaat, Very Simple Binary adding machine ) by Standard Telephones and Cables built in England and there were a total of 55 units delivered ..

Operating system and software for its Ptera and ZEBRA computer were written in large part by the deaf and blind mathematician Gerrit van der Mey, with the Van der Poel from 1951 until retirement of van der Mey 1979 worked. He also designed the Algol and Lisp compiler for Zebra. For communication with Van der Mey Van der Pol designed several Braille translator in the form of telegraph / telephone and typewriter.

TU Delft

Van der Poel was from 1962 in part-time and 1967 full-time professor at TU Delft. In 1988, he retired.

It was 1964/65 Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, in 1975 at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center of IBM from 1977 and regularly at the University of Tokyo.

In 1970 he published a description of an ideal computer ( SERA 69) for study purposes. Already in the 1960s, his interests shifted increasingly to programming languages. 1962 to 1968 he was the first chairman of the IFIP Working Group 2.1 on Algol. He was involved in the founding of the IFIP Working Group 2.4 Systems Implementation Languages ​​.

Honors and Memberships

In 1971 he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 1960 he received the Visser - Neerlandia Prize for a series of translators in Braille with H. Mol. In 1984 he received the Computer Pioneer Award. In 1971 he became an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford.

He was four years chairman of the Dutch Society was founded in 1959 for calculators (Nederlands Rekenmachine Genootschap, NRMG ) and was their representative in the IFIP 1971-1977.

Private

He collects mechanical puzzle and playing alongside the piano Bassoon and flute.

Others

He is the Zero, One, Infinity ( ZOI ) usually attributed to program it requires either no thing of a sort, just a thing, or an unlimited number (which is why you should not specify an upper limit). He is also the last in - first out principle for subroutines. attributed.