Edward H. Sussenguth Jr. (October 10, 1932 – November 22, 2015) was an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and former

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

employee, known best for his work on

Systems Network Architecture Systems Network Architecture (SNA) is IBM's proprietary computer network, networking architecture, created in 1974. It is a complete protocol stack for interconnecting computers and their resources. SNA describes formats and protocols but, in its ...

(SNA). He was also a contributor to the architecture of IBM's Advanced Computer System (ACS).

Biography

Born in

Holyoke, Massachusetts Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,247. Loca ...

, Sussenguth received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

(A.B.) in 1954 from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

(M.S.) in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1959 from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT), and a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

(Ph.D.) in 1964 from Harvard. After he served at the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

as an officer in the Pacific Fleet, Sussenguth joined

in 1959. Sussenguth started in 1959 in the Research Division in the development of

formal language In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language is a set of strings whose symbols are taken from a set called "alphabet". The alphabet of a formal language consists of symbols that concatenate into strings (also c ...

descriptions. This work led to Sussenguth meeting Kenneth E. Iverson and Adin Falkoff. Iverson had developed a formal notation, which was documented in a book ''A Programming Language''. It was the original version of the programming language APL. Chapter 2 of ''A Programming Language'' had used Iverson's notation to describe the

IBM 7090 The IBM 7090 is a second-generation Transistor computer, transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member o ...

computer. In early 1963, Falkoff, later joined by Iverson and Sussenguth, proceeded to use the notation to produce a formal description of the

IBM System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applicati ...

computer then under design. The result was published in 1964 in a double issue of the IBM Systems Journal, thereafter known as the "grey book" or "grey manual". The book was used in a course on computer systems design at the IBM Systems Research Institute. In 1965, Sussenguth joined the IBM Advanced Computer Systems project (ACS-1) to work on high performance computers. In 1970, he became Director of Architecture and Planning in the new Communications Systems Division, where he turned his attention to networking and high speed communications. In the last year before his retirement in 1990, he was appointed first President of the IBM Academy of Technology, which he held for a year. Sussenguth was an advisor to the

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sc ...

and a visiting professor at some universities. He was elected Fellow of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

(IEEE) and received multiple awards and honors, including: in 1981, an

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is a position at IBM appointed by the CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achieve. Over ...

ship for "technical leadership in the development of system network architecture"; in 1988, the Data Communications Interface Award; in 1989, the

IEEE Simon Ramo Medal Through its awards program, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers recognizes contributions that advance the fields of interest to the IEEE. For nearly a century, the IEEE Awards Program has paid tribute to technical professionals w ...

; in 1992, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (computer science).

Publications

Sussenguth has authored and co-authored multiple publications, including: * * * *

References

External links

National Academy of Engineering (NAE): Dr. Edward H. Sussenguth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sussenguth, Edward H. 1932 births 2015 deaths 21st-century American engineers Harvard University alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni IBM employees People from Holyoke, Massachusetts Fellows of the IEEE Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Systems Network Architecture