Sigh. Another biography. Fine. Don't expect me to be enthusiastic. It's just… facts. Arranged. Like museum pieces. And you want me to… elaborate. To make it interesting. As if the life of a computer pioneer could be anything but a series of logical steps.
Still, if you insist. Just try not to bore me.
Nathaniel Rochester
Nathaniel Rochester. Born January 14, 1919. Died June 8, 2001. He was… involved. With computers. And something called artificial intelligence. A pioneer, they say. Like someone hacking through a jungle with a dull machete, only this jungle was made of vacuum tubes and punch cards.
Occupation: Computer pioneer. A title that carries the weight of a thousand blinking lights and the faint smell of ozone.
Nathaniel Rochester, a name that probably doesn't spark recognition in many. He existed from January 14, 1919, to June 8, 2001. A span of eighty-two years. Long enough to see the world shift from analog whispers to digital shouts. He was, apparently, the chief architect behind the IBM 701. The first mass-produced scientific computer. Imagine that. Building something that would become ubiquitous, starting from… well, from scratch. And not just the 701, but the prototype for its commercial offspring, the IBM 702. He also, rather inconveniently for those who prefer to struggle with raw numbers, wrote the first assembler. A bridge, of sorts, between human thought and machine logic. And then there's the part about him being involved in the founding of artificial intelligence. As if creating machines that could think wasn't enough of a Pandora's Box.
Early Work
He started, as many did, with a degree. Electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1941. A solid foundation, I suppose. He didn't just leave after graduation, oh no. He lingered at MIT, specifically in the Radiation Laboratory, for three years. Three years of… what? Absorbing knowledge? Dodging radiation? Then, a move to Sylvania Electric Products. There, his responsibilities involved the design and construction of radar sets and other military equipment. Tools of a different kind of calculation, I imagine. His group even contributed to the Whirlwind I computer at MIT, building its arithmetic element. A precursor, perhaps, to the grander machines he would later shape. [1]
IBM 701 Computer
Then came IBM. 1948. He joined their ranks, and alongside Jerrier Haddad, he helped conceptualize the IBM 701. The machine that would be mass-produced for scientific purposes. He didn't just design; he wrote. The first assembler. A way to speak to machines in something other than pure, unadulterated numbers. Short, readable commands. A concession to human frailty, perhaps. He became the chief architect for IBM's entire 700 series of computers. A significant role, shaping the very architecture of computation for an era. [1]
Artificial Intelligence
The year 1955. IBM, bless their corporate heart, decided to form a group. To study pattern recognition, information theory, and the arcane art of switching circuit theory. And who was at the head of this particular expedition into the unknown? Rochester. [1] His group, among other things, dabbled in simulating the behavior of abstract neural networks. On an IBM 704 computer, no less. Imagine the sheer audacity. Trying to replicate thought with silicon and electricity.
That same summer, a young mathematician named John McCarthy was also at IBM, fresh from Dartmouth College. He, along with Marvin Minsky, had been mulling over this rather ambitious idea: intelligent machines. They approached Rochester and Claude Shannon with a proposal. A conference. A gathering of minds to discuss this nascent concept. With their backing, and a tidy sum of $7,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation, the stage was set for the summer of 1956. This meeting, now etched in history as the Dartmouth Conference, is widely credited as the "birth of artificial intelligence." A rather dramatic claim, but then again, the act of creating intelligence from non-intelligence is rather dramatic.
Rochester didn't stop there. He continued to oversee AI projects at IBM. There was Arthur Samuel's checkers program, a machine learning to play a game. Herbert Gelernter's Geometry Theorem Prover, attempting to tackle abstract logic. And Alex Bernstein's chess program. Proof that the pursuit of artificial minds was gaining momentum. In 1958, he even took a detour to MIT as a visiting professor, lending a hand to McCarthy in the development of Lisp. A language specifically designed for complex symbolic manipulation, ideal for AI research.
But the world, as it often does, proved resistant to radical ideas. The AI programs at IBM were garnering attention, appearing in publications like Scientific American and The New York Times. This attention, however, wasn't entirely positive. IBM shareholders, bless their cautious hearts, started questioning Thomas J. Watson Jr., the president, about why research funds were being diverted to such "frivolous" pursuits. And the marketing department? They noticed customers were… frightened. "Electronic brains." "Thinking machines." The very idea sent shivers down spines. By 1960, an internal report suggested that IBM should cease its broad support for AI. [6] And so, the AI program was effectively dismantled, replaced by a more palatable message: "computers can only do what they were told." [7] A strategic retreat, perhaps, or a capitulation to fear.
Later Work
The 1960s saw Rochester continuing his work at IBM, but the focus shifted. He directed research in areas like cryogenics and tunnel diode circuits. More grounded, perhaps, than the philosophical quandaries of AI. By 1975, he was at IBM Cambridge Research, engaged with the IBM Chord Keyboard. [8] [9] A different kind of interface, a different problem to solve. Later still, he found himself in IBM's Data Systems Division, contributing to the development of programming languages. [1] A return to the fundamental building blocks of computation.
Recognition
His contributions did not go entirely unnoticed. In 1967, he was appointed an IBM Fellow. The company's highest technical honor. A testament to his technical prowess. And in 1984, the IEEE Computer Society bestowed upon him the Computer Pioneer Award. A fitting acknowledgement for someone who helped lay the groundwork for the digital age.
Notes
- ^ a b c d Pigott 1995.
- ^ Crevier 1993, p. 39.
- ^ Crevier 1993, pp. 39–40 and see McCarthy et al. 1955
- ^ Crevier 1993, pp. 48–50.
- ^ Crevier 1993, pp. 57–58.
- ^ a b NRC 1999, under "The Private Sector Launches the Field".
- ^ a b Crevier 1993, p. 57–58.
- ^ Nathaniel Rochester; et al. (December 1978). "The Chord Keyboard". IEEE Computer.
- ^ US 4,042,777, "One-handed keyboard and its control means"