Cuthbert Corwin Hurd (April 5, 1911 – May 22, 1996) was an American computer scientist and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

, who was instrumental in helping the International Business Machines Corporation develop its first general-purpose computers. IBM-650-panel

Life

Hurd was born April 5, 1911, in

Estherville, Iowa Estherville is a city in Emmet County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,904 in the 2020 census, a decline from 6,656 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Emmet County. History Emmet County was initially created by an act of th ...

. He received his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in mathematics from

Drake University Drake University is a private university in Des Moines, Iowa. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, including professional programs in business, law, and pharmacy. Drake's law school is among the 25 oldest in the United States. His ...

in 1932, his M.S. in mathematics from

Iowa State College Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

in 1934, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

in 1936. Waldemar Joseph Trjitzinsky was his advisor, and dissertation was ''Asymptotic theory of linear differential equations singular in the variable of differentiation and in a parameter''. He did post-doctorate work at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT). He was assistant professor at Michigan State University from 1936 to 1942. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Hurd taught at the US Coast Guard Academy with the rank of

Lieutenant Commander Lieutenant commander (also hyphenated lieutenant-commander and abbreviated Lt Cdr, LtCdr. or LCDR) is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander. The corresponding ran ...

, and co-authored the textbook for teaching Mathematics to mariners. From 1945 to 1947 he was dean of

Allegheny College he, תגל ערבה ותפרח כחבצלת , mottoeng = "Add to your faith, virtue and to your faith, knowledge" (2 Peter 1:5)"The desert shall rejoice and the blossom as the rose" (Isaiah 35:1) , faculty = 193 ...

. In 1947 he moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he worked for

Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befo ...

as mathematician at the

United States Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...

facility

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...

. He taught and later served as a technical research head under

Alston Scott Householder Alston Scott Householder (5 May 1904 – 4 July 1993) was an American mathematician who specialized in mathematical biology and numerical analysis. He is the inventor of the Householder transformation and of Householder's method. Career Hous ...

. At Oak Ridge he supervised the installation of an IBM 602 calculating

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

machine to automate the tracking of material in the facility, and saw the potential for automating the massive amounts of computation needed for

nuclear Physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

research. In February 1948 he was invited to the dedication of the IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), a custom-built machine in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. He asked if the SSEC could be used for calculations being done at Oak Ridge for the

NEPA The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970.Un ...

project to power an airplane with a nuclear reactor, but the demands for the SSEC produced a backlog. In the meanwhile, he requested that the first

IBM 604 The IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch was the world's first mass-produced electronic calculator along with its predecessor the IBM 603.

calculating card punch be delivered to Oak Ridge. It was, but the calculations remained slow with the limited electronics in the 604.

IBM

From 1949 to 1962, he worked at IBM, where he founded the Applied Science Department and pushed reluctant management into the world of computing. Hurd hired

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

as a consultant. The eccentric genius was known for his fast driving, and IBM often would pay von Neumann's traffic fines. They developed a personal friendship, with Hurd visiting von Neumann in

Walter Reed Army Medical Center The Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC)known as Walter Reed General Hospital (WRGH) until 1951was the United States Army, U.S. Army's flagship medical center from 1909 to 2011. Located on in the Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, it se ...

as he was dying of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

. At the time, IBM calculators were programmed by plugging and unplugging wires manually into large panels. The concept of storing the program as well as data in computer memory was generally called the

Von Neumann architecture The von Neumann architecture — also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture — is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by John von Neumann, and by others, in the '' First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC''. T ...

(although others developed the concept about the same time). IBM had built the experimental stored-program SSEC, but company president

Thomas J. Watson Thomas John Watson Sr. (February 17, 1874 – June 19, 1956) was an American businessman who served as the chairman and CEO of IBM. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's manageme ...

favored basing commercial products on punched card technology with manual programming. Hurd hired a team who would be the first professional

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

writers, such as

John Backus John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He directed the team that invented and implemented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, and was the inventor of the Backu ...

and

Fred Brooks Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr. (April 19, 1931 – November 17, 2022) was an American computer architect, software engineer, and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the O ...

. The first step was to offer a calculator that could be programmed on punch cards in addition to a manual plugboard. This was the Card-Programmed Electronic Calculator, announced in May 1949. It was essentially a commercialized version of experiments done by Wallace John Eckert and customers at

Northrop Corporation Northrop Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1939 until its 1994 merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman. The company is known for its development of the flying wing design, most successfully the B-2 Sp ...

