Robert Taylor (computer scientist)
Encyclopedia
Robert William Taylor known as Bob Taylor, is an Internet pioneer, who led teams that made major contributions to the personal computer, and other related technologies.
He was director of ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office from 1965 through 1969, founder and later manager of Xerox PARC's Computer Science Laboratory from 1970 through 1983, and founder and manager of Digital Equipment Corporation
's Systems Research Center
until 1996.
His awards include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the Draper Prize.
Taylor is known for his high-level vision: "The Internet is not about technology; it's about communication. The Internet connects people who have shared interests, ideas and needs, regardless of geography."
in 1932.
His adoptive father was a Methodist minister and the family spent an itinerant childhood, moving from parish to parish. He started at Southern Methodist University
at 16, served a stint in the Navy during the Korean War
, and went back to school at the University of Texas under the GI Bill. At UT he was a "professional student," he says, taking courses for pleasure. He finally put them together for a degree in experimental psychology, with minors in math, philosophy, English and religion. While Taylor was trained as an experimental psychologist
and mathematician
his earliest career was devoted to brain
research and the auditory nervous system
.
Taylor taught math and coached basketball at a co-ed prep school in Florida
. "I had a wonderful time but was very poor, with a second child -- who turned out to be twins -- on the way," he says.
Taylor took engineering jobs with aircraft companies at better salaries. After working for defense contractor
Martin Marietta
, he was invited to join to NASA
in 1961 after submitting a research proposal for a flight-control simulation display.
In late 1962 Taylor met J.C.R. Licklider, who was heading the new Information Processing Techniques Office of the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense
.
Licklider had done his graduate work in psychoacoustics
as Taylor, and wrote an article in 1960 envisioning new ways to use computers.
He met another visionary, Douglas Engelbart
, at the Stanford Research Institute
in Menlo Park, California
.
Taylor directed funding to Engelbart's studies of computer-display technology at SRI that led to the computer mouse.
The public demonstration of a mouse-based user interface was later called "the Mother of All Demos
."
At the Fall 1968 Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, Engelbart, Bill English, Jeff Rulifson
and the rest of the Human Augmentation Research Center
team at SRI showed on a big screen how he could manipulate a computer remotely located in Menlo Park, while sitting on a San Francisco stage, using his mouse.
to fund a few large programs in advanced research in computing at major universities and corporate research centers throughout the US.
Among the computer projects that ARPA supported was time-sharing
, in which many users could work at terminals to share a single large computer. Users could work interactively instead of using punched card
s or punched tape
in a batch processing
style.
Taylor's office in the Pentagon
had a terminal connected to time-sharing at MIT, a terminal connected to the Berkeley Timesharing System
at the University of California at Berkeley, and a third terminal to the System Development Corporation
in Santa Monica, California
. He noticed each system developed a community of users, but was isolated from the other communities.
Taylor hoped to build a computer network
to connect the ARPA-sponsored projects together, if nothing else to let him communicate to all of them through one terminal. Sutherland returned to a teaching poistion, and by June 1966 Taylor was officially director of IPTO.
Taylor had convinced ARPA's Director Charles M. Herzfeld
to fund a network project earlier in February 1966, and hired Lawrence G. Roberts from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory
to be its first program manager. Roberts first resisted moving to Washington DC, until Herzfeld reminded the director of Lincoln Laboratory that ARPA dominated its funding.
Licklider continued to provide guidance, and Wesley A. Clark
suggested the use of a dedicated computer, called the Interface Message Processor
at each node of the network instead of centralized control.
ARPA issued a request for quotation
(RFQ) to build the system, which was awarded to Bolt, Beranek and Newman
(BBN). ATT Bell Labs and IBM Research
were invited to join, but were not interested.
At a pivotal meeting in 1967 most participants resisted testing the new network; they thought it would slow down their research.
A second paper, "The Computer as a Communication Device" published in 1968 by Licklider and Taylor, lays out the future of what the Internet would eventually become.
Their paper starts out: "In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face." The vision would take more than "a few years".
At some point Taylor was sent by ARPA to investigate inconsistent reports coming from the Vietnam War
. Only about 35 years old, he was given the military rank equivalent to his civilian position: brigadier general
, and made several trips to the area. He helped set up a computer center at the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam
base in Saigon. In his words: "After that the White House got a single report rather than several. That pleased them; whether the data was any more correct or not, I don't know, but at least it was more consistent."
The Vietnam project took him away from directing research, and "by 1969 I knew ARPAnet would work. So I wanted to leave."
Roberts was promoted to IPTO director, and continued to oversee the ARPANET project.
For about a year Taylor joined Sutherland and David C. Evans
at the University of Utah
, where he had funded a center for research on computer graphics while at ARPA.
In 1970 Taylor moved to Palo Alto, California
for his next historic job.
to co-manage the Computer Systems Laboratory at the new Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox
Corporation.
