In a career that lasted over four decades, America’s premier computer, telecommunications and fiber optic lexicologist labored to establish English as the primary language in computer age technologies.  Born in 1922 in New York City to German and Austrian immigrant parents Martin Herman Weik and Josephine Mayerhofer, Martin Herman Weik Jr. spent his childhood living with various relatives in the boroughs of NY as they consolidated households in order to survive the great depression.

From an early age, he showed great intellectual prowess, culminating in a scholarship and admittance to CCNY (City College of New York) where he majored in mathematics and electrical engineering. Like many of his classmates, World War II (WW II) interrupted his education at the end of his Junior year  but being of recognized intellectual capability, he was accepted into OSC (Officers Candidate School) and became a newly minted officer in the US Army…a ninety day wonder as they were called at the time.  His engineering background landed him first in the Signals Corp and then his ability to speak and write fluent German landed him in “Intelligence.” 

He married Grace Cloos of Hunter, New York on December 19 1944 just before boarding a troop ship to France.  He eventually had six children.

His WWII exploits as head of an interrogation unit and prison camp officer for 35,000 Gestapo, SS and Wehrmacht (Regular German Army) Officers can be discovered by reading THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT he authored in 1991.  Although labeled as fiction, this book accurately reflects the actions of Lt. Weik  as the young lieutenant, but the names of other participants in the narrative have been changed.

In 1948 Martin Weik, now a full Lieutenant, applied for an early return to the US so that his firstborn child could be born in the US.  US Command agreed with his request and he was ordered home from Germany where he maintained reserve status in the US Army while completing the requirements for a BS degree in Electrical Engineering at CCNY .  However, he did not escape from the Supreme Allied Commander as he enrolled in Columbia University just as General Eisenhower became President of Columbia University in NY.  Returning to electrical engineering and mathematics, he played a minor role in the development of the ENIAC (see the ENIAC story at: http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/eniac-story.html) not realizing at the time his ultimate destiny.  He went on to receive a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1950.

Recalled to active duty for the Korean War, Martin Weik, in a chance meeting with an old classmate, requested and received a posting to The Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) where he served as a U.S. Army research and development Ordinance officer.  After the war, he converted to a civilian billet at BRL and spent the next 12 years  at the US Army’s premier computer laboratory.   While in the Computing Laboratory at BRL  he designed digital computer logic circuitry and evaluated  government and commercial computing systems. He authored many technical reports and bulletins each with its attached glossary of computer terminology as the language continued to expand. (See list of publications)

He was appointed to represent the Army in the newly created United States of America Standards Institute where he was elected its chairman of the subcommittee  on Terminology  and Glossary of the Committee on Computers and Information Processing.  The association consisted of representatives from the three branches of the Armed Services and industry.  IBM, Unisys, Sperry Rand and other early computer pioneers and the military branches sent representatives to monthly meetings in New York to hammer out common agreement on newly minted distinctions in this emerging discourse.  Later, he became chairman of the International Association for Computers Science and Information Processing which at the time included most of the allied (NATO) powers in the Cold War plus France and Australia.   See:  http://www.iacsit.org/  .  Also, see addendum 1 for the real story of how the Y2K bug originated.

The shift from vacuum tubes (first generation) to transistors on printed circuit boards  (third generation) opened up computing to many more applications as computers became small enough to be mobile.  They still typically required a “trailer” to move about but predictions of ever faster and smaller form factors opened up many more potential applications for the military.  After spending more and more time at the Pentagon and the Army Research Office (ARO), in 1963 Martin Weik packed up his family and moved to Falls Church, Virginia taking a permanent position at ARO .   ARO eventually morphed into ARL and moved to Research Triangle Park NC.  In 1964 Mr. Weik published:  A Fourth Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems.

For information regarding URL’s current mission see:
http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?Action=17
Throughout the 1960’s and just prior to retirement in 1975, Martin Weik and the Computer Science Division at ARO where he was chief scientist became the center for coordinating the Army’s funding effort for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research effort .  For a more complete rendition of the history of the AI effort see: 
www.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/history_of_artificial_intelligence

After retirement from ARO as GS-15 and the Army Reserves where he had achieved the rank Lt. Colonel,   Martin Weik reentered academia and received a PhD from George Washington University in Medical Engineering.   He also continued his career as a lexicologist adding work in the fields of fiber optics and communication technology.  He published Standard Dictionary of Computers and Information Processing in 1970.   In 1977, he updated his Standard Dictionary of Computers and Information Processing and went on to write his Communications Standard Dictionary published in 1983.

As a contract employee for the US Navy he wrote the protocols that allowed the Navy to upgrade ship command and control systems from copper wires to fiber optic systems.  His work at the Defense Communication Agency (DCA) and the  Ship Systems Command made possible the foundational lexicology he wrote in the communication and fiber optic fields.  The work he did was the foundational effort that now is embodied in efforts such as seen here: http://www.teamdeepwater.com/pressroom/index.php?id=17

Martin Weik eventually retired for the third time in 1980 and moved to a scenic spot on the James River in Virginia called Buffalo Station.  It was here that he wrote and updated his last publications before moving to Appomattox, Virginia where after being transported to the UVA Medical Center, he died on January 25, 2007.  He was survived by his third and loving wife Allie, the others having passed away years earlier, his sister, his six children, and seven surviving grandchildren.  At each of his long term residences; Havre de Grace, Maryland, Buffalo Station, Virginia and Appomattox, Virginia; he erected a flagpole and proudly flew the flag of the United States of America.  He was a quintessential member of the greatest generation!

Addendum 1:  The Y2K bug
As Mr. Weik told the story shortly before his death, sometime around 1960 in a gathering of the American Society of Computers and Information Processing in a conference room on 42nd St. in NY City, the topic of the standard for the register space allowance for the year was raised as a point of discussion.  Two spaces or four?  After some discussion it was decided in a voice vote to make the standard two spaces.  The discussion included what might happen in the year 2000 and the current cost of a space.  The consensus developed around three facts; a register space took memory which was dear and expensive at the time but already had a history of decreasing cost, we would all be retired or dead by that time so it would not be our problem, and it was assumed that programs would be rewritten as the technology developed anyway.

What happened:  Programs were upgraded but often incorporated the original code… and the standard… which created the problem in Y2K.  See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y2K