LOS ANGELES — Arnold Spielberg, father of acclaimed film director Steven Spielberg, died of natural causes Tuesday at the age of 103, his family announced.
Arnold Spielberg, a pioneering computer designer, helped design General Electric’s GE-225 mainframe computer, enabling researchers at Dartmouth College to develop the coding tool known as BASIC that paved the way for personal computers, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
“When I see a PlayStation, when I look at a cell phone — from the smallest calculator to an iPad — I look at my dad and I say, ‘My dad and a team of geniuses started that,’” Steven Spielberg said, Variety reported.
According to the outlet, the elder Spielberg was born Feb. 6, 1917, in Cincinnati, Ohio. By the age of 6, he turned his family’s attic into a makeshift lab to create inventions. He received his first ham radio at 12, opening the door “to a lifetime of sharing stories with strangers over the airwaves.”
Sue Spielberg, one of Arnold Spielberg’s three daughters, said that radio connected her father to the world and changed his entire perspective.
“He made friends over the radio. He heard from people he never knew existed. He connected with strangers, and this affability is something he carried over into real life, often befriending another person in line at Starbucks or the table next to him,” Sue Spielberg told Variety.
Read more about Arnold Spielberg’s career and his influence on his children’s professional pursuits here.