Samuel H. Caldwell

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Samuel Hawks Caldwell (January 15, 1904 – October 12, 1960) was an American

electrical engineer, known for his contributions to the early computers.[1]

Early life and education

Caldwell enrolled at

Sc.D., advised by Bush, was entitled The Extension and Application of Differential Analyzer Technique in the Solution of Ordinary Differential Equations (1933).[3]

In 1934, he joined the faculty of the electrical engineering department as an assistant professor.[2]

World War II and Later Work

During World War II, Caldwell was a chief within the fire control section of the National Defense Research Committee.[4] For his work during WWII, he earned a Medal for Merit, the Naval Ordnance Development Award, and the King's Medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom from Great Britain.[2] At the time, the Medal for Merit was the highest civilian honor granted by the United States.

After the war, he led the

Project Whirlwind.[5] The centre closed around 1950, after which Caldwell continued as a faculty member, being the advisor to both David A. Huffman (1953) and Edward J. McCluskey
(1956).

In 1959, Caldwell published a paper describing his work on the "Sinotype," which was one of the first efforts at typesetting and compositing the Chinese language with a computer.[6] This program, which converted keystrokes into characters, has been described as the first instance of autocomplete.[7]

Publications

  • Wiley
    , 1939
  • Electrical Engineering Research at M.I.T. : an appreciation MIT, 1948
  • Analog and special purpose computing machines 1949
  • LCCN 58-7896
    .     (xviii+686 pages)

References

  1. ^ biography from smartcomputing.com
  2. ^ a b c Stratton, J. A. "MIT Official Announcement of Death" (PDF). MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  3. ^ Samuel Hawks Caldwell at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  4. ^ "Collection: United States, National Defense Research Committee, Division 7, Section 7.2 records | MIT ArchivesSpace". archivesspace.mit.edu. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  5. ^ William Aspray, Was early entry a competitive advantage? in IEEE Annals of the history of computing, 2000
  6. doi:10.1016/0016-0032(59)90069-9
    .
  7. ^ "Samuel H, Caldwell Develops the Sinotype, a System for Phototypesetting & Computer Processing the Chinese Language : History of Information". www.historyofinformation.com.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Samuel_H._Caldwell&oldid=1151504091"