Patrick J. Hanratty was an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

and businessperson, known as the "Father of

CAD/CAM CAD/CAM refers to the integration of Computer-aided design (CAD) and Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). Both of these require powerful computers. ''CAD'' software helps designers and draftsmen; ''CAM'' "reduces manpower costs" in the manufactur ...

"—

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

and

computer-aided manufacturing Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) also known as computer-aided modeling or computer-aided machining is the use of software to control machine tools in the manufacturing of work pieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most ...

. Up to 2013, he was president and CEO of Manufacturing and Consulting Services (MCS) of

Scottsdale, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Winfield Scott , image_skyline = , image_seal = Seal of Scottsdale (Arizona).svg , image_blank_emblem = City of Scottsdale Script Logo.svg , nick ...

, a company he founded. According to the University of California in 2012, industry analysts think that "70 percent of all 3-D mechanical CAD/CAM systems available today trace their roots back to Hanratty’s original code".Professor Wayne Carlson in his course at Ohio State University traces this statistic to the MCS website which is no longer available.

Early career

Hanratty earned a PhD from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

. He worked for

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

, where in 1957 he wrote Pronto, an early commercial

numerical control Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a pi ...

programming language. Then he moved in 1961 to

General Motors Research Laboratories General Motors Research Laboratories are the part of General Motors responsible for creation of the first known operating system (GM-NAA I/O) in 1955 and contributed to the first mechanical heart, the Dodrill-GMR, successfully used while performin ...

where he helped to develop DAC, (Design Automated by Computer).

Banking standard

Around the mid-1950s Hanratty and a team from the

Stanford Research Institute SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

using equipment built by the General Electric Computer Laboratory developed standardized machine-readable characters for use on bank checks. Adopted by the

American Bankers Association The American Bankers Association (ABA) is a Washington, D.C.-based trade association for the U.S. banking industry, founded in 1875. They lobby for banks of all sizes and charters, including community banks, regional and money center banks, sav ...

in 1958, their characters are still in use and

magnetic ink character recognition Magnetic ink character recognition code, known in short as MICR code, is a character recognition technology used mainly by the banking industry to streamline the processing and clearance of cheques and other documents. MICR encoding, called the ' ...

(MICR) and the E-13B font became standard in the industry.

Business

In 1970 he founded his own company, where he learned valuable lessons. Hanratty later said, "Never generate anything closely coupled to a specific architecture. And make sure you keep things open to communicate with other systems, even your competitors." The business, called ICS, failed because its product, a CAD/CAM drafting system, was tied to a computer that very few people had available, and because its product was written in TPL, an unfamiliar language for most people. In 1971 Hanratty founded Manufacturing and Consulting Services (MCS), applying what he had learned at ICS. All the software was written in Fortran and it ran on almost any computer. His product was named Automated Drafting and Machining (ADAM), later AD-2000, and still later Anvil-4000. This package was very successful. Among well-known customers of MCS were

Computervision Computervision, Inc. (CV) was an early pioneer in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/ CAM). Computervision was founded in 1969 by Marty Allen and Philippe Villers, and headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. Its early ...

who licensed Adam for CADDS,

Gerber Scientific Gerber Scientific Inc., headquartered in Tolland, Connecticut Tolland is a suburban town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 14,563 at the 2020 census. History Tolland was named in May, 1715, and incorporat ...

for IDS 3, and

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produ ...

who licensed it for

Unigraphics NX, formerly known as "unigraphics", is an advanced high-end CAD/CAM/ CAE, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both softwa ...

. Several well-known CAD/CAM packages were developed from MCS products. Among them were Auto-Grapl, Autosnap 3D, Anvil-5000, and Intelligent Modeler. Auto-Grapl in particular demonstrates what Hanratty had learned: "the computer writes the program for you".

Personal life

Hanratty was married to Sandra and they had 3 children and 13 grandchildren. He died July 28, 2019.

Notes

References

External links

MCS ReAnsys
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanratty, Patrick J. 1931 births 2019 deaths American computer programmers American technology company founders University of California, Irvine alumni People from Scottsdale, Arizona