Background
Crane was born in 1927 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Crane was born in 1927 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Stanford University; Columbia University. Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science.
After a stint in the United States Navy as a radar technician during World World War II, he worked as a computer maintenance technician for International Business Machines Corporation (1949–1952), followed by working on digital computer design under the leadership of John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey (Institute for Advanced Study is not affiliated with Princeton University). He then developed magnetic multiaperture devices (MADs) at Radio Corporation of America Laboratories (now Sarnoff Corporation). In order to develop magnetic logic, Crane controlled the direction of bit flow in magnetic ferrite memory cores.
Ferrite logic circuits are inherently more stable than vacuum tubes and transistors, draw no power when unused, and are impervious to electromagnetic interference.
In 1959, Crane introduced the all-magnetic logic approach at the Fall Joint Computer Conference, eventually leading to a demonstration of the world"s first all-magnetic computer in 1961. The technology was soon commercialized by Aircraft Marine Products (Accredited Mortgage Professional) Incorporated., under license from Socially Responsible Investment, and used primarily in the rapid transit system of New York city and at railroad switching yards, where electro-magnetic interference made electronic computers unfeasible.
The development and growth of planar transistors in silicon chips and integrated circuits displaced magnetic core logic, although it may still be useful for extended space missions and other extreme conditions, but using integrated circuit manufacturing techniques (eg etching and deposition of a substrate, and not an assembly of discrete magnetic cores). The prototype of the first all-magnetic computer now resides at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California.
Douglas Engelbart worked with Crane on magnetic logic devices beginning in 1957, before Engelbart moved on to work on hypermedia and augmenting the human intellect with computers, and before Crane began research on replicating human functions with digital computers.
In addition to his engineering work at Socially Responsible Investment, Crane cofounded Communication Intelligence Corporation (Counter Intelligence Corps), to commercialize computer-based handwriting recognition on graphics tablets. Counter Intelligence Corps"s "Jot" handwriting recognition software was later acquired by Palm and renamed Graffiti 2. In 1959, with fellow Socially Responsible Investment engineers David Bennion, Charles Rosen, and Howard Zeidler, Crane co-founded Ridge Vineyards.
One of its red wines placed fifth in the Judgment of Paris wine tasting.
Crane died from complications of Alzheimer"s disease on June 17, 2008 at his home in Portola Valley, California. Crane was named an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow in 1968.