Text 1. TOP 6 MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

It's hard to imagine a world without computers, so reliant on them we've become. What makes this more surprising is that computers, although considered and thought about for a long time, have only recently (in terms of history) been available. The profound impact they've had on our lives, both directly and indirectly with the inventions and technologies they've helped create, make them one of the most important inventions in human history.

a) Douglas Engelbart (30 January 1925)

Douglas Engelbart was a pioneer in the development of the modern computer. He created a research department with an agenda entitled Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. In other words, creating methods by which people would interact with computers.It was here that he created the mouse (then a wooden shell with two metal wheels in it), still the de facto way that we interact with computers today. He and his team also created bit-mapped screens, hypertext and some precursors to the graphical user interface (GUI).

b) Steve Jobs (24 February 1955)

In 1976 Steve Jobs, along with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple. Although the company had early success with the Apple and, in particular, Apple II computers, it was the original Macintosh (1984) that changed things: it was the first computer to have a graphical user interface and mouse rather than a command line interface. In the case of this computer the graphical user interface had been developed by Xerox and the mouse by Douglas Engelbart; it was Apple that made them successful. Apple has produced the iPod, the most popular MP3 player in the world, the iPhone, which has sparked an entirely-new industry with Apps and the iPad. With OS X and the move to Intel hardware, Apple is a leading company in the personal computer market.

c) John von Neumann (28 December 1903 - 8 February 1957)

John von Neumann was one of the greatest mathematicians of our recent times, making a huge impact on a wide range of fields. It was von Neumann who came up with the computer architecture that's named after him. In a paper, he described an architecture in which both data and the program are stored in a computer's memory in the same address space, making for more flexible computers that were easier to program. This remained the default computer architecture until more recent times, where development of technology has allowed for more complex designs.

d) Bill Gates (28 October 1955)

He's best known for founding Microsoft - a name that's synonymous with the personal computer market. Although Microsoft didn't actually invent DOS (Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products did), the company has based its fortunes on it, exclusively licensing the OS and later buying it outright to service IBM's PC. From DOS, Microsoft went on to create Windows - the most successful operating system ever, and used by the majority of people the world over. Gates is a key figure in the success of Microsoft - equal parts technology genius and business man, he's pushed, cajoled and basically dictated the computer market.

e) Tim Berners-Lee (8 June 1955)

Of all the cool claims to fame, inventing the world wide web has to be the best. That honour lies with Tim Berners-Lee. While working as a contractor at CERN, he came up with a system called ENQUIRE, which enabled sharing and updating information between researchers using hypertext.It was in 1989 when he saw an opportunity to link hypertext to the internet (itself only actually a way of connecting computer networks across the globe) and the World Wide Web was born. He designed and built the first web browser, created the first web server and, in short, changed the entire world as we know it.

f) Gordon Moore (3 January 1929)

It's through Intel that Gordon Moore's main contribution to computers is recognised. Moore's company Intel (co-founded with Robert Noyce) delivered faster and more complicated processor designs. Initially a semi-conductor company, Intel dramatically shifted its focus to processors. The company supplied its processors to IBM for use in the PC, and with the success of that market, all of the IBM PC clones. Even Apple has switched and is running its Mac OS X on Intel architecture. As the founder of Intel, Moore has helped shape the modern world and create the base technology platform that the majority of the world uses, whether it’s Linux, Windows or Mac OS X.

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