, but became a very popular product, shipping several thousand units in various models. Based on this demand, Hurd advised new company president Tom Watson, Jr. to build the first IBM commercial stored program computer, first called the Defense Calculator. It was marketed as the IBM 701 in 1952. There were 18 model 701 machines built (in addition to the Engineering development machine). In 1953 Hurd convinced IBM management to develop what became the IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data Processing Machine. Although the

UNIVAC I The UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I) was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer design for business application produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inven ...

(and

Ferranti Mark 1 The Ferranti Mark 1, also known as the Manchester Electronic Computer in its sales literature, and thus sometimes called the Manchester Ferranti, was produced by British electrical engineering firm Ferranti Ltd. It was the world's first commer ...

in England) had been introduced earlier than any IBM computer, its high price (while IBM offered monthly leases) limited sales. The lower expense of the 650 meant it could be purchased in much larger quantities. Almost 2000 were produced between 1953 and 1962, to commercial customers as well as academics. On January 19, 1955, Hurd became director of the IBM Electronic Data Processing Machines Division when T. Vincent Learson was promoted to Vice President of Sales. In 1955, Hurd made a proposal to

Edward Teller Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for ...

for a computer to be used at the

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in respons ...

. This would evolve into the IBM "Stretch" project. The ambitious promises made for the performance of the machine were not met when it was finally delivered in 1961 as the model 7030, although techniques developed and lessons learned in its design were used on other IBM products.

California

After 1962, he served as chairman of the Computer Usage Company, the first independent computer software company, and president from 1970 through 1974. He then consulted for various firms in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

, and served as an expert witness in the IBM antitrust cases. From 1978 to 1986, Hurd served as chairman for Picodyne Corporation, which he co-founded with H. Dean Brown. Hurd was a founder of Quintus Computer Systems in 1983 with William Kornfeld, Lawrence Byrd, Fernando Pereira and David H. D. Warren to commercialize a

Prolog Prolog is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily ...

compiler. Hurd was president and chairman until Quintus was sold to

Intergraph Intergraph Corporation was an American software development and services company, which now forms part of Hexagon AB. It provides enterprise engineering and geospatially powered software to businesses, governments, and organizations around the w ...

Corporation in October 1989. In 1967.

awarded Hurd an honorary LLD degree. In 1986 he received the

IEEE Computer Pioneer award The Computer Pioneer Award was established in 1981 by the Board of Governors of the IEEE Computer Society to recognize and honor the vision of those people whose efforts resulted in the creation and continued vitality of the computer industry. T ...

by 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 ...

for his contributions to early computing. In his later life he lived in

Portola Valley, California Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. History Portola Valle ...

, became an avid gardener and studied native California plants. A variety of '' Arctostaphylos manzanita'' is named Dr. Hurd for him. He died there May 22, 1996. He endowed scholarships in Mathematics and Computer Science at Stanford University.

Publications

* * * 1943, ''Mathematics for Mariners'' with Chester E. Dimick. New York: D Van Nostrand Company Inc, 1943. * 1950, "The IBM Card-Programmed Electronic Calculator" in: ''Proceedings, Seminar on Scientific Computation November, 1949'', IBM, p. 37-41. * 1955, "Mechanical Translation: New Challenge to Communication Ornstein", in: ''Science'' 21 October 1955: pp. 745–748. * * 1983. ''Special Issue: The IBM 701 Thirtieth Anniversary - IBM Enters the Computing Field'', Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 5 (No. 2), 1983 * 1985, "A note on early Monte Carlo computations and scientific meetings", in: ''IEEE Annals of the History of Computing archive'', Volume 7, Issue 2 (April 1985) pp 141–155. * 1986, "Prologue," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 6–7, Jan-Mar, 1986

References

External links

Cuthbert C. Hurd Papers, 1946-1992
at the

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. * Three oral history interviews with Cuthbert Hurd
20 January 198118 November 1994
an
August 28 1995

, University of Minnesota. Hurd discusses International Business Machines research in computer technology, IBM's support for academic research on computers, and his own work at IBM—especially on the IBM 701, 704 and 705 computers. He also describes

and his contributions to the development of computer technology. Discusses interactions with

and

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hurd, Cuthbert 1911 births 1996 deaths American computer scientists IBM employees United States Coast Guard officers People from Estherville, Iowa People from Portola Valley, California Military personnel from California Military personnel from Iowa Drake University alumni Iowa State University alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni

Life

IBM

California

Publications

See also

References

Further reading

External links