Jack Harker
John Mason "Jack" Harker (June 29, 1926 – April 27, 2013) was an inventor, mechanical engineer, and product and program manager who pioneered development of disk storage systems.[http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/mercurynews/obituary.aspx?n=john-mason-harker-jack&pid=164705915 John Mason (Jack) Harker (1926 - 2013) Obituary], San Jose Mercury News, May 12, 2013 Starting as a member of the original team that developed the first disk storage system, he went on to develop IBM Direct Access Storage products for the next 35 years. Over that time, Harker was twice director of the IBM San Jose Storage Laboratories, an IBM Fellow, and an IEEE Fellow.{{cite book | url=
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102658172 |title= Oral History of Jack Harker, with Denis Mee |date= 30 May 2007 | publisher= Computer History Museum | accessdate=2013-04-27}} He retired from IBM in 1987 and died in 2013.
Early years
Jack Harker was born in San Francisco in 1926 and during World War II enlisted in the navy, becoming an electronics repair specialist, serving on board in both the Atlantic and Pacific. He received his BA in mechanical engineering from Swarthmore in 1950 and master's degree in mechanical engineering from University of California Berkeley in 1952. In 1962 he received a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
IBM career
{{Quote box|width=70%|align=center|fontsize=125%
|quote="It isn't often someone gets an opportunity to see an industry get born. Or to participate in its beginning, participate in its formative years, and then still be around to see it become a major worldwide industry."
|source =—Jack Harker, 1987{{cite web
|url= http://pacificgrids.com/Harker/IBM_San_Jose_1987_article_2.jpg
|title= IBM San Jose article on Jack Harker retirement page 2
|publisher= IBM San Jose Newsletter
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Harker advanced through a series of positions at IBM to become the IBM San Jose Laboratory Director in 1972. He is best known for his leadership of the 1311 Disk File project, but he considered the 1350/1360 (Cypress) Image Storage System his most challenging assignment and the creation of the Technology and Advanced Development Group (TAD) in 1969 amongst his most important accomplishments.
After graduating from Berkeley he was hired in 1952 by Reynold B. Johnson as the eighteenth employee of the new IBM design laboratory in San Jose, California, United States.IBM San Jose Quarter Century Of Innovation, David Kean, Appendix A. An early project was as a mechanical engineer on the original team developing the IBM 350 RAMAC disk storage unit, the world's first hard disk drive.
After RAMAC his next project was working for Alan Shugart on the IBM 1301. Harker led development of the first self flying disk heads.{{cite web
|url = http://www.computerhistory.org/groups/storagesig/media/docs/hoagland_ibm_1301.pdf
|title = Magnetic Disk Storage A Personal Memoir, 2011
|author = Al Hogland
|publisher = Computer History Museum
|url-status = dead
|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20130402215341/http://www.computerhistory.org/groups/storagesig/media/docs/hoagland_ibm_1301.pdf
|archivedate = 2013-04-02
As Air Bearing Development Manager, Harker led the development effort for self-acting air bearings, which lowered the disk heads and relied on flying them over the surface using the air flow from the disk underneath instead of the pressurized air from an air compressor as used by RAMAC.{{cite book | url= https://archive.org/details/ibms360early370s0000pugh
| url-access= registration
|title= IBM's 360 and early 370 systems | publisher= MIT Press |date=1991| isbn= 9780262161237
}}{{cite web | url= http://www.magneticdiskheritagecenter.org/100th/Progress/Shugart/SHUGART.PDF
|title= Al Shugart speech at 100th Anniversary Conference on Magnetic Recording and Information Storage | publisher= Santa Clara University Museum | accessdate=2015-03-24|archivedate=2005-05-12|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050512074429/http://www.magneticdiskheritagecenter.org/100th/Progress/Shugart/SHUGART.PDF}}
Hard disk drives today continue to use self-acting air bearings.{{cite web | url= http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_1301.html | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20050426065056/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_1301.html | url-status= dead | archive-date= April 26, 2005 |title= IBM Archives 1301 Site|date= 23 January 2003| publisher= IBM | accessdate=2013-04-27}}
