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Hall of Fame Voting For Computer Museum of America 304

Posted by simoniker from the eat-the-rich dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Public voting has opened for the Computer Museum of America Hall of Fame, which is looking to add 5 more members to the roster via a public vote. Previous inductees include Sid Meier (of Civilization fame), and among this years list of nominees is Linus himself. The full list, along with the voting area itself is over at HomeLAN."
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Hall of Fame Voting For Computer Museum of America More

Hall of Fame Voting For Computer Museum of America

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  • CowboyNeal? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:52PM (#9108588) Journal
    I don't get it, where's the CowboyNeal option?

  • William Gibson? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsunamifirestorm ( 729508 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:52PM (#9108597) Homepage
    Sorry if this sounds like flamebait, but the other people invented acutal products while all he did was "Coined the phrase "cyberspace" in the novel "Neuromancer" (1984)"

    • Re:William Gibson? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by metlin ( 258108 ) *
      Well, sure. But that's probably not the *only* reason he's there.

      He's considered by many to be one of the pioneers of cyberpunk, and Neuromancer certainly did help popularise the genre. And that definitely is something. Cyberpunk ties in very closely with the hacker culture, and adding Gibson is a nice way of saying Thank You.

      What's given there is merely an excerpt of the achievements, and is definitely not all of the reasons why those people are in the list.

      That said, I should say that the list is prett
      • And interestingly enough, RMS is missing from the list :) (am not complaining, though).

        I'm sure there are a lot of people who read RMS as Root-Mean-Squared [ee.unb.ca], right? I know RMS is a person, and I've seen his name probably about 100 times, and he's all ubergood and everything, but I still can not remember any part of his damn name.

      • Re:William Gibson? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rsborg ( 111459 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:25PM (#9108955) Homepage
        He's considered by many to be one of the pioneers of cyberpunk, and Neuromancer certainly did help popularise the genre. And that definitely is something.

        Well, Gibson may have popularized it, but Philip K Dick "wrote the book(s)", as it were... and he's nowhere on the list.

        Honestly, I don't see either of them, as belonging on this list, as they're just meme-creators. People like Vint Cerf, Ken Thompson, and Dan Briklin actually created the infrastructure or killer apps that make what we're doing today possible. Kudos to the real mccoys, I say.

      • Re:William Gibson? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cygnus ( 17101 )
        He's considered by many to be one of the pioneers of cyberpunk, and Neuromancer certainly did help popularise the genre. And that definitely is something. Cyberpunk ties in very closely with the hacker culture, and adding Gibson is a nice way of saying Thank You.
        shouldn't he be winning literary or SF prizes then? i mean, even Azimov invented satellite communication... that's something. "Cyberspace" is just a lame word used in advertisements.

        • Re:William Gibson? (Score:3, Informative)

          by metlin ( 258108 ) *
          First off, it's spelt Asimov.

          And it was Clarke who put forward the idea that Geostationary orbits would be ideal for satellite communication.

          Asimov and Clarke wrote science fiction as a broad genre - space operas, speculative fiction and the like, and was not tied to any science per-se.

          And Gibson sure as hell has won quite a lot of accolades, and some of his books have been made into movies, too (Matrix is based on some of his ideas, Johnny Mnemonic is also a book by him).

          It's just that in this context,

          • Re:William Gibson? (Score:3, Informative)

            by john82 ( 68332 )
            Kurzweil should definitely be considered ahead of Gibson. Yes he's an author, but more importantly he's an inventor. In the 1980s, Kurzweil synthesizers were at the forefront of combining computing and music. He was pushing the boundaries of both.

            I grabbed the following from Kurzweill Technologies [kurzweiltech.com]: Ray Kurzweil was the principal developer of ...
            • the first omni-font optical character recognition system
            • the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind
            • the first CCD flat-bed scanner
            • the first text-to-
    • Sorry if this sounds like flamebait, but the other people invented acutal products while all he did was "Coined the phrase "cyberspace" in the novel "Neuromancer" (1984)"

      Did you actually READ any of his books? Gibson could have defined "cyberspace" in one page, but there's more to it than that.

