Computer History Museum's top 3 individuals: This year's picks
Jean Bartik, 83, one of six women selected to program the Eniac computer in 1945. The computer was designed by the Army to compute firing tables in World War II and weighed 30 tons. The women taught themselves how the machine operated by studying logical and electrical block diagrams. Bartik went on to contribute to other computers and has received several awards, including membership in the Hall of Fame Women in Technology International.
Robert Metcalfe, 62, who invented Ethernet, a network to connect personal computers that has since morphed into the Internet. Metcalfe goes way back in Silicon Valley - he worked at Xerox PARC, founded 3Com and persuaded Intel, Xerox and DEC (since acquired by Compaq, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard) to promote Ethernet as an open standard. He is now a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners in Waltham, Mass.
Linus Torvalds, 38, the Finnish programmer who created the kernel of the Linux operating system and is still the authority on what code gets incorporated into it. Linux is one of the most successful pieces of open source, or free, software ever and has been stiff competition for Microsoft Windows.
Read entire article at San Francisco Chronicle
Robert Metcalfe, 62, who invented Ethernet, a network to connect personal computers that has since morphed into the Internet. Metcalfe goes way back in Silicon Valley - he worked at Xerox PARC, founded 3Com and persuaded Intel, Xerox and DEC (since acquired by Compaq, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard) to promote Ethernet as an open standard. He is now a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners in Waltham, Mass.
Linus Torvalds, 38, the Finnish programmer who created the kernel of the Linux operating system and is still the authority on what code gets incorporated into it. Linux is one of the most successful pieces of open source, or free, software ever and has been stiff competition for Microsoft Windows.