* Virtual Museum of Computing

Pioneers of Computing

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 obiturary.

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)
  11. Vannevar Bush (New)
  12. David Caminer (LEO) (New)
  13. Vinton Cerf (Internet)
  14. James Clark (Silicon Graphics and Netscape)
  15. Edgar F. Codd (databases) Seymour Cray (supercomputers) (New)
  16. Ole-Johan Dahl (Simula)
  17. Donald Davies (packet switching)
  18. Edsger W. Dijkstra
  19. John Presper Eckert (see also here)
  20. Lawrence Ellison (Oracle)
  21. Douglas C. Engelbart
  22. Andrei P. Ershov (theroretical programming)
  23. Edward A. Feigenbaum (AI)
  24. Tommy Flowers (Colossus engineer)
  25. Robert W. Floyd
  26. Bill Gates (see also interview and " unofficial information)
  27. Kurt Gödel
  28. Richard W. Hamming
  29. Jacques Herbrand
  30. William R. Hewlett
  31. C. A. R. Hoare (CSP)
  32. Marcian E. Hoff Jr
  33. Herman Hollerith
  34. Grace M. Hopper (see also here)
  35. Kenneth E. Iverson (APL)
  36. Steve Jobs (Apple and Next)
  37. Tom Kilburn (Manchester)
  38. Donald E. Knuth (TeX)
  39. Sergei A. Lebedev (MESM computer, Ukraine)
  40. Augusta Ada Lovelace
  41. Carver Mead
  42. John McCarthy (AI)
  43. Benoit Mandelbrot
  44. John W. Mauchly
  45. Robin Milner (LCF, ML and CCS)
  46. Harlan Mills
  47. Marvin Minsky
  48. Charles E. Molnar
  49. Roger Needham
  50. Nicholas Negroponte
  51. Kristen Nygaard
  52. Ken Olsen
  53. David Packard
  54. Blaise Pascal
  55. John Pinkerton (LEO) (New)
  56. Jon Postel (Internet)
  57. Dennis M. Ritchie (Unix)
  58. P. Georg and Edvard Scheutz (Difference Engine, Sweden)
  59. C. E. Shannon (information theory)
  60. Sir Clive Sinclair (personal computers)
  61. George R. Stibitz
  62. Christopher Strachey (denotational semantics) (New)
  63. Ivan E. Sutherland (graphics)
  64. Ken Thompson (Unix)
  65. Linus Torvalds (Linux)
  66. Alan M. Turing (Colossus and code-breaking)
  67. John von Neumann (see also here)
  68. An Wang
  69. Maurice V. Wilkes (EDSAC)
  70. J.H. Wilkinson (numerical analysis)
  71. Freddie C. Williams
  72. Niklaus Wirth
  73. Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica)
  74. Steve Wozniak (1996 Kilby Laureate, Apple)
  75. 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.