-
Ken Thompson Birthday
Ken Thompson was born on February fourth, of the year 1943. -
Graduation from the University of California, Berkeley
In 1965, Thompson earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, but then graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966 with a master's degree in electrical engineering. -
Hired by Bell Labs
Post graduation, Thompson went to work with Bell Labs. This is where he worked on the Multics Operating System, otherwise known as OS. While writing Multics, Thompson created the B programming language alongside Dennis Ritchie -
Space Travel
During his work with Bell Labs, Thompson created a video game called 'Space Travel', a game which simulates traveling through the galaxy for players. In order to play the game, Thompson re-wrote the game on an old PD-P7 machine -
UNIX
Unix was the first portable operating system. Thanks to the hard work of Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, it was designed and produced by 1969. It laid the groundwork for networking in computers. It is still widely used today, being that Unix has the ability to run on anything from mainframes to personal computers. -
UNIX Operating System
Eventually, Thompson developed tools during his production of Space Travel, and these tools translated into the creation of the UNIX operating system. -
System Programming Language B
After the initial work on UNIX, Thompson created programming language B. This programming language followed Ritchie's programming language 'C'. Because of Thompson and Ritchie's hard work on Unix, both programming languages were perfected and used until today. -
Belle
In 1971, Thompson created a computer program called chess. This program was for the first Unix version. After this, with the help of Joseph Condon, Thompson created a hardware-assisted machine which he called Belle. Belle became a champion chess computer. -
Unix Presented
Unix is finally presented to the outside world for the first time. It was presented at the Symposium on Operating System Principles. -
Sabbatical from Bell Labs
During the year 1975, Thompson took a sabbatical from Bell Labs. He then returned to work at UC Berkeley, his 'alma mater'. During his time there, he aided in installing Version 6 Unix on a programming machine called the PDP-11/70. -
The National Academy of Engineering
Ken Thompson is chosen and elected to participate and utilize his brain and skills at the National Academy of Engineering. He is elected due to his creation of Unix. -
Newer Versions of UNIX
In the mid 1980's work began at Bell Labs in order to produce fine tuned version of the Unix operating system. Thompson was imperative during the design process. In this year, Plan 9 from Bell Labs was produced as a new version of Unix. -
Turing Award
Awarded for their work in computer science and engineering, both Thompson and Ritchie are given the Turing Award. The Turing Award is the highest accomplishment in the computer science industry. -
National Medal of Technology
Years pass, and Thompson's work with computers and processing systems have yet to come to a halt. In 1999, Thompson and Ritchie are awarded the National Medal of Technology from then president Bill Clinton. -
Coming to an End
Thompson continues his work as a distinguished engineer for Google. He is said to be alive and healthy, managing his personal life but focusing heavily on his work for the future of technology and computers.
