------------------------------------------------- IN MEMORIAM: GEORGE STIBITZ -------------------------------------------------Dr. George Robert Stibitz, pioneer of digital computing and remote job entry, died on January 31, 1995, at his home in Hanover, NH, USA. He was 90. At the time of his death, he was professor emeritus of physiology at the medical school of Dartmouth College.
In the fall of 1937, while an engineer at Bell Labs, Dr. Stibitz used surplus relays, tin-can strips, flashlight bulbs and other canonical items to construct his "Model K" (for _K_itchen table) breadboard digital calculator, which could add two bits and display the result. A replica of this device is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution. Bell Labs recognized a potential solution to the problem of high-speed complex-number calculation, which was holding back contemporary development of wide-area telephone networks. By late 1938 the laboratory had authorized development of a full-scale relay calculator on the Stibitz model; Stibitz and his design team began construction in April 1939. The end product, known as the Complex Number Calculator, first ran on January 8, 1940.
On September 11 of that year, during a meeting of the American Mathematical Society at Dartmouth College, Dr. Stibitz used a Teletype to transmit problems to the Complex Number Calculator and receive the computed results. This is now generally considered the worlds first example of remote job entry, a technique that would revolutionize dissemination of information through telephone and computer networks.
>From 1941 to 1945, Dr. Stibitz served on the National Defense Research Committee, performing important theoretical work on computation. Thereafter he worked as a private consultant in Burlington, VT, developing a precursor of the electronic digital minicomputer in 1954. In 1964 he joined the Dartmouth faculty and applied computer systems development to a wide variety of topics in biomedicine. He continued his research until 1983.
Dr. Stibitz was born in York, PA, on April 20, 1904. He graduated from Denison University in Granville, OH, and received his M. S. degree from Union College in Schenectady, NY, in 1927. After working briefly at the General Electric research labs in Schenectady, he continued his graduate studies at Cornell University, completing a Ph. D. in mathematical physics in 1930. He was a prolific inventor with an inquiring mind and held 38 patents, not counting those assigned to Bell Labs. In 1965 he received the Harry Goode Award for lifetime achievement in engineering from AFIPS.
The Computer History Association of California extends condolence to Dr. Stibitz' wife, Dorothea Lamson Stibitz; his daughters, Mary Pacifici and Martha Banerjee; and his brothers, sisters and granddaughter.