Taylor assumed he would "managed in" and run day to day operations, while Elkind assumed Taylor would be associate director.
Technologies developed at PARC between 1970 and 1983 focused on reaching beyond ARPAnet to develop what has become the Internet, and the systems that support today's personal computers. They included:
Elkind was involved in a number of corporate and government projects. After one extended absence, Taylor became the official manager of the laboratory in early 1978. In 1983, integrated circuit specialist William J. Spencer became director of PARC. Spencer blamed Taylor for the failure of Xerox's own commercialization efforts.
of Digital Equipment Corporation
, and formed the Systems Research Center
in Palo Alto. Many of the former CSL researchers came to work at SRC. Among the projects at SRC were the Modula-3
programming language; the snoopy cache, used in the Firefly multiprocessor workstation; the first multi-threaded Unix system; the first User Interface editor; and a networked Window System.
.
In 2000 he voiced two concerns about the future of the Internet: control and access. In his words:
, and Charles P. Thacker
received the ACM Software Systems Award "For conceiving and guiding the development of the Xerox Alto System demonstrating that a distributed personal computer system can provide a desirable and practical alternative to time-sharing." In 1994, all three were named ACM Fellows in recognition of the same work. In 1999, Taylor received a National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The citation read
"For visionary leadership in the development of modern computing technology, including computer networks, the personal computer and the graphical user interface."
In 2004, the National Academy of Engineering awarded him along with Lampson, Thacker and Alan Kay
their highest award, the Draper Prize. The citation reads: "for the vision, conception, and development of the first practical networked personal computers."
He was director of ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office from 1965 through 1969, founder and later manager of Xerox PARC's Computer Science Laboratory from 1970 through 1983, and founder and manager of Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
's Systems Research Center
DEC Systems Research Center
The Systems Research Center was a research laboratory created by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1984, in Palo Alto, California....
until 1996.
His awards include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the Draper Prize.
Taylor is known for his high-level vision: "The Internet is not about technology; it's about communication. The Internet connects people who have shared interests, ideas and needs, regardless of geography."
Early life
Robert W. Taylor was born in Dallas, TexasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
in 1932.
His adoptive father was a Methodist minister and the family spent an itinerant childhood, moving from parish to parish. He started at Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...
at 16, served a stint in the Navy during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, and went back to school at the University of Texas under the GI Bill. At UT he was a "professional student," he says, taking courses for pleasure. He finally put them together for a degree in experimental psychology, with minors in math, philosophy, English and religion. While Taylor was trained as an experimental psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
and mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
his earliest career was devoted to brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
research and the auditory nervous system
Nervous system
The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...
.
Taylor taught math and coached basketball at a co-ed prep school in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. "I had a wonderful time but was very poor, with a second child -- who turned out to be twins -- on the way," he says.
Taylor took engineering jobs with aircraft companies at better salaries. After working for defense contractor
Defense contractor
A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military department of a government. Products typically include military aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems...
Martin Marietta
Martin Marietta
Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of The Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. The combined company became a leader in chemicals, aerospace, and electronics. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. The...
, he was invited to join to NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
in 1961 after submitting a research proposal for a flight-control simulation display.
Computer career
Taylor worked for NASA in Washington, DC while the Kennedy administration was backing scientific projects such as the Apollo program for a manned moon landing.In late 1962 Taylor met J.C.R. Licklider, who was heading the new Information Processing Techniques Office of the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
.
Licklider had done his graduate work in psychoacoustics
Psychoacoustics
Psychoacoustics is the scientific study of sound perception. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological and physiological responses associated with sound...
as Taylor, and wrote an article in 1960 envisioning new ways to use computers.
He met another visionary, Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs...
, at the Stanford Research Institute
SRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
in Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
.
Taylor directed funding to Engelbart's studies of computer-display technology at SRI that led to the computer mouse.
The public demonstration of a mouse-based user interface was later called "the Mother of All Demos
The Mother of All Demos
The Mother of All Demos is a name given to Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968, demonstration of experimental computer technologies that are now commonplace...
."
At the Fall 1968 Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, Engelbart, Bill English, Jeff Rulifson
Jeff Rulifson
Johns Frederick Rulifson is an American computer scientist.-Biography:Johns Frederick Rulifson was born August 20, 1941 in Bellefontaine, Ohio. His father was Erwin Charles Rulifson and mother was Virginia Helen Johns...
and the rest of the Human Augmentation Research Center
Augmentation Research Center
Stanford Research Institute's Augmentation Research Center was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing. The main product to come out of ARC was the revolutionary oN-Line...
team at SRI showed on a big screen how he could manipulate a computer remotely located in Menlo Park, while sitting on a San Francisco stage, using his mouse.
