Werner Buchholz (24 October 1922 – 11 July 2019) was a German-American computer scientist. After growing up in Europe, Buchholz moved to Canada and then to the United States. He worked for

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(IBM) in New York. In June 1956, he coined the term "

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" for a unit of digital information. In 1990, he was recognized as a computer pioneer by the

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Biography

Early life

Werner Buchholz was born on 24 October 1922 in Detmold, Germany. His older brother, Carl Hellmut and he were the sons of the merchant and his wife, . Due to the growing

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in Detmold in 1936, the family moved to Cologne. Werner was able to go to England in 1938 where he attended school, while Carl Hellmut emigrated to the United States. Because of the threat of invasion in May 1940, Werner with other refugee students was interned by the British and later sent to Canada. With the help of the Jewish community in Toronto, he was released in 1941 and able to attend the University of Toronto. He completed his training as an

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in the United States at

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. His parents were murdered in 1942 (Julius) and 1944 (Elsa) in a concentration camp in Litzmannstadt (

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Career

Werner Buchholz was a member of the team at IBM that designed the

IBM 701 The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine, known as the Defense Calculator while in development, was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer and its first series production mainframe computer, which was announced to the public on May 2 ...

and the IBM 7030 Stretch, IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. His work involved setting standards in the field of character encoding on computing systems. In 1956, he coined the term ''

'' as a unit of digital information. A byte was an ordered collection of bits, which were the smallest amounts of data that a computer could process ("

bite Biting is an action involving a set of teeth closing down on an object. It is a common zoological behavior, being found in toothed animals such as mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and arthropods. Biting is also an action humans participate ...

"). In 1990, Buchholz received the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award, awarded since 1981 to recognize and honor individuals whose effort resulted in the creation and vitality of the computer industry.

Personal life

He worked 40 years at IBM in

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, where he participated in the development of the computer. His wife Anna died in 2007 and their son John in 1975. Buchholz died in July 2019 at the age of 96. He is survived by his son Sham Rang Singh Khalsa and two grandchildren.Werner Buchholz obituary
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