All Topics  
Wesley A. Clark

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Wesley A. Clark
 
 
  Topics Wesley A. Clark Topic Home

Wesley Allison Clark (born 1927) is a computer scientist
Computer scientist

A computer scientist is a person who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
 and one of the main participants, along with Charles Molnar
Charles Molnar

Charles Edwin Molnar was a co-developer of one of the first minicomputers, the LINC , while a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962....
, in the creation of the LINC
LINC

The LINC was a 12-bit, 2048-word computer. The LINC can be considered the first minicomputer and a foreruner to the personal computer.The LINC and other "MIT Group" machines were designed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and eventually built by Digital Equipment Corporation ....
 laboratory computer, which was the first mini-computer and shares with a number of other computers (such as the PDP-1
PDP-1

The PDP-1 was the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's Programmed Data Processor series and was first produced in 1960. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of Hacker culture, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bolt, Beranek and Newman and elsewhere....
) the claim to be the inspiration for the personal computer
Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator....
.

Clark was born in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven is the third largest municipality in Connecticut, after Bridgeport, Connecticut and Hartford, with a core population of about 124,000 people....
 and grew up in northern California. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is a public university research university located in Berkeley, California, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines....
 in 1947, and received an electrical engineering
Electrical engineering

Electrical engineering, sometimes referred to as electrical and electronic engineering, is a field of engineering that deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism....
 degree from MIT in 1955.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Wesley A. Clark'
Start a new discussion about 'Wesley A. Clark'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Wesley Allison Clark (born 1927) is a computer scientist
Computer scientist

A computer scientist is a person who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
 and one of the main participants, along with Charles Molnar
Charles Molnar

Charles Edwin Molnar was a co-developer of one of the first minicomputers, the LINC , while a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962....
, in the creation of the LINC
LINC

The LINC was a 12-bit, 2048-word computer. The LINC can be considered the first minicomputer and a foreruner to the personal computer.The LINC and other "MIT Group" machines were designed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and eventually built by Digital Equipment Corporation ....
 laboratory computer, which was the first mini-computer and shares with a number of other computers (such as the PDP-1
PDP-1

The PDP-1 was the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's Programmed Data Processor series and was first produced in 1960. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of Hacker culture, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bolt, Beranek and Newman and elsewhere....
) the claim to be the inspiration for the personal computer
Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator....
.

Clark was born in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven is the third largest municipality in Connecticut, after Bridgeport, Connecticut and Hartford, with a core population of about 124,000 people....
 and grew up in northern California. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is a public university research university located in Berkeley, California, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines....
 in 1947, and received an electrical engineering
Electrical engineering

Electrical engineering, sometimes referred to as electrical and electronic engineering, is a field of engineering that deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism....
 degree from MIT in 1955. Clark worked for Washington University from 1964–72, and as a consultant thereafter. He founded Clark, Rockoff, and Associates in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Maxine Rockoff. His oldest son, Douglas, is a professor of computer science at Princeton University
Princeton University

Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
.

The New York Times series on the history of the personal computer had this to say in an article on August 19, 2001 "How the Computer Became Personal":

In the pantheon of personal computing, the LINC, in a sense, came first—more than a decade before Ed Roberts
Ed Roberts (computers)

Henry Edward Roberts was the founder and former president of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems which built the Altair 8800, one of the very first hobbyist personal computers. ...
 made PC's affordable for ordinary people. Work started on the Linc, the brainchild of the M.I.T. physicist Wesley A. Clark, in May 1961, and the machine was used for the first time at the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health

The National Institute of Mental Health is part of the federal government of the United States and the largest research organization in the world specializing in mental illness....
 in Bethesda, MD, the next year to analyze a cat's neural responses.


Each Linc had a tiny screen and keyboard and comprised four metal modules, which together were about as big as two television sets, set side by side and tilted back slightly. The machine, a 12-bit computer, included a one-half megahertz processor. Lincs sold for about $43,000—a bargain at the time—and were ultimately made commercially by Digital Equipment, the first minicomputer company. Fifty Lincs of the original design were built.


Clark had a small but key role in the planning for the ARPANET
ARPANET

The ARPANET developed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense during the Cold War, was the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the global Internet....
 (the predecessor to the Internet
Internet

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available server and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory....
). He suggested to Larry Roberts the idea of using separate small computer
Computer

A computer is a machine that manipulates Data according to a list of Code .The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century , although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed earlier....
s (later named Interface Message Processor
Interface Message Processor

The Interface Message Processor was the packet-switching node used to connect computers to the original ARPANET in the late 1960s and 1970s. It was the first generation of what is known as a router today....
s) as a way of standardizing the network interface and reducing load on the local computers.

In 1981 Clark received the Eckert-Mauchly Award
Eckert-Mauchly Award

The Eckert?Mauchly award, initiated in 1979, is an award given by the Association for Computing Machinery for contributions to digital systems and computer architecture....
 for his work on computer architecture. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering

The United States National Academy of Engineering is a private, non-profit institution which was founded in 1964, under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the United States National Academy of Sciences, signed by Abraham Lincoln, in 1863....
 in 1999.