Samuel Snyder, 96; Broke Codes And Designed Early Computers

2008-01-04 06:28

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/30/AR2007123002435.html December 31, 2007 Samuel S. Snyder, 96, who was honored this year for his contributions to code breaking during the 1940s and the conceptualization and design of computers in the 1950s at the National Security Agency and its predecessors, died Dec. 28 at Sunrise assistant living in Frederick after a heart attack. In October, Mr. Snyder was inducted into the National Security Agency-Central Security Service hall of honor for his work, which began in 1936 with the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service. He was among the first 10 employees of the Signal Intelligence Service and became part of the inner circle of William Friedman, the dominant figure in U.S. code breaking. During World War II, Mr. Snyder led teams that successfully broke codes for the Japanese military attache system. After the war, he was credited with having a major role in designing and building Abner, a massive computing system for breaking codes. It was named after the comics character Li'l Abner, "a big strong guy that didn't know anything," Mr. Snyder told the Baltimore Sun in 1995. "Abner looked like hell," Mr. Snyder said. "But it was the most sophisticated computer of its time." He had significant oversight responsibilities for the design and programming of later computing systems, including Harvest, an early general-purpose computer made with IBM that challenged Remington-Rand's then-dominant Univac model. His hall of honor induction noted that his "pioneering work in early computers led directly to the development of the computer as we know it, and laid the foundation for many aspects of the modern computing industry." Samuel Simon Snyder was born in Baltimore and raised in Washington, where he was a 1929 graduate of the old Central High School and a 1939 graduate of George Washington University. He joined the Signal Intelligence Service in 1936 as an assistant cryptographic clerk.

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