Robert V. D. Campbell
born 1916
Robert V. D. Campbell was born in 1916 in Newark, New Jersey. His father worked for General Electric, and in the fourth grade, his family moved to East Cleveland, Ohio. Campbell attended MIT, graduating in 1938 with a degree in physics. Campbell earned a masters in physics in 1941 from Columbia, and went on to Harvard for his Ph.D.
In December 1941, Howard Aiken recruited him to work on the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC--the Harvard MARK I computer), then in the later design stages. Campbell shuttled back and forth between Harvard and the Endicott Laboratory of IBM, where the machine was being designed and built. He helped with the assembly and operation of the machine at Endicott and then in the Cruft Laboratory at Harvard, when the machine became operational in 1944.
Campbell continued his work with Aiken in the Harvard Computation Laboratory, and from 1945 helped with the development of the MARK II for the Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground.
In 1947-1949, Campbell worked at Raytheon where he was involved with the search for adequate storage devices and the RAYDAC installation at Point Mugu, CA.
From 1949-1966, he was at Burroughs Corporation as director of research and in a staff position for program planning.
From 1966-1984, Campbell worked at MITRE doing long-range planning for the Air Force, and project work on a data processing system for the state of Massachusetts and the city of Newton, MA.
In December 1941, Howard Aiken recruited him to work on the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC--the Harvard MARK I computer), then in the later design stages. Campbell shuttled back and forth between Harvard and the Endicott Laboratory of IBM, where the machine was being designed and built. He helped with the assembly and operation of the machine at Endicott and then in the Cruft Laboratory at Harvard, when the machine became operational in 1944.
Campbell continued his work with Aiken in the Harvard Computation Laboratory, and from 1945 helped with the development of the MARK II for the Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground.
In 1947-1949, Campbell worked at Raytheon where he was involved with the search for adequate storage devices and the RAYDAC installation at Point Mugu, CA.
From 1949-1966, he was at Burroughs Corporation as director of research and in a staff position for program planning.
From 1966-1984, Campbell worked at MITRE doing long-range planning for the Air Force, and project work on a data processing system for the state of Massachusetts and the city of Newton, MA.
Robert V. D. Campbell, OH 67. Oral history interview by William Aspray, 22 February 1984, Concord, Massachusetts. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Available <a href="http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/display.phtml?id=35" target="_blank">online here</a>.