      Advancing technology takes not just know-how, but inspiration as well. Gibson's work describes a vision of how humans might one day intereact with technology, one that many would say is quite ahead of his time.

  • tough competition (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Random Web Developer ( 776291 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:53PM (#9108601) Homepage
    that's some pretty tough competition out there, but these are the 5 I pick Bjarne Stroustrup Linus Torvalds Larry Ellison Philip R. Zimmerman James Clark

    • Re:tough competition (Score:2, Interesting)

      by patanish ( 653932 )
      No one from Apple either? Steve Jobs or Wozniak? They definitely deserve to be nominees atleast. How about Sabeer Bhatia - inventor of Hotmail, first free web based email?
      • Bhatia was strangely missing. And if they could put Steve Case down they obviously could have put Wozniak and Jobs down (and Wozniak would have had a vote from me at least).

        • Re:tough competition (Score:2, Informative)

          by Link310 ( 453668 )
          While Wozniak and Jobs might have been worthy candidates, the fact that they're already in the Computer Hall of Fame (inducted in 2000) probably disqualified them from being nominated again.

          See the
  • I started clicking the ones I considered to be "sure bets" - and found there were way too many.

    And Steve Case wasn't on my list.
    • I'm with you there. There are alot of people on that list whom deserve to be credited for making this God forsaken machine I make my living with. I hope some of the more worthy win.

  • Ummm (Score:4, Informative)

    by platypussrex ( 594064 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:53PM (#9108608)
    Is this something like being put in "Fred's Museum of Wonder"? I mean the vote is about as professional looking as those poles on CNN where anyone can vote as often as they like. The Museum site at least looks OK but the vote site is some kind of game fan site.

    • Voting twice?? No way! (Score:5, Funny)

      by greppling ( 601175 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:18PM (#9108907)
      Please check your basic facts before posting. They use cookies to ensure that NOBODY can vote twice. This is STATE-OF-THE-ART hardened hacker-proof COMPUTER SECURITY TECHNOLOGY!!!

    • Re:Ummm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rsmith-mac ( 639075 )
      The site is actually just our gaming news site for the larger HomeLAN organization. The Comp. Museum wanted someone to host it that would be better able to stand up to a Slashdotting, so we offered. [shameless plug]The entire HomeLAN organization doesn't do just news, but server rentals/hosting, beta testing, and several other services for gaming companies, so we're not just a game fan site.[/shameless plug]
  • The really shocking thing is the people who aren't already there!

    John von Neumann - considering he started off the base design for the logic interaction systems we use today, he is often known as the father of computing - so why are we voting for him now?

    Linus Torvalds - I don't need to say who he is - but why isn't he there either.

    Those are two particularly egregious omissions, but I reckon more than 5 need to get added.

    • Re:Why aren't these people already in? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:06PM (#9108782)
      Linus Torvalds - I don't need to say who he is - but why isn't he there either.

      Now I can guarantee that I'll be modded down for this, but it's hard to put Linux in the same category as some of the people already on the list.

      Clive Sinclair, for example, was a real innovator. He followed his own path and went off in bold directions. Ditto for Jay Miner. And Dennis Ritchie. But Linus, while an absolutely brilliant hacker, essentially started cloning Minix, then later decided to turn it into a full-blown UNIX kernel. Thompson, Kernighan, Ritchie, and others get credit for UNIX. And Tannenbaum gets credit for Minix. Linus's claim to fame is that Linux merged with the free software movement started by Stallman, and the result is that such software (under the monicker "open source"), became more commonplace. But again, Linus didn't come up with this. The gnu project was started eight years before Linux did.

      The bottom line is that Linus is an excellent programmer and architect and he wrote a great piece code. But if he gets in the museum, then so should the Microsoft Excel team (which essentially copied earlier spreadsheets).
      • Given fucking Michael Dull is in...
      • Erm. Sir Clive Sinclair might not be on the list because he was already inducted [computer-museum.org]

        About Linus, though, it depends on what criteria you think are necessary. Gates in in there and he, after all, bought MSDOS, rather than building it himself. Linus's achievement isn't purely technical, but that doesn't stop it being an acheivement worthy of recognition.

