David R. Brown (engineer) explained

David Randolph Brown (October 31, 1923 – April 16, 2016) was an American computer scientist.[1] He was a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology leadership team[2] [3] that created Project Whirlwind,[4] "one of the first large-scale, high-speed computers".[5]

Moore School Lectures

In 1946, David Brown was one of twenty-eight students chosen to attend the Moore School Lectures, a seminal lecture series in which the revolutionary potential of digital computers was presented by a consortium of pioneers "who almost constituted a Who’s Who of computing of the day." Brown represented the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory, which became the early research and development center for Project Whirlwind,[6] under the direction of Jay Forrester.

Project Whirlwind

In 1947, Jay Forrester enlisted David R. Brown to work on Project Whirlwind.[7] Brown was in charge of Whirlwind's Electrical Engineering Division.[8] He became the group leader for Group 63—Magnetic Materials.[3] [2] Group 63 developed, built, and installed Project Whirlwind’s ferrite magnetic core memory,[9] [10] [11] which had been conceived[12] (and was later patented[13]) by Forrester. Brown subsequently worked on the SAGE computer defense system, Division 6 at MIT Lincoln Laboratory,[14] where he became the first manager of the Advanced Development Group.[15] He went on to work for the MITRE Corporation, "a non-profit organization to continue classified research and development projects that had transitioned to an operational stage and needed to be phased out of Lincoln Laboratory."

In 1963, he went to work for SRI International (then called Stanford Research Institute[16]) in Menlo Park, California as manager of the Computer Techniques Laboratory and later as head of the Information Science Laboratory. He did early work on artificial intelligence and robotics.[17] On Sept. 17, 2015, he was inducted into the SRI International Hall of Fame[18] "for exceptional contributions to the enduring success of SRI International."[19] The Hall of Fame award citation for David R. Brown states,

He is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.[20] The IEEE Life Fellow is "a distinction reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation."[21] Brown was nominated as an IEEE Life Fellow "For leadership in the development of digital-computer components and the design and operation of large-scale information processing systems."[20]

Publications

Notes and References

  1. News: Palo Alto Online Lasting Memories.
  2. Web site: MIT Libraries: Project Whirlwind Reports--Group Organization List.
  3. Web site: MIT Libraries: Project Whirlwind Reports--Project Organization.
  4. Green, Tom. Bright Boys. Natick, Massachusetts: A.K Peters, Ltd., 2010, p. 112
  5. Web site: MIT Archives . 2015-12-21 . 2016-03-05 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160305204314/https://libraries.mit.edu/_archives/exhibits/project-whirlwind/ . dead .
  6. Campbell-Kelly, Martin, and Michael R. Williams, Introduction to The Moore School Lectures: Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers: Volume 9 in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing. Ed. Martin Campbell-Kelly and Michael R. Williams .Los Angeles, CA: The MIT Press and Tomash Publishers, 1985, p. xvi
  7. Green, Tom. Bright Boys. Natick, Massachusetts: A.K Peters, Ltd., 2010, p. 112.
  8. Redmond, Kent C. and Thomas M. Smith. From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2000, p. 146.
  9. http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/40239/MC665_r12_6D-105.pdf?sequence=1 Project Whirlwind Reports: "Ferrites Speed Digital Computers"
  10. Web site: Guide to the Whirlwind Project Collection. 2015-12-29. 2015-08-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20150806060601/http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-mc/mc665.html. dead.
  11. Web site: MIT Libraries: Project Whirlwind Reports, Joint Group 37-Group 63 Meeting on Ferrite Research.
  12. Web site: The Computer Museum Report, Winter/1983, p. 13.
  13. Web site: Jay Forrester and Magnetic Core Memory. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20160104214522/http://hightechhistory.com/2011/02/28/jay-forrester-and-magnetic-core-memory/. 2016-01-04.
  14. http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/40578/MC665_r15_M-3963.pdf?sequence=1 MIT Libraries
  15. Green, Tom. Bright Boys. Natick, Massachusetts: A.K Peters, Ltd., 2010, p. 215.
  16. Web site: SRI International: Corporate History . 2015-12-21 . 2017-01-22 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170122205603/https://www.sri.com/about/corporate-history . dead .
  17. http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=1234043 Proc. SPIE 0360, Robotics and Industrial Inspection, 50 (May 23, 1983); doi:10.1117/12.934083
  18. Web site: SRI Alumni Association: Alumni Hall of Fame 2015 . 2015-12-21 . 2015-12-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20151223015646/https://www.sri.com/alumni-hall-fame-2015 . dead .
  19. https://www.sri.com/about/alumni/alumni-hall-fame SRI Alumni Association: Alumni Hall of Fame
  20. https://www.ieee.org/membership/fellows/fellows-directory.html IEEE Fellows Directory
  21. https://www.ieee.org/membership/fellows/index.html IEEE Fellow Program
  22. http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/39027/MC665_r04_M-170.pdf?sequence=1 Index to Project Whirlwind Publications

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