George Robert Stibitz (April 30, 1904[1] – January 31, 1995)[2] was an American researcher at Bell Labs who is internationally recognized as one of the fathers of the modern digital computer.

Throughout his childhood, Stibitz enjoyed assembling devices and systems, working with material as diverse as a toy Meccano set or the electrical wiring of the family home.

Employing electromagnetic relay binary circuits for its operations, rather than counting wheels or gears, the machine executed calculations on complex numbers.

[12] After the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Bell Labs became active in developing fire-control devices for the U.S. military.

The Labs' most famous invention was the M-9 Gun Director,[13] an ingenious analog device that directed anti-aircraft fire with uncanny accuracy.

[14] Stibitz moved to the National Defense Research Committee, an advisory body for the government, but he kept close ties with Bell Labs.

In April 1942, Stibitz attended a meeting of a division of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), charged with evaluating various proposals for fire-control devices to be used against Axis forces during World War II.