| |
|
|
|
| |
| Born in 1897, Benjamin M. Durfee joined the Computing-Tabulating-Recording
Company (CTR) -- IBM's predecessor -- in 1917, and attended
a CTR training school the following year. His initial
assignments were in the Cleveland area servicing tabulating
equipment, e.g., checking machine adjustments, oiling
and cleaning, and replacing worn parts. Early in his career,
he assisted Clair Lake in field testing a nonprinting
tabulator with automatic group control. Lake, who drew
on Durfee's input in improving the machine, subsequently
brought Durfee to join him at the company's laboratory
in Endicott, N.Y. Once there, Durfee assisted in the assembly
and testing of the Type I printing tabulator, and initiated
some training courses on the machine. He made numerous
trips in 1921 to support the installation of the Type
I in the field, and in 1924, he assembled in Paris the
first IBM printing tabulator shipped to Europe. Durfee's
participation in the ASCC project began in 1939 in meetings
at the Endicott Laboratory with Harvard's Aiken, and IBM's
Lake and Frank Hamilton. He was heavily involved in testing
of the ASCC at Endicott in 1943 and again in 1944 at Harvard,
and is one of four men credited by Harvard as an inventor
of the machine. Benjamin Durfee died in 1980. |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
