Nathaniel Rochester (computer scientist)
American computer scientist (1919–2001)
Nathaniel Rochester (January 14, 1919 – June 8, 2001) was an American computer scientist. He was the principal architect of the IBM 701, the first mass-produced scientific computer, and of the prototype of its first commercial version, the IBM 702. He created an early assembler and helped found the field of artificial intelligence.
Education and early work
Rochester received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1941. He stayed at MIT in the Radiation Laboratory for three years and then moved to Sylvania Electric Products, where he was responsible for the design and construction of radar sets and other military equipment. His group built the arithmetic element for the Whirlwind I computer at MIT.
IBM 701 computer
In 1948, Rochester moved to IBM, where he co-designed, along with Jerrier Haddad, the first mass-produced scientific computer, the IBM 701. He wrote an early symbolic assembler, which allowed programs to be written in short, readable commands rather than pure numbers or punch codes. He became the chief architect of IBM's 700 series of computers.
Artificial intelligence
In 1955, IBM organized a group to study pattern recognition, information theory, and switching circuit theory, headed by Rochester. Among other projects, the group simulated the behavior of abstract neural networks on an IBM 704 computer.
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