Jack Arnow; at frontier of computer technology
Before there was the high-speed Internet or e-mail, there was Jack Arnow.
Mr. Arnow, a pioneer of the early computer industry, died Friday at Brigham and Women's Hospital of complications due to heart disease. He was 78.
Born in Milwaukee, Mr. Arnow served in the Navy for 11 months before he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin , where he studied mathematics.
Two years later, he transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in probability and statistics.
He then joined a team of MIT graduate students who worked on Whirlwind, MIT's first high-speed digital computer, the fastest computer of its time.
Initially, they worked on real-time air traffic control, but then were asked to apply computer technology to air defense.
``The group was too inexperienced to be overawed by our task," wrote project head Jay Forrester in the 1998 issue of The Computer Museum Report .
Mr. Arnow told his children it was the best job he ever had, said his daughter Laura, of Oakland, Calif., and Vientiane, Laos .
``Every day, he said, he'd go to work and do something that no one had ever done before," she said.
By age 27, he was a department head directing more than 300 programmers and engineers as they worked on projects that included tracking the Mercury and Apollo space missions, said his wife, Norma (Shoolman), who married Mr. Arnow in 1956.
In 1968, he founded
Chase Manhattan Bank purchased the company in 1978.
Soon after, he returned to MIT as part of the Advanced Study Program , where he grew fond of photography.
``He discovered a way to express his vision of the world, which coupled with his mathematical mind resulted in complex, unique, and beautiful images," said his wife.
He studied and traveled with Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Jack Dykinga who, in a 2003 interview on the website for Images of Arizona, described Mr. Arnow as ``an inspiration to a lot of people."
He was an avid golfer, and served as president of the Nashawtuc Country Club in Concord , where he directed the PGA Senior Charity Tournament in 1987.
Since 1995, he and wife had spent winters in Tucson. He also traveled and studied extensively. His wife said they traveled and hiked in New Zealand , Nepal , Spain, Africa , Central America, and Southeast Asia .
In addition to his wife and daughter, he leaves another daughter, Jill of Seattle, and a son, Jim of Boulder, Colo.
A memorial service is planned at Kresge Auditorium on the MIT Campus tomorrow at 10 a.m.
