Ken Olsen
| Kenneth Harry Olsen | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 20, 1926 Bridgeport, Connecticut |
| Died | February 6, 2011 (aged 84) Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S., 1950; M.S., 1952) |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Known for | Founding Digital Equipment Corporation with Harlan Anderson |
Kenneth Harry "Ken" Olsen (February 20, 1926 – February 6, 2011) was an American engineer who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson.
Kenneth Harry Olsen was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and grew up in the neighboring town of Stratford, Connecticut. His father's parents came from Norway and his mother's parents from Sweden. Olsen began his career working summers in a machine shop. Fixing radios in his basement gave him the reputation of a neighborhood inventor.
After serving in the United States Navy between 1944 and 1946, Olsen attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned both a BS (1950) and an MS (1952) degree in Electrical engineering.
During his studies at MIT, the Office of Naval Research of the United States Department of the Navy recruited Olsen to help build a computerized flight simulator. Also while at MIT he directed the building of the first transistorized research computer. Olsen was an engineer who had been working at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on the TX-2 project.
In 1957, Ken Olsen and an MIT colleague, Harlan Anderson, decided to start their own firm. They approached American Research and Development Corporation, an early venture capital firm, which had been founded by Georges Doriot, and founded Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). In the 1960s, Olsen received patents for a saturable switch, a diode transformer gate circuit, an improved version of magnetic core memory, and the line printer buffer. (Note that MIT professor Jay W. Forrester is generally credited with inventing the first practical magnetic core memory).
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