Harker led the IBM 1311 project as the engineering manager for the first successful removable disk drive. He was instrumental in inventing the removable disk pack.{{cite web | url= http://www.storagenewsletter.com/news/people/jim-porter-died |title= "Mr. Disk Drive" Jim Porter Died March 7, 2012| publisher= Storage Newsletter | accessdate=2013-04-27}}
From 1960 to 1969 he was first the engineering manager and then Program Manager for development and delivery of the IBM 1350 Photo Image Retrieval System / 1360 Photo-Digital Storage System. The IBM 1360 was the first "trillion-bit" data storage system (about 160 GB). It was developed for the Atomic Energy Commission.{{cite web | url=
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102657191 |title= IBM Cyprus system | publisher= Computer History Museum }}
From 1969 to 1972 he was Direct Access Storage Product Manager responsible for what was then IBM's most profitable line of business. During the time, work was put into place that led to the “Winchester” magnetic recording components and thin film recording structures.{{cite book |last=Stevens |first=L. D.|title=IBM Journal of research and Development 25th anniversary issue, The Evolution of Magnetic Storage article|year= 1981|publisher= International Business Machines Corporation}}
In 1972, Harker first became the director, San Jose Development Laboratory. During this time as Product Manager and then as Laboratory Director, he oversaw development and release of many important and innovative storage systems such as:
- 2305 fixed-head and 3330 disk pack drive systems. In addition to integrating the ferite head and slider unit, they were microcodable systems featuring the first use of an innovative new small disk drive using flexible media to load the microcode; this was the first floppy disk, the IBM 23FD.
- The IBM 3850 Mass Storage System (MSS) (Boulder Labs) automated tape library – an early automated tape library and tape cartridge system
- The IBM 3340 – "Winchester" disk drive{{cite web
| url= http://chmhdd.wetpaint.com/page/IBM+3340
| title= IBM 3340
| access-date= 2013-04-28
| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130329181539/http://chmhdd.wetpaint.com/page/IBM+3340
| archive-date= 2013-03-29
| url-status= dead
- Thin film disk heads
Harker later held the positions of Director of Technology for IBM and later, again Director of the San Jose Laboratories before his retirement in 1987.{{cite web | url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3ZxjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5OEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3979,5876115&dq=jack-harker+ibm&hl=en
|title= Carter aide to speak here – Jan 22, 1980 | publisher= Eugene Register-Guard }}{{cite web | url= http://pacificgrids.com/Harker/IBM_San_Jose_1987_article_1.jpg
|title= IBM San Jose article on Jack Harker retirement page 1 | publisher= IBM San Jose Newsletter}} He died in 2013.
Honors
- In 1974, Harker was appointed an IBM Fellow.
- In 1993, he received the first IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award "for leadership in the development of information storage devices."{{cite web | url=
http://www.ieeemagnetics.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62:reynoldjohnson&catid=64:field-awards&Itemid=79
|title= IEEE Reynold B Johnson Information Storage Systems Award | publisher= IEEE Magnetics Society | accessdate=2013-04-27}}
References
Further reading
- [http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/255/ibmrd2505ZC.pdf A Quarter Century of Disk File Innovation]: IBM Journal of Research and Development, 1981
- "History of Magnetic Disk Storage Based on Perpendicular Magnetic Recording," A. Hoagland, IEEE Trans Mag, Jul 2003
- "IBM;s Early Computers," Bashe et al., The MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1986.
- [https://ethw.org/Creating_Magnetic_Disk_Storage_at_IBM Creating Magnetic Disk Storage at IBM]: Engineering and Technology History Wiki, 2015
External links
- [https://www.ed-thelen.org/RAMAC/HarkerJack-IBM-100thDinner-.jpg Jack Harker at the IBM 100th Century Dinner]
- [http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2007/03/jack_harker.html A 2007 Hu Yoshida interview with Jack Harker]
- [https://archive.org/details/SearchAtSanJose_IBM_RAMAC Early IBM movie on the start of IBM San Jose Labs and RAMAC]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQwCMDRajJo 1968 IBM movie on the manufacturing of Magnetic Disk Packs]
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Category:American computer businesspeople
Category:American manufacturing businesspeople