Santa Clara Valley Historical Association

Frederick Terman returned to Stanford University as dean of engineering in 1946. His belief that science and technology would gain new infusions of government support as a result of their wartime successes was soon borne out. Within a few months, the Office of Naval Research awarded Stanford a $225,000 annual contract for basic research.

This funding empowered Terman to shape new research plans. He set up three projects. The one in physics led to the discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance and the Nobel Prize for Felix Bloch in 1952 -- the first in a long string of high honors for Stanford scientists. The chemistry project fizzled, but the electronics project led to creation of Stanford's Electronics Research Laboratories and, soon, a plan for developing a Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Russell and Sigurd Varian returned to the Bay Area in 1948 after their wartime stint with Sperry at Long Island, N.Y. Soon they joined Edward Ginzton, Marvin Chodorow, and other Sperry colleagues in forming Varian Associates. Initially the firm settled in San Carlos, where Sperry had had a prewar outpost. In addition to producing klystrons, Varian Associates developed applications of the linear accelerator and nuclear induction devices W.W. Hansen had pioneered at Stanford. Hansen mortgaged his house to give the company a just-in-time loan, and died soon afterward.

Initial Varian Associates products were based directly on Stanford-owned patents, and many of the associates were also Stanford faculty members. These close interties prompted Varian to seek a base closer to the university, and in 1950 the firm took the first lease of Stanford land designated for light industry, moving operations there in 1952-53.

Soon after World War II ended, scientists at Ames Research Center turned their attention to understanding problems of high-speed flight. One outgrowth of this effort was the concept by Robert T. Jones of using swept-back wings. Later H. Julian Allen and Alfred J. Eggers Jr. developed the blunt-body concept for ballistic missiles and spacecraft re-entering Earth's atmosphere at tremendous velocities.

The Korean War began in mid-1950 and soon imparted a great surge to electronics industries. Poised for this growth with a full line of electronic measuring devices ready, Hewlett-Packard found its business and work force doubling every year. HP products were in high demand for electronics production and medical and military uses. Meanwhile, the war sent Office of Naval Research envoys straight to Fred Terman with a new proposal. Quickly, a new Applied Electronics Laboratory was built with Navy money and a gift from Hewlett-Packard. The lab ran on $450,000 a year in federal funding.

International Business Machines Corp., spurred by the Korean War, put its first large-scale electronic computer into production in New York State in 1952. Hoping to tap a new source of engineers in California, the company selected San Jose as home for a western research laboratory. Reynold Johnson, who had invented a test-scoring machine in 1937 and then managed IBM time clock and key punch developments, was assigned to head the project. Johnson and two assistants traveled west with a free hand to staff the new lab and choose what it would work on. Among the numerous projects begun in a former printing plant at 99 Notre Dame Avenue in San Jose, one entitled "Source Recording" moved to the fore. It was aimed to mechanize the handling of punched cards and eliminate awkward "tub files" that clerks had to staff. In fact, it ultimately reshaped the computer industry.

By early 1953, magnetic disks had been selected as the best medium for a random access memory. Digital magnetic recording was then primitive, and disks presented stability problems. An air head containing a magnetic read/write element met the need for constant head-to-surface spacing. To access stacked disks, IBM employed its first servo system. The RAMAC 305 made its debut in 1955, enabling businesses to process information right away rather than wait for a batch to pile up. Its disk file marked the birth of the direct access storage device industry. IBM set up a San Jose manufacturing plant, but kept the lab independent.

Meanwhile, on the small portion of Stanford lands earmarked for light industry, Eastman Kodak followed Varian as a tenant. This prompted Terman to object that Stanford ought not to host firms having no close relations with university purposes and research. His stand won him a role in the university's land development planning, and in 1953 the trustees junked a plan for extensive residential development and set up Stanford Industrial Park with over 650 choice acres to lease to high-technology enterprises.

The microwave tube era was still gathering momentum but a tiny device called the transistor was due to transform it. William Shockley had co-invented the transistor with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at Bell Labs in 1947. Its first commercial use was in 1952 in a hearing aid. Soon afterward, transistors supplanted vacuum tubes in radios.

An epochal step in 1952 foreshadowed the advent of genetic engineering. Joshua Lederberg, then at the University of Wisconsin, discovered that viruses that attack bacteria can transmit genetic material from one bacterium to another.

Read the History of Peninsula Electronics

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