Keith Uncapher (1922–2002) was an American computer engineer and manager. At the RAND Corporation Uncapher worked on several pioneering computer projects. He founded the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

, Viterbi School of Engineering. There, he assembled teams of engineers who helped to grow the early Internet.

Biography

Keith Uncapher was born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

April 1, 1922. He attended Glendale Community College and graduated from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.

Computer pioneer

Uncapher joined RAND Corporation in

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to i ...

in 1950. As director of the computer science division at RAND, Uncapher pioneered work on the technology of

packet switching In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the p ...

, in which digital messages are broken into small packets, sent over a network and reassembled at their destination. Due to this methods inherent reliability and robustness it attracted a great deal of interest at the Department of Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency. He helped officials see the technology's vast potential for facilitating a revolution in computer communications. Uncapher also designed the first time-sharing computer system for mathematicians. He also led the RAND Tablet Project, a computer system for recognizing hand printed characters using a tablet and stylus. Packet switching research and development led first to the military's

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...

, and then to the Internet itself.

Institute founder

Uncapher persuaded both the US government and USC Engineering Dean, Zohrab Kaprielian, to form a university-based research agency and ISI opened the offices it still occupies in Marina del Rey, California. With the

Vietnam war The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

winding down it was also an ideal time for ISI to help rebuild the gap between the Department of Defense and

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

. During the 1980s, along with his colleagues, Uncapher helped to create the MOSIS system that made

VLSI Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) ...

design more practical and cost effective for researchers, and as a result, architectural innovation more plentiful. After co-founding the

Corporation for National Research Initiatives The Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), based in Reston, Virginia, is a non-profit organization founded in 1986 by Robert E. Kahn as an "activities center around strategic development of network-based information technologies", in ...

in 1986 with Robert E. Kahn, Uncapher worked to advance new areas of information technology. His main focus was on fostering the development of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and in particular, MEMS technology and infrastructure. Uncapher was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in 1998 for contributions to information technology at the national level. He also received the " Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service" from the Department of the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

as well as the Centennial Medal of the

IEEE Computer Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

. His service included participating on the

United States Air Force Scientific Advisory Board The United States Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is a Federal Advisory Committee that provides independent advice on matters of science and technology relating to the Air Force mission, reporting directly to the Secretary of the Air For ...

, Defense Information Systems Agency's Scientific Advisory Group, and the Institute for Defense Analyses Computer Science Advisory Group. He was an active participant in the

National Research Council National Research Council may refer to: * National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development * National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome * National Research Council (United States), part of ...

, Board of Telecommunications. He was a member of the Federal Judicial Center's Scientific Advisory Group, and served on the EDUCOM Board of Trustees. He chaired Stanford University's Computer Science Advisory Committee, and

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People *Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name *Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie * Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyte ...

's Computer Science Advisory Board. He was also a Director of Foretec Seminars. Uncapher died while living in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

on October 10, 2002 of heart failure.

References

External links

QuickTime movie on Keith Uncapher

Vinton Cerf's remarks at Keith Uncapher's Memorial Services

Oral history interview with Keith W. Uncapher

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota. Review of projects at

RAND The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finan ...

when Uncapher was hired in 1950 through the early 1970s, such as

JOHNNIAC The JOHNNIAC was an early computer built by the RAND Corporation (not Remington Rand, maker of the contemporaneous UNIVAC I computer) and based on the von Neumann architecture that had been pioneered on the IAS machine. It was named in honor of ...

JOSS Joss may refer to: * Joss (name), including a list of people with the name * JOSS, a time-sharing programming language * Joss (Chinese statue), a religious object * Joss JP1, an Australian-built supercar * Joss paper, a type of burnt offering * ...

, a survivable national network,

GRAIL The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) was an American lunar science mission in NASA's Discovery Program which used high-quality gravitational field mapping of the Moon to determine its interior structure. The two small spacecraf ...

(GRAphical Interactive Language), and some work related to the

. The formation of Information Sciences Institute (ISI), funded by DARPA, is described. {{DEFAULTSORT:Uncapher, Keith 1922 births 2002 deaths People from Denver Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering University of Southern California faculty RAND Corporation people IEEE Centennial Medal laureates