The Ukrainian-born inventor Jacob Rabinow (1910-1999) came to the United States with his parents as a child – the family settled in New York City. Rabinow was educated in the New York City public schools and studied engineering at the City University of New York. He spent much of his career at the National Bureau of Standards, working with a variety of other government agencies. For a few years, he served as a technical advisor to the Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories, working on a device that might transform printed characters and other visual patterns into electronic signals. By 1954, he was ready to prepare a report on this device, what was called a reading scanning machine. This is a small part of the device. The typewriter is at the center, with the reader behind it. Above these is a display panel, below are three memory circuits. A metal frame with a wooden stand provides support.
Rabinow would go on to take out over 200 U.S. patents and to take a continuing interest in optical character recognition.
References:
J. Rabinow, Report on DOFL First Reader, DOFL Report TR-128, Washington, D.C.: Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories, 1954.
Jacob Rabinow Interview, November 23,1970, Computer History Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.
If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.