from the February 8, 1995 issue of The Country Chronicle
Hanover, NH–George Robert Stibitz, 90, professor emeritus at Dartmouth Medical School known internationally as “father of the modern digital computer,” died January 31, 1995 at his home in Hanover Center, NH.
While a research mathematician at AT & T Bell Laboratories in the 1930’s, Stibitz designed a binary adder, then developed several increasingly powerful digital computers, several of which were used in the World War II military effort.
In 1954, as a private consultant in Burlington, VT, he developed an inexpensive electronic digital computer that was a prototype of today’s minicomputers.
After joining the Dartmouth Medical School faculty in 1964, Stibitz was a pioneer in what is now known as biomedicine, applying computer science to such projects as the motion of oxygen in the lungs, renal exchange, brain cell anatomy, a mathematical model of capillary transport, myocardial cellular cellular electrophysiology and radiation dosimetry.
Stibitz received honors from several professional associations and honorary degrees from his alma mater, Denison University and from Keene (NH) State College and Dartmouth College.
Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Dorothea Lamson Stibitz; daughters, Mary (Mrs. Leon) Pacifici of Waterford, CT and Martha (Mrs. Sikhar) Stibitz Banerjee of New London, NH; a granddaughter, Monica Banerjee; a brother, E, Earle Stibitz of Carbondale, IL; sisters, Mildred T, Stibitz and Eleanor (Mrs David) Billmyer of Albany, NY; and several nieces and nephews.
Stibitz recalled his career in a 1993 memoir, The Zeroth Generation, so titled because his machines preceded the first generation of computers. In his book, Stibitz recounts how, in 1937, he built a primitive binary adder in his kitchen from dry cell batteries, metal strips from a tobacco can and flashlight bulbs soldered to wires from two telephone relays. A replica is in the Smithsonian Institution.
Working with a Bell engineer, Samuel Williams, Stibitz expanded the adder into the Model I Complex Calculator, which went into routine operation in January 1940. The Model I solved problems faster than 100 human computists with desk calculators, and its connection to Teletypes in other Bell offices was an early predecessor of a timesharing system.
Later in 1940, Stubitz demonstrated his computer at a joint meeting of three mathematical societies at Dartmouth. In what is believed to be the first remote computer operation, he sent problems through a Teletype hookup from Dartmouth to a Bell Labs computer in New York City which returned numerical answers to Hanover in seconds.
The American Federation of Information Processing Societies presented him with its Harry Goode Award for his innovative computer work in 1965. Other awards were the Emanuel R. Piore Award (1977) and the Computer Pioneer Award of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (1982).
Stibitz was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1976 and to the Inventors Hall of Fame in 1983. Later this year Denison University plans to announce an endowed chair, the George R. Stibitz distinguished Professor in Mathematics.
Besides patents for his inventions assigned to Bell Labs, Stibitz held 38 of his own.
Stibitz was born on April 30, 1904, in York, PA, the son of a man in the (German) Reformed Church in the United States. When Stibitz was a young child, the family moved to Dayton, OH, where his father taught ancient languages at Central Theological Seminary.
After graduating from Moraine Park School, an experimental progressive school, Stibitz received a full scholarship to Denison University. He graduated from Denison in 1926, and earned a master’s degree in physics from Union College in 1927 and a doctorate from Cornell University in 1930.
A memorial service will be arranged at a later date.