James Wares Bryce (1880 – 1949) was an American engineer and inventor. In 1936, on the centenary of the

United States Patent Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Ale ...

, he was honored as one of the country’s 10 greatest living inventors.Cohen, I. Bernard (Spring 1999)
Father of the computer age.
''Invention & Technology'', Volume 14, Issue 4 Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

on September 5, 1880, his father was from

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and mother was from

Wick Wick most often refers to: * Capillary action ("wicking") ** Candle wick, the cord used in a candle or oil lamp ** Solder wick, a copper-braided wire used to desolder electronic contacts Wick or WICK may also refer to: Places and placenames ...

. He studied for three years at

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

before taking a draftsman position in 1900. In 1903 he worked for J. Walter Christie and helped develop a front-wheel-drive racing car. In 1904 he went to work for H. T. Goss, who later formed the partnership of Goss & Bryce. One of their contracts was with

Bundy Manufacturing Company The Bundy Manufacturing Company was a 19th-century American manufacturer of timekeeping devices that went through a series of mergers, eventually becoming part of International Business Machines and Simplex Time Recorder Company. It was the fi ...

who made time clocks used to track hours worked by industrial workers. He took a position at the

Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems; it was subsequently known as IBM. In 1911, the financier and noted trust organizer Charles R. Flint, called the ...

(later known as

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 ...

) in 1917 as supervising engineer of the division that developed time recording machines. Time clocks used punched cards to record workers in and out times. Subtracting these two gave hours worked on each day, and adding them all up gave total work time. This was easily automated by mechanical machines. However, to compute wages, the hours must be multiplied by salary per hour. Bryce invented one of the first electromechanical multipliers using

relay A relay Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off A relay is an electrically operated switc ...

s for this application, and became IBM's chief engineer. In 1937 Bryce was approached by

Howard Aiken Howard Hathaway Aiken (March 8, 1900 – March 14, 1973) was an American physicist and a list of pioneers in computer science, pioneer in computing. He was the original conceptual designer behind IBM's Harvard Mark I, the United States' first C ...

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 ...

, who persuaded IBM to fund a programmable calculator which became the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), better known as the

Harvard Mark I The Harvard Mark I, or IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), was one of the earliest general-purpose electromechanical computers used in the war effort during the last part of World War II. One of the first programs to run on th ...

. When Aiken published a press release announcing the ASCC. Bryce was the only IBM person mentioned. In 1946 Bryce designed the first commercial electronic multiplier using

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It ...

s, which IBM marketed as the IBM 603. He adapted the 603 to become the

arithmetic logic unit In computing, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is a Combinational logic, combinational digital circuit that performs arithmetic and bitwise operations on integer binary numbers. This is in contrast to a floating-point unit (FPU), which operates on ...

in the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC). (Includes photo) However, he was too ill to attend the dedication of the SSEC in January 1948, and died in March 1949.

References

External links

IBM100 Centennial Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryce, James W. 1880 births IBM employees 1949 deaths