PEOPLE BEHIND COMPUTER

EVOLUTION
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 squarely 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 returned to CERN that 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. We're now so reliant on the internet that it's
impossible to imagine life without the world wide web.
Bill Gates (28 October 1955)


Whatever you may think about Bill Gates, there's no doubting the impact that he's had
on the computer market. 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. While
Microsoft may have lost its way a little and missed out on repeating its success online,
the company remains a powerful force.
Gates has moved on to charity work, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He's
promised to give away the bulk of his fortune in charitable work, which makes it hard to
hate him completely.



Gordon Moore (3 January 1929)
Gordon Moore is justly famous for his eponymous law, which describes how the number
of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles
approximately every two years. Although an observation at the time, Moore's company
Intel (co-founded with Robert Noyce) has adhered to it, delivering faster and more
complicated processor designs.

It's through Intel that Gordon Moore's main contribution to computers is recognised.
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.
The company has seen off competition and has seen its architecture become the de
facto standard in everything from high-end servers to entry-level laptops. 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 its Linux, Windows or
Mac OS X.


Philip Don Estridge (23 June 1937 - 2 August 1985)
Philip Don Estridge, known as Don Estridge, led the development of the IBM Personal
Computer (PC), arguably the most important computer in the history of computers. It's
the creation of this computer that's led to the types of computer that we have today.

The IBM PC was designed as a way for the company to get into the small computer
market, dominated at the time by Commodore, Atari and Apple. The revolutionary part
about the computer was that it was designed by using off-the-shelf parts available from
OEMs, rather than creating brand-new technology. This let IBM create the PC in less
than a year and keep prices down to affordable levels.
Even more surprising for the time was that IBM decided to use an open architecture, so
that other manufacturers could produce and sell peripherals without having to purchase
a license. As we all know, this open architecture also meant that other companies could
start creating their own IBM-compatible computers. It's this architecture that exists today
and even Apple has changed to embrace it when it switched to using Intel processors in
its Mac computers.
The IBM PC also opened up the door for Intel's and Microsoft's success. Without Don
Estridge and IBM the world would be a very different place.


Steve Jobs (24 February 1955 - October 5 2011)
The world seems to split between those that love Apple and its products and those that
hate it. Regardless of which camp you're in there's one thing you have to give Apple
and Jobs credit for and that's taking an idea and making it desirable.
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.

The Macintosh really highlights Jobs' ability to take existing technology and improve it,
making it desirable. 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.
In 1985 Jobs was relieved of his duties as head of the Macintosh and Apple's fames
and fortunes took a nosedive. It wasn't until Jobs was brought back on board in 1996,
after Apple bought his NeXT Computer company that Apple's fortunes turned round and
it started to make a profit.


Since his return, 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.
His influence outside of the computer industry has been immense, too, with his Pixar
company (later acquired by Disney) kick-starting computer-generated films with the
incredibly Toy Story.