* Virtual Museum of Computing

Pioneers of Computing

David Wheeler (1927-2004), inventor of the closed subroutine, died on 13 December 2004.  

Edgar (Ted) Codd (1923-2003), inventor of the relational database model, died on 18 April 2003.

Roger Needham (1935-2003), Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, died on 28 February 2003.

Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930-2002), advocator of structured programming, died on 6 August 2002. See obituary.

Both co-inventors of Simula 67, the first object-oriented programming language, died in 2002.
Ole-Johan Dahl (1931-2002) died on 29 June 2002.
Kristen Nygaard (1926-2002) died on 10 August 2002.

This exhibit provides links to "home" pages or other resources on people, both alive and dead, who have made a significant impact on computing.
  1. Howard H. Aiken (Havard Mark I)
  2. Marc Andreessen (Netscape)
  3. John V. Atanasoff
  4. Boris A. Babaian (Russian supercomputers)
  5. Charles Babbage (Analytical Engine)
  6. Charles W. Bachman (databases)
  7. John Backus (BNF)
  8. Gordon Bell (Digital)
  9. Tim Berners-Lee (WWW)
  10. Fred Brooks
  11. Vannevar Bush
  12. David Caminer (LEO)
  13. Vinton Cerf (Internet)
  14. James Clark (Silicon Graphics and Netscape)
  15. Edgar F. Codd (databases)
  16. Seymour Cray (supercomputers)
  17. Ole-Johan Dahl (Simula)
  18. Donald Davies (packet switching)
  19. Edsger W. Dijkstra
  20. John Presper Eckert (see also here)
  21. Lawrence Ellison (Oracle)
  22. Douglas C. Engelbart (the mouse!)
  23. Andrei P. Ershov (theroretical programming)
  24. Edward A. Feigenbaum (AI)
  25. Tommy Flowers (Colossus engineer)
  26. Robert W. Floyd
  27. Thomas Fowler (ternary calculator)
  28. Bill Gates (see also interview and " unofficial information)
  29. Kurt Gödel
  30. Richard W. Hamming
  31. Jacques Herbrand
  32. William R. Hewlett
  33. C. A. R. Hoare (CSP)
  34. Marcian E. Hoff Jr
  35. Herman Hollerith
  36. Grace M. Hopper (see also here)
  37. Harry D. Huskey (computer designer)
  38. Kenneth E. Iverson (APL)
  39. Steve Jobs (Apple and Next)
  40. Tom Kilburn (Manchester)
  41. Donald E. Knuth (TeX)
  42. Sergei A. Lebedev (MESM computer, Ukraine)
  43. Augusta Ada Lovelace
  44. Carver Mead
  45. John McCarthy (AI)
  46. Benoit Mandelbrot
  47. John W. Mauchly
  48. Robin Milner (LCF, ML and CCS)
  49. Harlan Mills
  50. Marvin Minsky
  51. Charles E. Molnar
  52. Roger Needham
  53. Nicholas Negroponte
  54. Ted Nelson (hypertext)
  55. Kristen Nygaard
  56. Ken Olsen
  57. David Packard
  58. David Parnas (software engineering)
  59. Blaise Pascal
  60. John Pinkerton (LEO)
  61. Jon Postel (Internet)
  62. Dennis M. Ritchie (Unix)
  63. P. Georg and Edvard Scheutz (Difference Engine, Sweden)
  64. Claude E. Shannon (information theory)
  65. Sir Clive Sinclair (personal computers)
  66. George R. Stibitz
  67. Christopher Strachey (denotational semantics)
  68. Ivan E. Sutherland (graphics)
  69. Ken Thompson (Unix)
  70. Linus Torvalds (Linux)
  71. Alan M. Turing (Colossus and code-breaking)
  72. John von Neumann (see also here)
  73. An Wang
  74. David Wheeler (closed subroutines)
  75. Maurice V. Wilkes (EDSAC, macros, microprogramming)
  76. J.H. Wilkinson (numerical analysis)
  77. Freddie C. Williams
  78. Niklaus Wirth
  79. Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica)
  80. Steve Wozniak (1996 Kilby Laureate, Apple)
  81. Konrad Zuse (see also here)

See also:

Please contact Jonathan Bowen if you know of relevant or better WWW home pages not included here, especial names listed without a link.

Last updated 24 February 2008.