Mr. Ralph Ernest Meagher

He worked at the MIT lab on the development of naval radar and then went to the University of Illinois where he completed his physics degree in 1949. He promptly joined the physics faculty and was appointed chief engineer. Working with electrical engineer, Louis N. Ridenour and mathematician, Abraham H. Taub they created the ORDVAC which was the first of two computers built under contract at the University of Illinois. ORDVAC was completed in the spring of 1951, and in the fall it was delivered to the US Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds. As part of the contract, funds were provided to the University of Illinois to build a second identical computer known as ILLIAC. In 1952 they developed ILLIAC I, the first digital computer built and owned entirely by an educational institution. It weighed five tons and contained 2,800 vacuum tubes. The ILLIAC series continued with ILLIAC II, a transistorized computer, and culminated in the mid-1960s with the ILLIAC IV supercomputer, the largest and fastest in the world.