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Birthyear
Ken Thompson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1943. -
B.S. Graduation
Graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science. -
Graduate School
He graduated with his M.S. from UC Berkeley. -
Joins Bell Labs
Joins Bell Labs computing research department, working on the Multics project. -
Creation of UNIX operating system
Kenneth Thompson alongside Dennis Ritchie created the UNIX operating system. -
Writes B Language
Writes B programming language, a precursor to Dennis Ritchie's C programming language. -
Moves UNIX
Moves UNIX from the PDP-7 to the PDP-11 -
Rewrites Portions of UNIX
Rewrites portions of UNIX to include Doug McIlroy's concept of pipes. -
Rewrites UNIX in Dennis Ritchie's C language
Unix was rewritten in the programming language C so that it could be a portable operating system. -
Visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley
Kenneth Thompson was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley teaching the UNIX operating system. -
Belle
A chess-playing computer he developed with Joe H. Condon, wins the U.S. and World Computing Chess Championships -
Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Science
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Names Bell Labs Fellow
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Receives with Dennis Ritchie the ACM Turing Award
Kenneth Thompson receives alongside his old-time colleague Dennis Ritchie the ACM Turing Award. -
Visiting professor at the University of Sydney, Australia
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Awarded National Medal of Technology
Awarded with Dennis Ritchie the National Medal of Technology for the development of the UNIX system -
Retires from Bell Labs
Kenneth Thompson retired from Bell Labs to pursue flight instructing full time.