ARPA
In 1965 Taylor moved from NASA to ARPA, first as a deputy to Ivan SutherlandIvan Sutherland
Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal...
to fund a few large programs in advanced research in computing at major universities and corporate research centers throughout the US.
Among the computer projects that ARPA supported was time-sharing
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
, in which many users could work at terminals to share a single large computer. Users could work interactively instead of using punched card
Punched card
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
s or punched tape
Punched tape
Punched tape or paper tape is an obsolete form of data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data...
in a batch processing
Batch processing
Batch processing is execution of a series of programs on a computer without manual intervention.Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without manual intervention, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters...
style.
Taylor's office in the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
had a terminal connected to time-sharing at MIT, a terminal connected to the Berkeley Timesharing System
Berkeley Timesharing System
The Berkeley Timesharing System was a pioneering time-sharing operating system implemented between 1964 and 1967 at the University of California, Berkeley...
at the University of California at Berkeley, and a third terminal to the System Development Corporation
System Development Corporation
System Development Corporation , based in Santa Monica, California, was considered the world's first computer software company.SDC started in 1955 as the systems engineering group for the SAGE air defense ground system at the RAND Corporation...
in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
. He noticed each system developed a community of users, but was isolated from the other communities.
Taylor hoped to build a computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
to connect the ARPA-sponsored projects together, if nothing else to let him communicate to all of them through one terminal. Sutherland returned to a teaching poistion, and by June 1966 Taylor was officially director of IPTO.
Taylor had convinced ARPA's Director Charles M. Herzfeld
Charles M. Herzfeld
Charles M. Herzfeld is an American scientist and scientific manager, particularly for the US Government. He is best known for his time as Director of DARPA, during which, among other things, he personally took the decision to authorize the creation of the ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet.-...
to fund a network project earlier in February 1966, and hired Lawrence G. Roberts from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory
Lincoln Laboratory
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and development activities focus on long-term technology development as well as...
to be its first program manager. Roberts first resisted moving to Washington DC, until Herzfeld reminded the director of Lincoln Laboratory that ARPA dominated its funding.
Licklider continued to provide guidance, and Wesley A. Clark
Wesley A. Clark
Wesley Allison Clark is a computer scientist and one of the main participants, along with Charles Molnar, in the creation of the LINC laboratory computer, which was the first mini-computer and shares with a number of other computers the claim to be the inspiration for the personal computer.Clark...
suggested the use of a dedicated computer, called the Interface Message Processor
Interface Message Processor
The Interface Message Processor was the packet-switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers. An IMP was a ruggedized Honeywell DDP-516 minicomputer with...
at each node of the network instead of centralized control.
ARPA issued a request for quotation
Request for Quotation
A request for quotation is a standard business process whose purpose is to invite suppliers into a bidding process to bid on specific products or services. RFQ, generally means the same thing as IFB ....
(RFQ) to build the system, which was awarded to Bolt, Beranek and Newman
BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies is a high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
(BBN). ATT Bell Labs and IBM Research
IBM Research
IBM Research, a division of IBM, is a research and advanced development organization and currently consists of eight locations throughout the world and hundreds of projects....
were invited to join, but were not interested.
At a pivotal meeting in 1967 most participants resisted testing the new network; they thought it would slow down their research.
A second paper, "The Computer as a Communication Device" published in 1968 by Licklider and Taylor, lays out the future of what the Internet would eventually become.
Their paper starts out: "In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face." The vision would take more than "a few years".
At some point Taylor was sent by ARPA to investigate inconsistent reports coming from the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Only about 35 years old, he was given the military rank equivalent to his civilian position: brigadier general
Brigadier general (United States)
A brigadier general in the United States Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, is a one-star general officer, with the pay grade of O-7. Brigadier general ranks above a colonel and below major general. Brigadier general is equivalent to the rank of rear admiral in the other uniformed...
, and made several trips to the area. He helped set up a computer center at the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam
The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, MACV, , was the United States' unified command structure for all of its military forces in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.-History:...
base in Saigon. In his words: "After that the White House got a single report rather than several. That pleased them; whether the data was any more correct or not, I don't know, but at least it was more consistent."
The Vietnam project took him away from directing research, and "by 1969 I knew ARPAnet would work. So I wanted to leave."
Roberts was promoted to IPTO director, and continued to oversee the ARPANET project.
For about a year Taylor joined Sutherland and David C. Evans
David C. Evans
David Cannon Evans was the founder of the computer science department at the University of Utah and co-founder of Evans & Sutherland, a computer firm which is known as a pioneer in the domain of computer-generated imagery.-Biography:Evans attended the University of Utah and studied electrical...
at the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
, where he had funded a center for research on computer graphics while at ARPA.
In 1970 Taylor moved to Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
for his next historic job.