      • Re:Why aren't these people already in? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by kscguru ( 551278 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:37PM (#9109071)
        Let me add one thing to Linus' list of accomplishments that the Excel team hasn't matched: he has successfully guided the continuing evolution and improvement of a software project for over ten years. I honestly can't think of a single (modern) piece of software that hasn't been stagnant, at least in terms of core features, for a good chunk of that time (well, maybe apache?), nor any project that has evolved so fast without major forking issues.

        Really, Linux is the poster child for a successful open source project, and Linus runs the personality cult behind it. I don't think Linus' programming and architecting exploits are enough for this sort of recognition, but his overall vision should be more than enough.

        Someone else might point out RMS or ESR as visionaries... but here's the difference: Linus has an extremely successful, widely adopted, and still evolving project to back up his vision. The others... well, what was the last non-cosmetic change to Emacs, or fetchmail? Those projects are done, dead, and in maintainence. Sorry guys, but while you are talking the talk and reminiscing about the glory days, Linus is busy walking the walk - and for that, he deserves credit.

        • The others... well, what was the last non-cosmetic change to Emacs, or fetchmail?

          You've got to give RMS and ESR more credit than that. Stallman also wrote GCC, which is alive and well and still evolving. ESR's software offerings are all a little small, but his "Cathedral and the Bazaar" helped bring open source software to the commercial world. Mozilla would quite probably have never been written, if not for ESR's writings and evalgelism.

          My vote is for Stallman over the other two, but they're all thr

      • Pray tell why Andreesen is in there for making a browser based on existing standards then whilst Linus wrote a far more impressive piece of software...

    • The really shocking thing is the people who aren't already there!

      John von Neumann - considering he started off the base design for the logic interaction systems we use today, he is often known as the father of computing - so why are we voting for him now?

      von Neumann!? Bah! all he did was create a big f'ing bottleneck in hardware!! Ever hear of the von Neumann Bottleneck?! sheeesh.

      Steve Case all the way!

      (omg, i'm kidding)

    • Linus Torvalds - I don't need to say who he is - but why isn't he there either.

      Was he that other kid with Charlie Brown, in Peanuts?


    • Sorry - a slight clarification - I know both von Neumann and Torvalds are on the list of nominees, what I'm asking is why they have been left out for so long, and questioning whether the hall of fame has the right people in it if we are only adding these people now.
    • Check again, because I believe both von Neumann and Linus are in the running. They are both near the bottom of the list.
    • what about alan turing? he's one of the founding fathers of computers. i bet he's not there because he was gay.

  • What??? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:55PM (#9108628) Journal
    No Darl McBride?

  • Missing Poll Option (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alan Hicks ( 660661 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:55PM (#9108630) Homepage
    Where's RMS on this list? I would think he would deserve as much credit as Linus Torvalds.

  • Flamebait (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonboy X ( 319895 ) <[ude.ipw.mula] [ta] [renxeo.nahtanoj]> on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:56PM (#9108634) Journal
    Can I mod this article as flamebait?

  • No Fred Brooks? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beavis88 ( 25983 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:56PM (#9108638)
    "Mythical Man-Month" anyone? Father of modern software project management (although admittedly, this may be a dubious honor)? I mean I guess it's great that Larry Ellison is up there and all, but I'd prefer to see actual computer scientists on the list as opposed to "business people".

    • Re:No Fred Brooks? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by southpolesammy ( 150094 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:05PM (#9108767) Journal
      Actually, Brooks ought to be recognized for his No Silver Bullet [berkeley.edu] article from the 80's as it provided a very large foundation for what we know as software engineering, but the mythical man-month is notable as well.

      Either way, you're right -- he should be listed here, and especially instead of business folks. Brooks was a true Computer Scientist, whereas Ellison and others simply commercialized computing.
      • Thanks for pointing that out. Not sure how I missed it given that I have a copy of the Mythical Man Month with the "Silver Bullet" essay sitting right on my desk :)
      • Either way, you're right -- he should be listed here, and especially instead of business folks. Brooks was a true Computer Scientist,

        Hey, Fred Brooks Jr. [unc.edu] is still live and well!

