| Clair D. Lake is best known as the IBM project director who helped build (some
would say co-invented) the Harvard Mark I computer, also known as the ASCC
(Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator). At the time it was unveiled in 1944,
it was hailed as “the world’s greatest mathematical calculator.” But
unlike calculators that lacked memory, the Mark I was capable of operating
automatically using pre-programmed instructions. At present, it is regarded as
the first of the modern computers. Lake was also responsible for designing the
standard computer punch card used in data processing.
Lake was born in 1888 and entered a manual training school after completing the
eighth grade. He pursued a career designing automobile parts. In 1915, he went
to work for Thomas Watson Sr., head of the CTR (Computing-Tabulating-Recording
Corporation) to help design and build a tabulating machine. (CTR would later
become IBM.)
Lake distinguished himself for innovations and refinements of tabulating
equipment and was made superintendent of the tabulating product line. In 1928,
he developed the 80-column IBM card, which was eventually adopted as the
standard for data processing. In the 1930s, he led development of tabulating
equipment for the new Social Security Administration to keep records and print
checks, a contract that secured IBM’s position as a corporate leader.
In the 1930s, Lake worked with Columbia University’s Wallace Eckert at the
Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau to build an electromagnetic
calculator, which used punched cards to perform high-speed, complex mathematical
calculations in the study of astronomy. News of the device spread, and Howard H.
Aiken, a Harvard doctoral student in physics, met with Eckert and Lake. Aiken
wanted to make a calculator that could retain mathematical rules in its memory
and not require reprogramming for each new set of problems. In 1938, Watson
agreed to finance the project, and the computer was built at IBM’s Endicott,
N.Y., facility, where Aiken collaborated with Lake and his engineering staff,
namely James Bryce, Francis Hamilton, and Benjamin Durfee.
War delayed work on the Mark I, which was completed in 1943. At its 1944
unveiling, Aiken took sole credit for the invention, mentioning IBM only
incidentally. Controversy over who deserved credit and how much has raged since.
What is known is that Aiken conceived the machine’s design, and Lake and his
staff interpreted and enhanced the design, invented components, and assembled
the machine.
Despite being snubbed, the experience proved invaluable to Lake and IBM. Lake
continued to work on high-speed calculators and other devices, and IBM went on
to assume a major role in the computer industry.
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