Xerox
Jerome I. Elkind from BBN was hired by George PakeGeorge Pake
George Pake was a physicist and research executive primarily known for helping found Xerox PARC. Pake earned his bachelors and masters degrees from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and his doctorate in physics at Harvard University in 1948.A rather serious case of scoliosis kept Pake out of...
to co-manage the Computer Systems Laboratory at the new Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
Corporation.
Taylor assumed he would "managed in" and run day to day operations, while Elkind assumed Taylor would be associate director.
Technologies developed at PARC between 1970 and 1983 focused on reaching beyond ARPAnet to develop what has become the Internet, and the systems that support today's personal computers. They included:
- Powerful personal computerPersonal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s (the Xerox AltoXerox AltoThe Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...
) with windowed displays and graphical user interfaces that were the basis of the Macintosh.
- EthernetEthernetEthernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
, which networks local computers within a building or campus; and the first InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, a network that connected the Ethernet to the ARPAnet utilizing PUP (PARC Universal Protocol), forerunner to TCP/IP.
- The electronics and software that led to the laser printerLaser printerA laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a xerographic printing process, but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced...
and the graphical programs that allowed John Warnock and Chuck Geschke to take off and found Adobe SystemsAdobe SystemsAdobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
.
- "What-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYGWYSIWYGWYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
) word-processing programs, such as BravoBravo (software)Bravo was the first WYSIWYG document preparation program. It provided multi-font capability using the bitmap displays on the Xerox Alto personal computer...
that Charles SimonyiCharles SimonyiCharles Simonyi is a Hungarian-American computer software executive who, as head of Microsoft's application software group, oversaw the creation of Microsoft's flagship Office suite of applications. He now heads his own company, Intentional Software, with the aim of developing and marketing his...
took to MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
to serve as the basis for Microsoft WordMicrosoft WordMicrosoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
.
Elkind was involved in a number of corporate and government projects. After one extended absence, Taylor became the official manager of the laboratory in early 1978. In 1983, integrated circuit specialist William J. Spencer became director of PARC. Spencer blamed Taylor for the failure of Xerox's own commercialization efforts.
DEC SRC
Taylor was hired by Ken OlsenKen Olsen
Kenneth Harry Olsen was an American engineer who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson.-Background:...
of Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
, and formed the Systems Research Center
DEC Systems Research Center
The Systems Research Center was a research laboratory created by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1984, in Palo Alto, California....
in Palo Alto. Many of the former CSL researchers came to work at SRC. Among the projects at SRC were the Modula-3
Modula-3
In computer science, Modula-3 is a programming language conceived as a successor to an upgraded version of Modula-2 known as Modula-2+. While it has been influential in research circles it has not been adopted widely in industry...
programming language; the snoopy cache, used in the Firefly multiprocessor workstation; the first multi-threaded Unix system; the first User Interface editor; and a networked Window System.
Retirement
Taylor retired in 1996 and lives in Woodside, CaliforniaWoodside, California
Woodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It uses a council-manager system of government. The U.S. Census estimated the population of the town to be 5,287 in 2010....
.
In 2000 he voiced two concerns about the future of the Internet: control and access. In his words:
There are many worse ways of endangering a larger number of people on the Internet than on the highway. It's possible for people to generate networks that reproduce themselves and are very difficult or impossible to kill off. I want everyone to have the right to use it, but there's got to be some way to insure responsibility.
Will it be freely available to everyone? If not, it will be a big disappointment.
Awards
In 1984, Taylor, Butler LampsonButler Lampson
Butler W. Lampson is a renowned computer scientist.After graduating from the Lawrenceville School , Lampson received his Bachelor's degree in Physics from Harvard University in 1964, and his Ph.D...
, and Charles P. Thacker
Charles P. Thacker
Charles P. Thacker is an American pioneer computer designer.-Biography:Thacker was born in Pasadena, California on February 26, 1943.He received his B.S...
received the ACM Software Systems Award "For conceiving and guiding the development of the Xerox Alto System demonstrating that a distributed personal computer system can provide a desirable and practical alternative to time-sharing." In 1994, all three were named ACM Fellows in recognition of the same work. In 1999, Taylor received a National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The citation read
"For visionary leadership in the development of modern computing technology, including computer networks, the personal computer and the graphical user interface."
In 2004, the National Academy of Engineering awarded him along with Lampson, Thacker and Alan Kay
Alan Kay
Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
their highest award, the Draper Prize. The citation reads: "for the vision, conception, and development of the first practical networked personal computers."
External links
- The New Old Boys From the ARPAnet Extract from 'Tools for Thought' by Howard RheingoldHoward Rheingold-See also:* Collective intelligence* Information society* The WELL* Virtual community-External links:***** at TED conference** a 48MB Quicktime movie, hosted by the Internet Archive...
- 1984 ACM Software Systems Award citation
- 1994 ACM Fellow citation
- 2004 Draper Prize citation