Computer pioneer Wim van der Poel (97) has passed away

He designed the first computers in the Netherlands, co-wrote international programming standards, and worked the Algol computer language. Wim van der Poel, who died this summer, was a computer pioneer who laid the foundations for today’s information age.

He could no longer drive a car, began having trouble organising his thoughts, and could also no longer work on the EEMCS Faculty collection of old electronic appliances every week. This is how Han Geijp, administrator of the collection, remembers the last months of Emeritus Professor and computer pioneer Wim van der Poel (2 December 1926 – 22 July 2024).

At home in Zoetermeer, Van der Poel worked tirelessly with computers, of which he had a room full and “with which he did all kinds of things,” Geijp said. His other hobby, mechanical puzzles, also fascinated him until the very end.

Van der Poel gained fame as a computer pioneer when he built the Testudo (1952) relay computer and later the Zebra (1956) that worked with hundreds of electron tubes and transistors. In the 1980s, his focus shifted from hardware to computer programmes as self-built computers could no longer compete with industrially manufactured ones.

In addition to many professional awards, Van der Poel received a knighthood upon his retirement in 1991. From then on, he worked with the ‘cellar men’ who work on the electronic devices of the Faculty’s collection in the basement of the EEMCS tower and give tours there. It was his dream to restore his Testudo there to its former glory. That no longer came to pass.