ARL MSRC Technology
What's in a name?
By Ric Kositzke, Managing Editor
How do you honor a computer pioneer and a former Army four-star general in a high performance computing environment? You could build 10-foot statues next to the HPCs, complete with life-like features and copper engravings.
Or you could honor them with hostnames. Respectfully, ARL MSRC officials preferred to do the latter.
So in 2000, ARL MSRC officials gave the IBM NH-2 SMP P3 the hostname Brainerd, named after Professor John G. Brainerd; in 2002, our IBM pSeries 690 SP received the hostname Shelton, named after former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Henry S. Shelton.
Why did we honor these distinguished men? Read on.
Professor Brainerd
Born
in Philadelphia in 1904, Professor John G. Brainerd committed his life
to demonstrating the significance of advanced mathematics, both while teaching at
the Moore School of Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania and while
being a central figure in the design and development of the Electronic Numerical Integrator
and Calculator, known with reverence as the ENIAC, in 1946 at the Ballistic
Research Laboratory here.
While in college, Brainerd began working as a scribe for the North American newspaper in his hometown. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1925, he became an instructor there in the electrical engineering department.
The work he will forever be linked to started during WWII, when the Moore School was contracted to work with the Army Ordnance Department. The Moore School, which built the differential analyzer years earlier, collaborated on an idea to create a faster method for creating firing tables. That idea was an electronic numerical analyzer.
While supervising the creation of the ENIAC, Brainerd worked closely with John Mauchly and John Eckert, both former students of Brainerd’s. The ENIAC, which had more than 18,000 vacuum tubes and miles of wire, led to the evolution of supercomputers.
Brainerd later became dean of the Moore School and is considered one of the pioneers of the computing age. He died in 1988.
General Shelton
Born
in Tarboro, N.C., in 1942, Gen. Henry H. Shelton’s remarkable 37-year
Army career included two tours of Vietnam and four years as Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree from North Carolina State and his master’s degree from Auburn in Alabama, Shelton became an officer in 1963 through the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He held command and staff positions during the next 24 years, including commanding the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., and serving as Chief of Staff of the Tenth Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y.
Shelton moved up the ranks and became a four-star general in 1996, and he became Commander in Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command. A year later, he became the 14th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and served consecutive terms under both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
During his career, Shelton’s decorations included the Defense Distinguished Service Medals, two Army Distinguished Service Medals, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor and the Purple Heart. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2001.
(In the next Link, we will profile two hostnames that honor Colin Powell and John von Neumann.)