Ken Thompson has been fascinated by logic since childhood. As he noted later, even in elementary school, he would solve arithmetic problems in the binary system. This love led him to the computer world, where his achievements were incomparable and always original.
Ken Thompson: study
In 1943, Ken was born in New Orleans (Louisiana). In his youth, Ken Thompson studied at the University of California , Berkeley. In the years 1965-1966, first received a bachelor's and master's degree in science in electronic devices and information systems. Its supervisor was Alvin Berlemkamp.
Jobs at Bell Labs
In 1966, scientist Ken Thompson, who showed great ability, was admitted to the powerful Bell Labs corporation, known as the largest and most famous research center, which is engaged in electronics and computer technology. Its headquarters is located in Murray Hill. Before the young developers arrived, Bell Labs designed the MAC. Within its framework, the CTSS OS was created. Then the lab began working on Multix.
Here Ken met with Dennis Ritchie. They became like-minded and began to work together with other scientists in the laboratory. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie saw the future for desktop small personal computers. They realized that such computers needed a mechanism that controls the hardware of the computer, working with files, executing application programs, and input and output operations. So the idea of creating a new operating system. Throughout the 70s, Thompson and Ritchie worked on UNIX. Her first versions were created by Thompson almost single-handedly, and Ritchie joined later.
At the same time, Ken Thompson invented the language Bon, and then the language B, on the basis of which the language C was later created, and began to develop the game Space Travel. In the game, the solar system with its bodies was simulated. The spacecraft needed to land on planets or satellites. The laboratory abandoned the Multix project.
In 1969, Thompson and Ritchie developed the UNICS OS, which later received the modern name UNIX. Thompson created the Qed editor for CTSS, which included regular expressions for manipulating lines in text. This project has made regular expressions popular in programming, not just logic. They began to be constantly used in UNIX in word processing programs. Nowadays, most regular expression programs use Thompson notation. Ken also invented an algorithm that got his name for transforming regular expressions into a non-deterministic finite state machine.
Work on chess programs
Since the 18th century, people have been trying to create chess machines. The attempt succeeded in 1983 when Thompson and Condon created Belle, the first computer to reach the level of a chess master. Thompson wrote a program for a complete listing of endgames for 4–6 figures.
Later, with the help of chess expert John Roycroft, he recorded them on a CD-ROM. The new advanced chess computer in 1994 beat Garry Kasparov.
Further activities
In the mid-80s, Thompson at Bell Labs began designing a new OS, which was supposed to be a replacement for UNIX. It was called "plan 9". Also at this time, he was testing early versions of the C ++ language, but expressed a negative attitude towards him, not endorsing the ideas that formed the basis of the language.
In 1992, together with Rob Pike, he developed the UTF-8 encoding, which became the main one for the World Wide Web. In the 90s, together with Ritchie and other researchers from Bell Labs, he began the process of forming the Inferno operating system.
In 2000, Thompson left Bell Labs. Until 2006, he worked at Entrisphere, then moved to Google, where he is still working on the Go language. This gifted scientist in the future can reveal his full creative potential.
Ken Thompson: Achievements
The main thing in his life is the creation of UNIX and the programming language C. Ken Thompson, whose biography was considered in the article, received many awards in his life.
In 1983, Thompson and Ritchie together received the Turing Award. In 1990, he was awarded the Richard Hamming Medal of IEEE for the creation of the UNIX OS and the C language. In 1994, the Pioneer of Computer Hardware medal, also in conjunction with Ritchie.
In 1999, President
Bill Clinton awarded the Thompson and Ritchie National Medal. In 1999, Thompson received the first prize from the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers for his role in creating the UNIX OS, and in 2003, together with Ritchie, received the Harold Pender Prize. Japan also noted its innovative developments (2011 Prize).