Founder of ACGNJ Sol grew up in Brooklyn NY. He attended Abraham Lincoln HS where he met his wife to be, Lennie Kalish. He attended Brooklyn College, playing and teaching guitar in order to pay the tuition. An economics major, Sol maintained a lifelong interest in progressive politics, community activism, and history. He had planned to continue for a graduate degree but was drafted during the Korean war. With Lennie, Sol served part of the war in France and Germany.
After returning to the US, Sol worked for Pyrotronics. Sol earned a Masters from Rutgers after performing his thesis work at Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ. He then taught electronics for 25 years at Union County Technical Institute (now Union County College). He became a full professor and served as department chair for several years but was more interested in technology and education than administration. During that time he began writing the book Repairing Transistor Radios, the first book on the subject. Sol went on to write 15 more books on topics from TV repair to digital logic and microcomputer hardware.
While at UCC, Sol became interested in digital electronics and began experimenting with early consumer computers. Low expectations and great patience was required for computer ownership at that time. At 43, he built his first computer using an Intel 8008 CPU with 1024 bytes of memory. Determined to share his interest, he founded the Amateur Computer Group of NJ where he served as president for 6 years. When Sol retired, ACGNJ had 1600 members and published a monthly 24-page newsletter. With friend Al Katz, Sol co-founded the Trenton Computer Festival, the oldest and longest-running personal computer show. Both ACGNJ and TCF continue to this day.
Sol was a member of the professional association Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and served on their standards bodies related to interfacing issues including the S100 bus and went on to write a book about it. Sol served as a consultant on microcomputer design for several companies. He was a guest lecturer at many schools, conferences, and associations where he presented hundreds of talks on various aspects of computing. He wrote many magazine articles and for 16 years authored a monthly column in Byte, a popular magazine devoted to microcomputers. Sol and Lennie created their own magazine, Microsystems, and later another, Micro/Systems Journal. At their peak, the two magazines had a circulation of 60,000.
Sol loved learning new things and educating others. He received many honors for his dedication and leadership in personal computing, and many related awards including Hobbyist of the Year in 1976 and again, a decade later. After retirement, Sol and Lennie moved to Virginia, spent time in South Carolina, eventually settling in Princeton, New Jersey where Sol taught computer classes to seniors at the Computer Learning Center at Ewing.
Throughout his life, Sol enjoyed many hobbies including hiking, music, cycling, and sailing, going so far as to build his own sailboat. He was a craftsman who delighted in building and fixing things. A devoted husband and father, he enjoyed visiting and vacationing with his family and friends. Sol is survived by his loving wife of 66 years, Lennie, daughter, Susan (Prashant Sansgiry and 4 grandcats), son, Don, and granddaughter, Kenna.