Arnold Spielberg

Arnold Meyer Spielberg (February 6, 1917 – August 25, 2020) was an American electrical engineer. He was instrumental in contributions to "real-time data acquisition and recording that significantly contributed to the definition of modern feedback and control processes". For General Electric, he designed, with his colleague Charles Propster, the GE-225 mainframe computer in 1959. He cited as his greatest contribution the first computer-controlled "point of sale" cash register. He was of Jewish descent. His mother, Rebecca (née Chechick), was born in Sudylkiv, Ukraine; his father, Samuel, was born in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine. They later immigrated to the United States, meeting and eventually marrying in Cincinnati. Spielberg graduated from Hughes High School in 1934. In 1934, he worked in Cynthiana, Kentucky, for his cousin's Lerman Brothers department store.

"At 15, Arnold became a ham radio operator, building his own transmitter, a skill that proved fortuitous when he was drafted a B-25 squadron in India.

Spielberg married concert pianist Leah Posner (1920–2017) in January 1945. After graduating from the University of Cincinnati with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, he joined RCA's Advanced Development Department in 1949, where he did early work on servo and guidance systems. In 1955, he joined General Electric's computer department in Schenectady, New York. He left G.E. in 1963, Steven Spielberg described the event his father experienced at the time:

Work When RCA entered the computer field, Spielberg began doing early circuit designs implementing computer logic. Moving into systems design, he was responsible for the design of a tape-to-tape data sorter. He designed and patented the first electronic library system, implemented as an interrogation system for data stored on an array of magnetic tapes. Promoted to Manager of Advanced Product Development, he was given responsibility for development of a point-of-sale system. The system involved a central processing computer called Recorder Central with ten point-of-sale satellite units. The system had many of the capabilities of later point-of-sale systems, including error-checking, price lookup, calculation of sales tax and discounts, and credit verification. The GE-225 was derived from the GE-312 and 412 process-control computers. Spielberg and Charles "Chuck" H. Propster had worked together at RCA on BIZMAC before designing the GE-225, which was introduced in 1960.

Personal life and death Spielberg had four children with his first wife Leah: son Steven and daughters Anne, Nancy, and Sue. He also had 14 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. His second wife, Bernice Colner, died in 2016.

Steven Spielberg's 2022 film The Fabelmans is a fictionalized account of his own childhood, and features Paul Dano as engineer Burt Fabelman, the father of the film's protagonist Sammy Fabelman.

Recognition IEEE 2006 Computer Pioneer Award