FREE COMPUTING HISTORY · 1936–1943
Languages, chips & AI
A generation builds mainframes, languages, integrated circuits, computer graphics, and machine intelligence.
1936–1943
A generation builds mainframes, languages, integrated circuits, computer graphics, and machine intelligence.
- Andy Grove — Intel CEO; drove Moore's Law execution; Only the Paranoid Survive
- Margaret Hamilton — Apollo guidance software; coined "software engineering"; priority scheduling
- Richard Stearns — Founded computational complexity theory (with Hartmanis); time hierarchy theorem
- Vladimir Vapnik — Support Vector Machines (SVM); VC dimension; statistical learning theory; Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory
- Ted Nelson — Coined "hypertext" and "hypermedia"; Project Xanadu
- Larry Roberts — ARPANET program manager; network architecture
- Marcian "Ted" Hoff — Co-architected the Intel 4004, the first commercially sold single-chip microprocessor, with shared credit across the Hoff, Mazor, Faggin, and Shima team
- Chuck Peddle — MOS Technology 6502 — democratized computing
- John Conway — Game of Life; surreal numbers; combinatorial game theory; monstrous moonshine
- Mary Allen Wilkes — LINC operating system and LAP6; one of the earliest documented people to use a computer in a private home, with “home computer” definitions varying
- Donald Knuth — The Art of Computer Programming; TeX; LR parsing; analysis of algorithms; literate programming
- Ivan Sutherland — Sketchpad; "father of computer graphics"; VR pioneer (Sword of Damocles HMD, 1968)
- Bob Kahn — Co-inventor of TCP/IP
- Lynn Conway — VLSI revolution (with Mead); generalized dynamic instruction scheduling; Mead-Conway revolution
- Manuel Blum — Blum axioms; CAPTCHAs; zero-knowledge proofs; program checking
- Barbara Liskov — Liskov Substitution Principle; CLU language; data abstraction; Argus distributed language
- Zohar Manna — Program verification; temporal logic for programs; Mathematical Theory of Computation
- Stephen Cook — Cook's theorem — NP-completeness; Cook-Levin theorem; P vs NP framing
- Ivar Jacobson — UML co-creator; use cases; Objectory; Rational Unified Process
- Chuck Geschke — Co-founded Adobe; PostScript; PDF; desktop publishing revolution
- Alan Kay — Smalltalk; OOP; Dynabook concept; GUI at PARC; "the best way to predict the future is to invent it"
- John Warnock — Co-founded Adobe; PostScript; PDF; Illustrator
- C.J. Date — Relational database theory; An Introduction to Database Systems; worked with Codd
- Dennis Ritchie — C language; co-created UNIX
- Federico Faggin — Led detailed design and implementation of the Intel 4004, the first commercially sold single-chip microprocessor; silicon-gate MOS technology; Z80
- Leslie Lamport — Distributed systems theory; LaTeX; Paxos; Lamport clocks; Byzantine fault tolerance; TLA+
- Amir Pnueli — Temporal logic for program verification; model checking foundations; Turing Award
- Brian Kernighan — The C Programming Language; coined "UNIX"; AWK; The Practice of Programming
- Gary Kildall — CP/M — first widely used microcomputer OS; concept of BIOS
- David Rumelhart — Popularized error backpropagation for learning internal representations with Geoffrey Hinton and Ronald Williams, following earlier derivations; parallel distributed processing
- Victor Scheinman — Designed the Stanford Arm and developed the PUMA industrial robot, advancing electrically powered, computer-controlled articulated manipulation
- Per Martin-Löf — Intuitionistic type theory — foundation of modern proof assistants (Coq, Agda, Lean)
- David Cutler — Led operating-system architecture for RSX-11M, VMS, and Windows NT; later contributed to Microsoft Azure
- Ken Thompson — UNIX; B language; Go language; UTF-8; Plan 9; regular expression implementation
- Vint Cerf — Co-designed TCP with Bob Kahn; helped guide TCP/IP standards, deployment, and Internet governance
- Butler Lampson — Xerox Alto; personal distributed computing; PARC OS concepts
- Charles Thacker — Designed the Xerox Alto
- Nolan Bushnell — Founded Atari; Pong; launched the video game industry
- Jon Postel — RFC editor; DNS architecture; SMTP; "be liberal in what you accept" (Postel's law)
- Alvy Ray Smith — Co-founded Pixar; alpha compositing; HSV color model; cellular automata graphics