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Complex Computer
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Complex Computer Patent No. 2,668,661.
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George R. Stibitz
is internationally recognized as the father of the modern digital
computer. Following World War II, he was an independent consultant
in applied mathematics for various government and industrial agencies.
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In 1964, he joined the Department of Physiology at Dartmouth Medical
School as a research associate. His interest in computers arose
from an assignment in 1937 to study magneto-mechanics of telephone
relays; he turned his attention to the binary circuits controlled
by the relays, to the arithmetic operations expressible in binary
form, and, in November 1937, to the construction of a two-digit
binary adder.
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The next year, with the help of S.B. Williams of Bell
Labs, he developed a full-scale calculator for complex arithmetic.
This computer was operational late in 1939 and was demonstrated
in 1940 by remote control between Hanover, New Hampshire, and New
York. Several binary computers of greater sophistication followed.
In these were introduced the excess 3 code, floating decimal arithmetic,
self-checking circuits, jump program instructions, taped programs
and 'table-hunting' subcomputers.
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Stibitz received 34 patents.
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