Kenneth Thompson

By oliviamentesana

  • Born

    Born
    Kenneth Thompson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 4, 1943

  • Bachelor Degree

    Bachelor Degree
    Thompson attended the University of California, Berkeley where he received his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

  • Master's Degree

    Master's Degree
    The following year, Thompson received his master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley

  • Bell Labs

    Bell Labs
    After graduation, Kenneth Thompson was hired by Bell Labs to work on the Multics project with Dennis Ritchie.

  • More Creations

    More Creations
    Later that year, Thompson also created the Bon programming language during the time he was writing Multics. He also created a video game called Space Travel

  • PDP-7

    PDP-7
    Thompson began to rewrite Space Travel so it could be transported to the PDP-7 after Bell Labs withdrew from the Multics Project.

  • UNIX

    UNIX
    Thompson and Richie created and completed an operating system named UNIX.

  • Back to School

    Back to School
    Thompson took a break from Bell Labs and went back to UC Berkeley to install the Version 6 Unix on a PDP-11/70. This would then lead to Unix at Berkeley to be its own system, called the Berkeley Software Distribution.

  • National Academy of Engineering

    National Academy of Engineering
    In 1980, Kenneth Thompson was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for designing the UNIX operating system.

  • Turing Award

    Turing Award
    Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie received the Turing Award "for their development of generic operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the UNIX operating system."

  • Belle

    Belle
    With the help of Joseph Condon, Thompson created a world champion chess computer called Belle.

  • IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal

    IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal
    Thompson and Ritchie jointly receive the Richard W. Hamming Medal for "the origination of the UNIX operating system and the C programming language."

  • Tsutomu Kanai Award

    Tsutomu Kanai Award
    Thompson received the first ever Tsutomu Kanai Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for his work in developing the UNIX operating system.

  • Retirement

    Retirement
    Thompson retired from Bell Labs in 2000. After that he began working at Entrisphere Inc for 6 years. He is now a Distinguished Engineer for Google.

  • Go

    Go
    Thompson worked with Robert Griesemer and Rob Pike to develop the Go programming language and publicly released it in 2009. The latest version was released on February 16, 2017