Rex Rice

Rex Rice is an American computer engineer who joined IBM's Poughkeepsie laboratory in 1955, contributing to the IBM 608 transistorized calculator and later managing IBM Research's Cost-Oriented Systems department, studying reliable systems built from unreliable components. He moved to Fairchild Semiconductor to establish its digital systems research department under Gordon Moore, where he directed the team that created SYMBOL, the first operational computer to implement a high-level programming language directly in hardware. In 1965 Rice worked with Fairchild colleagues Don Forbes and Bryant Rogers to devise the 14-lead dual-inline package, a chip packaging format that simplified circuit board layout and enabled automated component insertion.