MY KOLKATA EDUGRAPH
ADVERTISEMENT
Regular-article-logo Monday, 23 December 2024

Steven Spielberg’s dad who was a computer pioneer dies

Arnold Spielberg's work was essential to the rise of personal computers in the 1970s and ‘80s

AP Los Angeles Published 28.08.20, 01:19 AM
Steven Spielberg, nominated for best director for his work on "Munich," left, arrives with his father Arnold for the 25th annual nominees luncheon hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California on Feb. 13, 2006.

Steven Spielberg, nominated for best director for his work on "Munich," left, arrives with his father Arnold for the 25th annual nominees luncheon hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California on Feb. 13, 2006. AP

Arnold Spielberg, father of filmmaker Steven Spielberg and an innovating engineer whose work helped make the personal computer possible, has died at 103.

Spielberg died of natural causes while surrounded by his family in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to a statement from his four children.

ADVERTISEMENT

Spielberg and Charles Propster designed the GE-225 mainframe computer in the late 1950s while working for General Electric. The machine allowed computer scientists at Dartmouth College to develop the programming language BASIC, which would be essential to the rise of personal computers in the 1970s and ‘80s.

“Dad explained how his computer was expected to perform, but the language of computer science in those days was like Greek to me,” Steven Spielberg told the General Electric publication GE Reports.

“It all seemed very exciting, but it was very much out of my reach.” Later on he understood.

Follow us on:
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT