This column originally appeared in January 2010.
Most Hoosiers are unaware that the PC or laptop computer they use daily traces its roots to a native of Indianapolis’ east side. The father of the modern day computer Howard Hathaway Aiken was born in Hoboken, New Jersey on March 8, 1900, but was raised in Indianapolis. Howard attended Arsenal Technical High School but because of his family’s limited resources, he was forced to go to work as an eighth grader and got a job as a switchboard operator while attending Tech during the day. He worked twelve-hour shifts at night, seven days a week, for the Indianapolis Light and Heat Company as an electrician’s helper. When the school superintendent learned of his round-the-clock work and study schedule, he arranged a series of special tests that enabled Aiken to graduate early, becoming a member of the school’s first graduating class in 1919.
Aiken, at six feet, four inches tall was described as having a “huge dome head, piercing eyes and satanic eyebrows” by contemporaries. His dad, Donald Aiken was an alcoholic who abused his wife Margaret. During one of these beatings, 12-year-old Howard grabbed a fireplace poker to stop an attack on his mother and chased his father from the house. The family never saw him again. His mother’s parents were German immigrants and his father was from a wealthy Hoosier family. When Howard’s dad left, his paternal grandparents cut the family off which caused the young man to go to work to help support the family. Howard’s first job was installing phone lines and later in life, he liked to joke about how he had “installed all of the phone lines in the red light district of Indianapolis.” Howard claimed that his switchboard job was so boring that he took up knitting to make his own socks.
Upon completion of high school, he studied at the University of Wisconsin and received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1923. His experience as an electrician’s helper came in handy in his academic work, and enabled him to find employment to pay for his schooling. While studying at the University of Wisconsin, Aiken worked as the Watch Engineer on the night shift for the Madison Gas and Electric Company and after graduation he was promoted to chief engineer there. He became a professor at the University of Miami, but in 1935, decided to obtain his PhD. He received his Masters in physics from Harvard in 1937. However, it was Aiken’s graduate work in 1936, improving the vacuum tube design (which required long hours of tedious mathematical calculations) that sparked his discovery.
Aiken’s need to complete the complex mathematical problems led him back to the work of Charles Babbage and his Analytical Engine. Aiken saw part of Babbage’s calculating machine in the attic of a physics lab at Harvard and was amazed. He used Babbage’s 100-year-old idea to serve as the foundation of the first computer. It took seven years and a lot of money to finally get the machine operational in 1944. Officially the computer was called the “IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator” but most everyone called it the “Mark I.” Aiken’s idea was to use “electromagnetic components controlled by coded sequences of instructions, and one that would operate automatically after a particular process had been developed.” What he envisioned was a machine that would use electro-mechanical power to solve differential equations. Aiken was widely criticized for using electro-mechanical power especially since he was doing frontier work with vacuum tubes, but it was inexpensive, and that was one of his needs at the time. To save on cost and time, he wanted to build a machine using parts that had already been invented. Supported by IBM, the results were astounding.
His Mark I was a ponderous 51 foot wide, 2 feet deep 5 ton machine with a 50 foot mechanical shaft and a 5 horse power electric motor. It contained nearly a million parts and could store 72 numbers. It could do 3 addition or subtraction problems per second, one multiplication problem in six seconds, and logarithmic or trigonometric problems in one minute or more. The computer, controlled by pre-punched paper tape used 23 decimal place numbers. Data was stored and counted mechanically using 3,000 decimal storage wheels, 1,400 rotary dial switches, and 500 miles of wire. All output was displayed on an electric typewriter. By today’s standards, the Mark I was slow, requiring 3-5 seconds for a multiplication operation, but it was the first machine to complete these tasks.
Phenomenally, Mark I ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 15 years and was free from errors for that entire time. Once Mark I was completed, Aiken was made an officer in charge of the U.S. Navy Computing Project. The U.S. Navy saw great potential for this computer machine, for quickly and accurately calculating gun trajectories. The Mark I was the “first fully automatic computer to come into operation” and paved the way for other calculating machines. It proved that “a complex calculating engine could function automatically, performing operations in sequence and following a predetermined program from the entry of data to the production of the final results.”
After completing the Mark I, Aiken went on to produce three more computers, two of which were electric rather than electromechanical. More important than the actual computer (whose major purpose was to create tables), was the fact that it proved to the world that such a machine was more than just fancy, it was a practical purpose machine.
Perhaps more important than the invention of Mark I was Aiken’s contribution to academia. He started the first computer science academic program in the world. The Mark I, was the world’s first program-controlled calculator; an early form of a digital computer, it was controlled by both mechanical and electrical devices. Howard Aiken said “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” Aiken disliked the idea of patents and was known for sharing his work with others.
In 1958 Aiken received the UW-Madison College of Engineering Engineers Day Award, in 1964 he received the Harry H. Goode Memorial Award, and in 1970, Aiken received IEEE’s Edison Medal “For a meritorious career of pioneering contributions to the development and application of large-scale digital computers and important contributions to education in the digital computer field.” Aiken was also an Officer in the United States Navy Reserve. In 1961, he retired from teaching at Harvard to Fort Lauderdale, Florida but his activities only increased upon retirement. In 1963 he formed his own company “Howard Aiken Industries, Inc.” He also accepted positions on the board of directors and consulting staff of several firms. In addition, he held a distinguished service professorship at the University of Miami. While there he designed and established a computing center with the aid of the local Chamber of Commerce. Aiken’s work and achievements earned him worldwide recognition. In acknowledgement of his contributions, Harvard University named the computer laboratory the Howard Hathaway Aiken Computation Laboratory in 1964. While on business in St. Louis, Missouri, Howard Aiken died on March 14, 1973 just six days after his seventy-third birthday
At a memorial service in his honor in Memorial Church at Harvard, friends and colleagues gathered to remember the life and accomplishments of Howard Aiken. The range of tributes attests to the diversity of his life. Students remembered him as a great teacher, others remembered him as a great naval officer, and scientist — all remembered him as a proud and kind man. A former employee later wrote, he was “the only completely moral man I ever knew.” So the next time you boot up your PC or laptop, take a moment to thank a pioneer east-sider for making it all possible.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
