Bob Bemer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Bob Bemer
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| Born |
Robert William Bemer
February 8, 1920 |
| Died | June 22, 2004 (aged 84) Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas, US
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| Education | Albion College (B.A., Mathematics, 1940) Cranbrook Kingswood School |
| Known for | Early work as a computer pioneer, standardizing ASCII |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | Douglas Aircraft Company, RAND Corporation, IBM, UNIVAC – Sperry Rand, Bull, General Electric, Honeywell |
Robert William Bemer (born February 8, 1920 – died June 22, 2004) was a very important computer scientist. He is best known for his work at a big technology company called IBM during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Contents
Early Life and Learning
Bob Bemer was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He finished high school at Cranbrook Kingswood School in 1936. Later, he earned a degree in mathematics from Albion College in 1940. In 1941, he also got a special certificate in aeronautical engineering. This means he learned how to design and build aircraft.
Bob Bemer's Career
Bob Bemer started his career in 1941 at Douglas Aircraft Company. He worked as an aerodynamicist, which is someone who studies how air moves around objects like airplanes.
He then worked for several other important companies:
- RAND Corporation starting in 1951
- IBM starting in 1957
- UNIVAC – Sperry Rand in 1965
- Bull (a French company) also in 1965
- General Electric in 1970
- Honeywell in 1974
Helping Create COBOL
Bob Bemer was part of a special group that combined ideas from different computer languages. One of these was his own language called COMTRAN. Another was FLOW-MATIC, created by Grace Hopper. By putting these ideas together, they helped create the rules for COBOL. COBOL is a very old and still used computer language, especially for business programs.
The Father of ASCII
Bob Bemer also worked with Hugh McGregor Ross and others to create ASCII in 1960. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It's a way for computers to understand and use letters, numbers, and symbols.
Bemer added several important characters to ASCII that computers didn't use before. These included:
- The escape (
ESC) - The backslash (
\) - The curly brackets (
{})
Because of his big role in creating ASCII, some people call him The Father of ASCII.
New Computer Terms
Between 1965 and 1966, while working in France, Bemer suggested new words for computer terms. He proposed the word octet for a group of 8 bits. Before this, the word byte was used. He also suggested hextet for a group of 16 bits.
Software Factory Idea
Bob Bemer was one of the first people to talk about the idea of a software factory. This concept means treating software development like a factory process. It helps make creating computer programs more organized and efficient. He wrote about this idea in a paper in 1968.
Other Contributions
Bemer made other important contributions to computing:
- In 1957, he was one of the first to publish the idea of time-sharing. This allows many users to share one computer at the same time.
- He also tried to prepare for the Year 2000 problem (often called Y2K) very early, in 1971. The Y2K problem was a worry that computers might have trouble when the year changed from 1999 to 2000. This was because many older programs only stored years with two digits (like '99' for 1999).
Later, Bob and some colleagues developed a language called Text Executive Programming Language (TEX).
Solving the Y2K Problem
In the late 1990s, after he retired, Bob Bemer came up with a way to help fix the Y2K problem. His method helped computers correctly compare dates when the century was missing. This was especially helpful for older programs where the original code was not available. His solution made sure that dates in the new century (like 2001) were not mistakenly seen as older than dates in the last century (like 1999).
Bob Bemer kept a large collection of information about early computer software development on his website: www.bobbemer.com.
Later Years and Passing
Bob Bemer passed away at his home in Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas in 2004. He was 84 years old.
See also
In Spanish: Robert William Bemer para niños
