BLACK HISTORY MONTH: DR. MARK DEAN AND MR. ROY CLAY – PIONEERS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PERSONAL COMPUTER

Dr. Mark Dean Computer Scientist & Pioneer Black up ya computer You may not have heard of Dr. Mark Dean. And you aren’t alone. But almost everything in your life has been affected by his work. See, Dr.Mark Dean is a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM. Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American. So how is it that we can celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM personal computer without reading or hearing a single word about him? Given all of the pressure mass media are under about negative portrayals of African Americans on television and in print, you would think it would be a slam dunk to highlight someone like Dr. Dean. Somehow, though, we have managed to miss the shot. History is cruel when it comes to telling the stories of African Americans. Dr. Dean isn’t the first Black inventor to be overlooked. Consider John Stanard, inventor of the refrigerator, George Sampson, creator of the clothes dryer, Alexander Miles and his elevator, Lewis Latimer and the electric lamp. All of these inventors share two things: One, they changed the landscape of our society; and, two, society relegated them to the footnotes of history. Hopefully, Dr. Mark Dean won’t go away as quietly as they did. He certainly shouldn’t. Dr.Dean helped start a Digital Revolution that created people like Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Dell Computer’s Michael Dell. Millions of jobs in information technology can be traced back directly to Dr. Dean. More important, stories like Dr. Mark Dean’s should serve as inspiration for African children. Already victims of the “Digital Divide” and failing school systems, young, Black kids might embrace technology with more enthusiasm if they knew someone like Dr. Dean already was leading the way. Although technically Dr. Dean can’t be credited with creating the computer — that is left to Alan Turing, a pioneering 20th-century English mathematician, widely considered to be the father of modern computer science — Dr. Dean rightly deserves to take a bow for the machine we use today. The computer really wasn’t practical for home or small business use until he came along, leading a team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers. In other words, because of Dr. Dean, the PC became a part of our daily lives. For most of us, changing the face of society would have been enough. But not for Dr. Dean. Still in his early forties, he has a lot of inventing left in him. He recently made history again by leading the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz processor chip. It’s just another huge step in making computers faster and smaller. As the world congratulates itself for the new Digital Age brought on by the personal computer, we need to guarantee that the African-American story is part of the hoopla surrounding the most stunning technological advance the world has ever seen. We cannot afford to let Dr. Mark Dean become a footnote in history. He is well worth his own history book.

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Dr. Mark Dean

Computer Inventions

 

As a child, Mark Dean excelled in math. In elementary school, he took advanced level math courses and, in high school, Dean even built his own computer, radio, and amplifier. Dean continued his interests and went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee, a masters degree in electrical engineering from Florida Atlantic University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford. He is one of the most prominent black inventors in the field of computers.

Dr. Mark Dean started working at IBM in 1980 and was instrumental in the invention of the Personal Computer (PC). He holds three of IBM’s original nine PC patents and currently holds more than 20 total patents. The famous African-American inventor never thought the work he was doing would end up being so useful to the world, but he has helped IBM make instrumental changes in areas ranging from the research and application of systems technology circuits to operating environments. One of his most recent computer inventions occurred while leading the team that produced the 1-Gigahertz chip, which contains one million transistors and has nearly limitless potential.

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Mark Dean (born March 2, 1957) is an inventor and a computer scientist. He holds three of the nine original IBM patents upon which the IBM PC personal computers were based. He led the team that developed the ISA bus, and he led the design team responsible for creating the first one-gigahertz computer processor chip.

Born in Jefferson City, Tennessee, Dean holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Florida Atlantic University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Dean is the first African-American to become an IBM Fellow which is the highest level of technical excellence at the company. In 1997, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Currently, he is an IBM Vice President overseeing the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.

Dean led a team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers.

Dean made history again by leading the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz processor chip, another significant step in making computers faster and smaller.

Mark Dean Born Mar 2 1957

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Roy Clay, the Black Godfather of Silicon Valley

by Maurice Campbell

Coming to the Bay Area from St. Louis, Missouri, Roy Clay once applied for a job at McDonald Aircraft and was rejected because they “had no jobs for professional Negroes.” He returned in 1956 to be hired by McDonald Aircraft to work as a programmer with their IBM and Burroughs Computers.

Roy moved to Hewlett & Packard in 1965 to set up computer software for their systems. He led the team that engineered HP’s first foray into the computer market in 1966. Not only was he the first director of the HP Research and Development Software and Hardware Group, he was a founding member of the HP Computer Division.

Roy was instrumental in bringing about many social changes while he served on the Palo Alto City Council, 1973-1979, and as vice mayor, 1976-1977. He also gave counsel and advice to several people on starting up their own high-tech companies. One such example is Tandem computers. Another is Compaq Computer Corp., which now owns Tandem.

I remember talking with Roy about some of those meetings. I personally saw how many hours he put in as a civic leader and as a Black entrepreneur.

He never had enough time for all he wanted to accomplish. Seven years on a city council, all those long meetings, his significant contributions to the early development of Silicon Valley – for this, he was given only two lines in “Palo Alto: A Centennial History,” a book that the Palo Alto Historical Association published, chronicling the accomplishments of the pioneers of Silicon Valley.

Roy is currently committed once again to helping our communities to expand technology training so our people can get jobs and start businesses in the high-tech arena. To our young people, his word is as good as gold: “Hang in there and take advantage of the opportunities that are coming in the new millennium. Our efforts will undoubtedly bring about a lessening of the digital divide by training people for a new high-tech future.”

Roy Clay has been a great inspiration and leader to many of us and our communities. Send him a thank you note at his company, a world leader in electrical safety testing equipment, Rod L Electronics, 923 Hamilton Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025. Also, please consider writing the Palo Alto Historical Association, P.O. Box 193, Palo Alto CA. 94302, and politely asking them to add an addendum with Roy’s picture and include some of his very real accomplishments in Palo Alto and Silicon Valley.

Posted: 2/27/06

Source: sfbayview.com

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So, the next time someome tells you that Blacks had no hand in the creation of the computers we all sit before today, tell them about Dr. Dean and Mr. Clay.

If not for their efforts, we would not have at our fingertips the wonder of a marvel of science, technology and dedication.