Roger Summit, Who Invented an Early Online Search Service, Dies at 95

In 1966, to pass the time on a long family road trip, Roger Summit pulled out a tape recorder and began dictating some thoughts about an idea he had been kicking around at work.Mr.Summit, a research scientist for Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, described a computer system that would allow users to remotely — and almost instantaneously — search large collections of scientific and technical literature.Instead of visiting a library and rifling through card catalogs, researchers would be able to type their queries into a computer and, like magic, a list of the documents they needed would appear on their screens.“I saw the potential for computer-based information-retrieval systems ultimately changing the nature of research,” Mr.

Summit recalled in 2019.“After all, what good is knowledge if you cannot find it?”As he drove, he expounded on the possibilities, talking into the recorder for hours while his infant daughter wailed in the back seat.

By the time he pulled into their driveway, he had a name for his idea.“The system was to be interactive between man and machine,” he said years later.“The searcher in a sense said, ‘This is what I want,’ and the machine said, in effect, ‘This is what I have.’ Described that way, why not call it Dialog?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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