As I comfortably sit down to write on my personal computer, a feeling of sadness engulfs today. This is because the man who had a major hand in the making of personal computers is no more.
Who was he by the way? You all may know director, Steven Spielberg but it is his father, Arnold Spielberg, an engineer who helped in making personal computers possible. On Tuesday, at the age of 103, he left us due to natural causes. His four children confirmed this news via a statement.
During the last hours of his time here on earth, Mr. Arnold was surrounded by family and friends in Los Angeles.
He was the man, who along with another innovative engineer, Charles Propster made the GE-225 mainframe computer in the late 1950s. They did that while working at General Electric.
So how did their invention helped?
Like we humans need language to communicate and express, personal computers needed a language to operate. Arnold and Charles’s invention helped scientists at Dartmouth College to develop BASIC programming language. It aided in the rise of personal computers in the ’70s and ’80s.
While, as a young kid Steven Spielberg didn’t understand the language of computer science his late father tried explaining to him. Though later he grasped it and in a family statement released, he said :
“When I see a PlayStation when I look at a cellphone – from the smallest calculator to an iPad – I look at my dad and I say, ‘My dad and a team of geniuses started that.”
Arnold Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, 1917 to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Even at a young age, Arnold had a knack for technology and created a crystal radio at the age of just 9. While at 15 he created a radio.
Another of his significant contributions came in World War II, where he served as a radio operator and chief communications man for the 490th Bomb Squadron, radio operator, and chief communications man, also known as the “Burma Bridge Busters”.
In 1963, Arnold played an important role in his son, Steven Spielberg’s life. He produced his first feature film ‘Fireflight’, which Steven created at the age of 16.
Further, Arnold’s experience in the war became a source of inspiration for Steven’s 1998 war film, Saving Private Ryan.
Steven Spielberg was Arnold’s first child, while he had three daughters. They are, screenwriter Anne Spielberg, producer Nancy Spielberg, and marketing executive Sue Spielberg.
The children lived with Arnold’s first wife, Leah Spielberg Adler, who died in 2017. He had divorced her in 1965. In 2016, his third wife Bernice Colner Spielberg also passed away.
Arnold has departed this world for heavenly abode and may he rest in peace. We thank him for his contributions and for gifting the world of cinema with Steven Spielberg.