  • Is electronic voting allowed? (Score:5, Funny)

    by avoisin ( 105703 ) <swh8@cornell.edu> on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:57PM (#9108645)
    If electronic voting is allowed, can we use Dibold machines?

    Could they vote for themselves?

    Ack! *Vanishes into a paradox*

  • My Votes: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06&email,com> on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:57PM (#9108647)
    Dan Bricklin
    # Co-developer of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program

    John Presper Eckert
    # Co-designer and builder (with Mauchley, et.al.) of ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer

    Bob Frankston
    # Co-developer of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program

    John Mauchley
    # Co-Designer of ENIAC, the first fully operational modern electronic computer (ran from 1945-1955)

    Philip R. Zimmerman
    # Author of Pretty Good Privacy, one of the first encryption programs available to the general public

  • Linus Himself? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dknight ( 202308 ) <damen@knightsOOO ... inus threevowels> on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:57PM (#9108649) Homepage Journal
    Let me start out saying that I love Linux. I use it only nearly all of my boxes at home, and reccomend it whenever it is reasonable to do so.

    Having said that, is it just me, or are we coming frighteningly close to deifying Linus? I mean, he did a great, amazing, generally wonderful thing... but come on people. Does he deserve to get in to the hall of fame? Absolutely. Does he deserve his own religion? Probably not.

  • Missing Options (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sosume ( 680416 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @12:58PM (#9108660) Journal
    Amongst quite a few, here are some names who should have been considered for this list:

    - Edsger W. Dijkstra, the man who considered GoTo statements harmful....
    - Bill Gates, the man who truly commercialized software
    - Dennis Kernigan, the man who invented C (tho' not alone)
    - CmdrTaco, the dude that started Slashdot

  • I promise to help Ohio deliver it's electoral votes to Linus!

  • What the Hell? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:00PM (#9108698)
    There are some people on this list who should be in way before anyone like Sid Meier should ever have been considered. Konrad Zuse, John von Neumann, Ken Thompson, Bjarne Stroustroup and Linus Torvalds were my picks. Without Neumann, who knows when we would have had general purpose computers. Just about everything I have ever learned about computer architecture is traced back to Neumann. This is sort of like inducting Duran Duran into the Rock and Roll hall of fame before Buddy Holly. Zuse had one of the earliest functional electromechanical computers running. Meier, or some of this years nominees, the guy that founded C|Net, Paul Allen, John Warnack, etc. indeed! lol

  • Claude Shannon not even nominated? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nakito ( 702386 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:02PM (#9108723)
    Claude Shannon's theories underlie almost every aspect of the digital computer and digital communications. His master's thesis (1938) established that logic circuits can be simplified mathematically rather than by trial and error. His mathematical theory of communication (1948) established the entire field of information theory, making possible digital communications (modems, networks). In terms of his importance to the field, he is miles beyond most of the people on the list and most of the people already inducted.

  • Missing / Embarrassing / Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:03PM (#9108741)
    I need to rant on this.

    Perhaps I misunderstand the point of the site - is it to promote major manufacturers? Then what is Turing doing up there?

    Is it to promote scientists? Then what the hell is Gates doing up there?

    People missing from the list:

    Donald Knuth, Richard Stevens, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Claude Shannon, Von Neumann

    And if you look at the dates, Gates got inducted in 1998, Turing in 2000. Doesn't this strike anyone as mildly....no...scratch that blatantly stupid and obsequious? If a museum of computer use of human civilization honors "innovators" like Michael Dell before Turing and Babbage, then it is run by a bunch of industry sycophants, and, in actually, represents rather well the sad state of affairs in the computer world.
    • AC or not, he is right on.

    • I completely agree..

      Bill Gates demonstrated business genius by screwing real programmers out of their own code and then playing the arrogant IBM execs. He didn't exactly do much for computers other than establish a monopoly. He should get a business award.

      Michael Dell basically built a computer. Then, he put his name on it. Then, he figured out how to build them really fast and cheap. (He doesn't make fast computers.. just makes them fast and cheap.) Other companies did this too. Dell could get a marketin

    • Re:Missing / Embarrassing / Stupid (Score:4, Informative)

      by Sanat ( 702 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:36PM (#9109058)
      Dr. An Wang... of Wang Laboratories

      Inventor of magnetic core memory.

