FREE COMPUTING HISTORY · 1925–1936
Computing becomes a field
Architecture, programming languages, databases, graphics, and AI become recognizable disciplines.
1925–1936
Architecture, programming languages, databases, graphics, and AI become recognizable disciplines.
- Tony Brooker: Autocode: early high-level programming language; Mark 1 Autocode compiler
- Paul Baran: Packet switching theory (RAND)
- Fernando Corbató: CTSS: first time-sharing system; Multics; computer passwords
- Kristen Nygaard: Co-created Simula: first OOP language
- Oliver Selfridge: Pandemonium architecture: parallel pattern recognition; influenced neural networks
- John Kemeny: Co-created BASIC; Dartmouth time-sharing; chaired Three Mile Island commission
- Allen Newell: Logic Theorist; General Problem Solver; Soar cognitive architecture; Unified Theories of Cognition
- Marvin Minsky: MIT AI Lab co-founder; Perceptrons; Society of Mind; frames theory
- John McCarthy: Coined "artificial intelligence"; LISP; garbage collection; time-sharing; situation calculus
- Robert Noyce: Planar silicon IC; co-founded Fairchild and Intel; "Mayor of Silicon Valley"
- David Wheeler: Invented the subroutine; EDSAC; Wheeler Jump; first CS PhD
- Watts Humphrey: CMM; Personal Software Process; software quality; "Father of software quality"
- Noam Chomsky: Chomsky hierarchy; generative grammar; influenced compiler theory and NLP
- Peter Naur: ALGOL 60; Backus-Naur Form; coined "datalogy"
- Frank Rosenblatt: Perceptron: first neural network model (1958); connectionism
- Juris Hartmanis: Founded computational complexity theory (with Stearns); time hierarchy theorem; Turing Award
- Jean Sammet: FORMAC; programming language history; first female ACM president
- Martin Davis: Hilbert's 10th problem; Davis-Putnam algorithm; computability theory
- Thomas Kurtz: Co-created BASIC; Dartmouth time-sharing; True BASIC
- Gordon Moore: Moore's Law; co-founded Intel
- Edsger Dijkstra: Structured programming; shortest path; semaphores; THE multiprogramming system; "Go To Considered Harmful"
- Morris Chang: Founded TSMC: invented the semiconductor foundry model; enabled fabless chip design
- Ole-Johan Dahl: Co-created Simula: first OOP language
- Frederick Brooks: The Mythical Man-Month; IBM System/360; "No Silver Bullet"
- Michael Rabin: Nondeterministic automata; randomized algorithms; Rabin-Scott theorem; Rabin cryptosystem
- Solomon Golomb: Polyomino theory; shift register sequences; Golomb ruler
- Bob Taylor: Funded ARPANET; led Xerox PARC CS Lab; led DEC Systems Research Center
- Frances Allen: Compiler optimization pioneer; first woman Turing Award winner; interprocedural analysis
- Dana Scott: Domain theory; denotational semantics (with Strachey); Scott topology; Rabin-Scott theorem
- William Kahan: IEEE 754 floating-point standard; "Father of floating point"; Kahan summation algorithm
- Tony Hoare: Quicksort; Hoare logic; CSP; null reference ("billion dollar mistake")
- Leonard Kleinrock: Queueing theory for packet networks; ARPANET first message (UCLA)
- Carver Mead: VLSI methodology (with Conway); coined "Moore's Law"; neuromorphic engineering
- Niklaus Wirth: Pascal, Modula-2, Oberon; "Wirth's Law"; structured programming
- Edward Fredkin: Digital physics; reversible computing; Fredkin gate; computational cosmology
- Robin Milner: ML language; Hindley-Milner type inference; π-calculus; CCS (process algebra); 3 Turing-landmark contributions
- Richard Karp: Karp's 21 NP-complete problems; Rabin-Karp algorithm; computational biology
- Barry Boehm: COCOMO; spiral model; software economics; anchored agile
- Edward Feigenbaum: Expert systems pioneer; Dendral; "Knowledge is power" in AI; Knowledge Engineering
- Judea Pearl: Bayesian networks; causal inference; do-calculus; The Book of Why; counterfactual reasoning