Harry Douglas Huskey (January 19, 1916 – April 9, 2017) was an American computer design pioneer.

Early life and career

Huskey was born in Whittier, in the

Smoky Mountains The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge ...

region of

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

and grew up in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics at the

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The University ...

. He was the first member of his family to attend college. He gained his

Master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

and then his PhD in 1943 from the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

on ''Contributions to the Problem of Geöcze''. Huskey taught

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

to U.S. Navy students at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and then worked part-time on the early

ENIAC ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one packa ...

and EDVAC computers in 1945. This work represented his first formal introduction to computers, according to his obituary in ''

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''. He visited the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

for a year and worked on the

Pilot ACE The Pilot ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) was one of the first computers built in the United Kingdom. Built at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the early 1950s, it was also one of the earliest general-purpose, stored-program computers ...

computer with

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...

and others. He was also involved with the EDVAC and SEAC computer projects. Huskey designed and managed the construction of the

Standards Western Automatic Computer The SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer) was an early electronic digital computer built in 1950 by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Los Angeles, California. It was designed by Harry Huskey. Overview Like the SEAC which w ...

(SWAC) at the

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

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(1949–1953). He also designed the G-15 computer for

Bendix Aviation Corporation Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company which, during various times in its existence, made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft brakes, aeronautical hydraulics and electric power systems, av ...

, a machine, operable by one person. He had one at his home that is now in the

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Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

After five years at the National Bureau of Standards, Huskey joined the faculty of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1954 and then

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

from 1966. He cofounded the computer and information science program at UC Santa Cruz in 1967. He became director of its computer center. In 1986, UC Santa Cruz named him professor emeritus. While at Berkeley, he supervised the research of pioneering programming language designer

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal (programming language), Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he w ...

, who gained his PhD in 1963. During 1963-1964 Prof. Huskey participated in establishing the Computer Center at

IIT Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान कानपुर) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was ...

and convened a meeting there with many pioneers of computing technology. Participants included Forman Acton of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, Robert Archer of

Case Institute of Technology Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Res ...

, S. Barton of CDC, Australia, S. Beltran from the Centro de Calculo in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

John Makepeace Bennett John Makepeace Bennett (31 July 1921 – 9 December 2010) was an early Australian computer scientist. He was Australia's first professor of computer science and the founding president of the Australian Computer Society. His pioneering career ...

of the

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, Launor Carter of SDC - author of the subsequent Carter Report on Computer Technology for Schools, David Evans of

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

, Bruce Gilchrist of IBM-SBC, Clay Perry of

UC San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

, Sigeiti Moriguti of the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

Gio Wiederhold Giovanni Corrado Melchiore Wiederhold (June 24, 1936 – December 26, 2022) was an Italian-born American computer scientist who spent most of his career at Stanford University. His research focused on the design of large-scale database manage ...

, also of UC Berkeley,

Adriaan van Wijngaarden Adriaan "Aad" van Wijngaarden (2 November 1916 – 7 February 1987) was a Dutch mathematician and computer scientist. Trained as an engineer, Van Wijngaarden would emphasize and promote the mathematical aspects of computing, first in numerical an ...

of the

Mathematisch Centrum The (abbr. CWI; English: "National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science") is a research centre in the field of mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is part of the institutes organization of the Dutch Research Cou ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

Maurice Wilkes Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes (26 June 1913 – 29 November 2010) was a British computer scientist who designed and helped build the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), one of the earliest stored program computers, and who inv ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. Huskey was latterly

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

, after his retirement at the age of 70 in 1986. In 1994 he was inducted as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

. Dag Spicer, senior curator at the Computer History Museum in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...

, "described Dr. Huskey as a '

Zelig ''Zelig'' is a 1983 American mockumentary film written, directed by and starring Woody Allen as Leonard Zelig, a nondescript enigma, who, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of strong per ...

-like character, present at some of computing's greatest moments.'"

Personal life

Huskey married Velma Roeth (died 1991) in 1939 and had four children. In 1994, he married Nancy Grindstaff (died in 2016). He lived in

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz (Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a pop ...

. Huskey appeared with a junk dealer as the third pair of contestants in the 10 May 1950 episode of

Groucho Marx Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...

's radio show ''

You Bet Your Life ''You Bet Your Life'' is an American comedy quiz series that has aired on both radio and television. The original and best-known version was hosted by Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, with announcer and assistant George Fenneman. The show deb ...

''. He was described as the designer of an " electronic brain". They selected the "state category" and missed the final question when they failed to identify Iowa as the state north of Missouri.

Selected works

* Huskey, H. D. ''Harry D. Huskey: His Story''. BookSurge Publishing, 2004. . * Huskey, H. D. ''The ACE Test Assembly, the Pilot ACE, the Big ACE, and the Bendix G15''. In Copeland, B. J., ''Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine'', chapter 13, pages 281–295.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2005. . * Huskey, H. D. ''The state of the art in electronic digital computing in Britain and the United States (1947)''. In Copeland, B. J., ''Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine'', chapter 23, pages 529–540.

, 2005. . * (with Huskey, Velma R). ''Lady Lovelace and Charles Babbage''. 198
Annals of the History of Computing (Volume: 2, Issue: 4 )

Awards

In 2013, the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...

named him a Museum Fellow "for his seminal work on early and important computing systems and a lifetime of service to computer education."

References

External links

* * ''San Francisco Chronicle'
obituary of Huskey

Video of Huskey about ACE and B-15
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huskey, Harry 1916 births 2017 deaths American centenarians Men centenarians American engineers Computer designers Computer hardware engineers Bendix Corporation people Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Ohio State University alumni Presidents of the Association for Computing Machinery University of Pennsylvania faculty Scientists of the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) University of Idaho alumni