Claude Ancelme Roichel Kagan, also known as CAR Kagan, was an Engineer, best known for his work with computers in the latter half of the 20th century. He was a software programmer responsible for creating SAM76, a high level computer programming language still in use in the 21st century. He was also a veteran of World War II and the Korean War.
Early life and Education edit
Claude A. R. Kagan received a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Cornell University around 1950. He worked for the Electric Bond and Share Company and Western Electric Company in Lawrence, Massachusetts in the United States in the early 1950's. He became vice-chairman of the American Institute of Electrical Engineer's (AIEE) Computing Devices Committee in 1959 and chairman in 1960. During that time the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) was formed, in 1962. He chaired several AFIPS committees and served on the board of the National Joint Computer Conference (NJCC).[1]
Patent edit
Mr Kagan filed a patent on Oct 8, 1971, for the 'inductive data coupler' (IDC), as a faster way to send data over telephone lines. The IDC avoids signal noise typical with the use of acoustic modem connections. The carbon granule microphones in telephone handsets of the period limited data transmission rates because of the poor quality electrical signal they produced from the changing resistance of the packed granules, moved in response to sound-waves. The inductive data coupler would bypass this mechanical interface altogether, by using a telephone socket piggyback adaptor with a coil inside it. One of the telephones two wires passes through the middle of the coil, forming a transformer, which magnetically links the telephone line and computer modem. This would also by-pass the need for regulatory approval of the modem, required for direct electrical connection to the telephone line in a similar way to acoustic modems, however, the magnetic connection would have a better signal to noise ratio, allowing faster baud rates. United States patent number 3736379 was granted to Mr Kagan in 1973.
Computer language SAM76 edit
In the late 1970's Mr Kagan developed SAM76, a macro programming language used on CP/M machines, still in use in the 21st century.
The SAM76 language is designed for interactive applications, including artificial intelligence programming, and permits high portability from machine to machine. The language shares certain features in common with LISP, Forth, and shell programming languages of the UNIX operating system. It requires a minimum of user keyboarding to achieve powerful results, fits in a very small computer system, permits editing, testing, and executing modules interactively whilst not preventing the user from doing strange things with the syntax of the language. The language has been rewritten in C and compiles on Windows, Unix, Linux, and similar operating systems. The source code is available online and still compiles and runs as of 2006.
R.E.S.I.S.T.O.R.S. edit
The group of "Radically Emphatic Students Interested in Science, Technology, and Other Research Studies" known as R.E.S.I.S.T.O.R.S. held it's meetings in Claude Kagan's barn in Pennington, N.J. near Princeton.