A look back at ORHS grad Dick Sites’ beginnings, and the world of computers
Benita Albert and D. Ray Smith/Historically Speaking
Benita Albert brings us another story of an Oak Ridge Schools graduate. Thanks to Mike Coveyou, who suggested to Benita that Dick Sites would be a good subject for her to consider. You will enjoy this two-part series
Dick (R.L.) Sites wrote his first computer program at age 10, a project which produced a Pascal’s Triangle display, a triangular array of the coefficients in successive binomial expansions. This topic from algebra was most certainly ahead of the mathematics expected of him at that age. The computer on which his program ran was the ORACLE (Oak Ridge Atomic Computer and Logical Engine), a scientific digital computer that used vacuum tubes.