My father, Richard Zobel, who has died aged 81, was a pioneering computer scientist at the University of Manchester, birthplace of "Baby", the world's first stored-program computer. He rode the wave of the information technology revolution, starting in the early 1960s on military flight simulators for the electronics and equipment company Sperry's – the valve analog computers they used ran so hot that he had to work in the cool of the night – and in later years recommending improvements to the distant early warning system (Dews) protecting Indian Ocean coastlines from tsunami, but it was his 40-year academic career that defined his professional life. Richard was born in Lewisham, south London, the son of Joan, a dressmaker, and Norman Zobel, a car mechanic, just before the outbreak of the second world war, and narrowly escaped early tragedy when a water tank came through the ceiling and landed on his bed during the blitz. He went to Colfe's school (then a grammar school) on a scholarship, and graduated in 1963 in electrical engineering from London University, sponsored on his sandwich course by Sperry Gyroscope, a UK arm of the US company, which had headquarters in Bracknell. He met Lesley Winks at Peggy Spencer's ballroom dancehall in Penge, and they married in 1964.