      Invented first logarithm digitally.

      Created first digital machine that multiplied/divided without repetitive adding/subtracting

      Created first desktop calculator/computer.

      Created first true word processor... and the list goes on and on

  • Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:04PM (#9108747)
    Stewart Brand?? (Co-founder (with Larry Brilliant) of The WELL online service (1985))

    Where's Ward Christensen, creator of the first BBS? (CBBS, 1978)

    Where's Tom Jennings, creator of Fidonet?

  • If you consider that Larry Ellison is listed as 'founder' and not 'co-founder' of Oracle. And when an author (despite being both talented and popular) is listed, but people like Donald Knuth are left off, I wonder if you need a good PR person is a requirement...
  • I stopped counting names that should already be in the CHOF at 10.

    These guys are way behind the curve.

  • My Vote (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bender_ ( 179208 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:08PM (#9108793) Journal
    Andy Bechtolsheim
    # Co-founder of Sun Microsystems

    - One of the most impressing entrpreneurs of this time. Probably the only billionaire who still gets down and dirty..

    Andy Grove
    # Co-founder and former president of Intel

    - Not only the founder of the most successfull IC company, but he also did real research (He has some very interesting papers on crucial topics related IC stability)

    Konrad Zuse
    # Inventor of the Z-1 through 3 machines, early program-controlled (using relays) computers

    - Hands down, he build the first programmable computer. And does thus deserve credit.

    John Von Neumann
    # Designer of EDVAC and IAS computers

    - I'd rather credit him for inventing the concept of modern computers.

    Ken Thompson
    # Co-developer (with Dennis Ritchie) of UNIX operating system for Bell Labs
    # Co-led (with Dennis Ritchie) team that developed the C programming language

    - Naturally.. sorry Linus, they were first!

    Antivote:

    Philo T. Farnsworth
    # Inventor of modern television

    -Statement is not true, this is an urban legend. I also do not see how this is related to computers?

    George Philbrick
    # Inventor of the first fully electronic analog computer in 1938

    -Doubt that too, there were many at the same time. For example the V2 flight control computer..

    • Farnsworth invented the TV (Score:5, Informative)

      by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:14PM (#9108860)
      "Philo T. Farnsworth# Inventor of modern television Statement is not true, this is an urban legend. I also do not see how this is related to computers?

      According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Farnsworth did invent the TV. It is also in Time magazine [time.com]. Philo's the TV man, indeed. Perhaps you have him confused with Thomas Crapper [wikipedia.org], "inventer of the toilet" who really did not invent it. Lookup Farnsworth on snopes: his role in history is so secure that there is not even an urban legend about him.

    • Philo T. Farnsworth # Inventor of modern television -Statement is not true, this is an urban legend. I also do not see how this is related to computers?

      Perhaps you have never used an Apple ][? an Atari 400, 800, or ST? an Amiga? A Commodore PET, Vic-20, or C-64? a Sinclair/Spectrum? If you remember these, you will remember the television as a very important and ubiqitous peripheral for the computer. The CRT computer monitor is a close-enough relative of the TV to count as "yes, that's Farnsworth too".

      • The CRT computer monitor is a close-enough relative of the TV to count as "yes, that's Farnsworth too".

        The CRT was invented by Ferdinand Braun in 1897.

        http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blc at hoderaytube.htm
        • Philo T. Farnsworth didn't invent the Cathode Ray Tube, he invented a way to view pictures on it. Philo just made the electronics to have the CRT scan in horizontal lines to fill the entire screen, and to dynamically change the brightness so that a picture or moving picture could be shown.

          Some people don't believe that Philo invented the TV since the patent was ownded by RCA, and RCA claimed that they invented it. Philo spent years fighting RCA over the rights. I think he enventually lost. Check out the Wikipedia for more info.

        • The "CRT Monitor" is essentially descended from a TV set, altered for optimal color RBG/etc display and for a higher resolution and sharpness than a regular TV picture. It still uses Farnsworth's basic line-by-line scanning system which he defined for television. It is descended from that rather than directly from Braun's original CRT. Many computer CRT monitors were in fact just TV's with the RF parts removed (the high-end Commodore models, for example).

