Archival Adventures - Episode 32: Gerhard Mansbach Technology Manuals (Acc2019-110)
Channel: VTLibraries
Date: 2021-09-16

In this episode we take a look at the Gerhard Mansbach Collection of Technology Manuals (Acc2019-110), a new and unprocessed collection of technology manuals from the 1960s through the 1990s. Gerhard Mansbach taught himself computer programming in the 1960s with punch card systems for the Department of Public Works in Boston. While there he worked on the "Cape Cod Tourist Study" measuring the mid-1960s tourism impact on Cape Cod. He was later employed by the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1969 to 1980 where he programmed guidance systems for the Apollo Missions and for General Motors autobody-stamping machine robotics for Fiat in Turin, Italy. In retirement, Mansbach created a musical brailer for the vision-impaired, a software product for fluid-inclusion studies, "Overlay Assistant," with spectrometer for Virginia Tech's Geology Department, and a biosensor monitoring software for Biological Monitoring, Incorporated (BMI) in Blacksburg, Virginia.