George Cogar

George R. Cogar (1932 – disappeared September 2, 1983) was an American computer scientist and engineer. He disappeared in 1983 while on a private plane flying over western Canada; no wreckage has ever been found.

Professional career

Cogar was the head of the UNIVAC 1004 electronic design team code named the "bumblebee project", and later the "barn project", and co-founder of Mohawk Data Sciences Corporation, a Herkimer, New York-based multimillion-dollar business. His most successful invention was the Data Recorder magnetic tape encoder, which was introduced in 1965 and eliminated the need for keypunches and punched cards by direct encoding on tape. He also founded the Cogar Corporation, where he built an intelligent terminal—an early forerunner of the modern personal computer—which he called the Cogar System 4 or Cogar 4. The Cogar 4 became the Singer 1500 after Singer Business Machines acquired Cogar Corporation. In 1976, International Computers Limited (ICL) acquired Singer Business Machines, changing the name of the computer to the ICL 1500.

Disappearance Cogar was last seen Friday, September 2, 1983, when a private plane, a Britten-Norman Islander, went down somewhere in British Columbia, Canada.

Philanthropy Cogar and his wife Ann established the Cogar Foundation for the express purpose of awarding grants and scholarships to students of Herkimer County. The Cogar Gallery at Herkimer County Community College is named for them.

Patents