  • Jon Von Neumann (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zabu ( 589690 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:09PM (#9108821)
    He isn't in the hall of fame yet? WTF?

    didn't he invent address modifications?
    For those who don't know this lead to function calls.
    IAS theoretical computer [si.edu]

  • Two people who aren't yet in the Hall of Fame and aren't up for election who certainly deserve it are: John McCarthy, creator of LISP and a founder of AI, and Richard Stallman, creator of EMACS and founder of the Free Software movement.

  • Postel did more to create the underpinnings of the internet than Cerf, let alone the wankers who started "the WELL" and AOL(gack!)
  • I've been searching for a while but didn't found it.
    Anybody else knows where is the current ranking of votes?

  • Linus all the way (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rixstep ( 611236 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:32PM (#9109015) Homepage
    Regardless of category. And we don't even run Linux here. But there is no better candidate, and that's pretty obvious.

  • I would nominate... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by buckeyeguy ( 525140 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:32PM (#9109016) Homepage Journal
    Phil Katz, creator of the ZIP compressed file format. Widely used, and in some ways fundamental to personal computing. Sadly, it'd be a posthumous nom, since, according to a Wall St. Journal article (whose text was copied in the following link), he died in a cheap hotel with a bottle of peppermint schnapps in his arms. [bbsdocumentary.com]

  • List of already inducted for the lazy. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Retired Replicant ( 668463 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:39PM (#9109099)
    These folks have already been inducted in past years:
    • John Vincent Atanasoff
    • Charles Babbage
    • Tim Berners-Lee
    • Clifford Berry
    • Nolan Bushnell
    • Seymour Cray
    • Michael Dell
    • Douglas Engelbart
    • Lee Felsenstein
    • Dr. Coleman Furr
    • William H. Gates III
    • Marcian Edward Hoff
    • Herman Hollerith
    • Grace Murray Hopper
    • Steve Jobs
    • Andrew Kay
    • Gary Kildall
    • Jack St. Clair Kilby
    • Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace
    • James Martin
    • Sid Meier
    • William D. Mensch, Jr.
    • Jay Miner
    • Dennis Ritchie
    • Henry (Ed) Roberts
    • Sir Clive Sinclair
    • Alan Mathison Turing
    • Ed Yourdon
    • Gerald M. Weinberg
    • Stephen Wozniak

  • Ada (Score:3, Informative)

    by UserChrisCanter4 ( 464072 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:40PM (#9109106)
    Where is Lady Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer?

    She wrote a functional program for a later, base-10 analog version of Babbage's differential engine. The catch was that the device had plans, but was never actually constructed. Years later, when they actually got around to building (or emulating, I'm not sure) the beast, Ada's software ran correctly.

    Anyone else care to claim that they could step up to that challenge. Write a program in what would essentially be assembly, for a computer that's never been built, and you're the first one to ever write a program.

    Incidentally, she has been honored by having a lesser-used language named after her (Ada, obviously).

  • Moore's Law? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Humorously_Inept ( 777630 )
    As long as you're going to assign value to Moore's Law, which really isn't a law at all, you might as well get it correct. "Moore's Law" is a phrase coined by the press, and it's transistor count that should double every 18 months, not computing power. The two are not necessarily proportional.

  • Larry Ellison: Founder of Oracle, a database company

    Calling Oracle "a" database company is like calling Rupert Murdoch "a" guy in the TV industry.

    Adam Osborne: Founder of Osborne Computers, maker of the first portable computer

    Osborne is deserving IMHO, tho "portable" is relative :)

    Ken Thompson: Co-developer (with Dennis Ritchie) of UNIX operating system for Bell Labs, Co-led (with Dennis Ritchie) team that developed the C programming language

    Um. You mean Thompson isn't already inducted? What dr

  • Missing nominees (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:53PM (#9109246)
    • Monte Davidoff [theregister.co.uk] - co-author (along with Gates and Allen) of Microsoft/Altair BASIC

    • Richard Stallman [wired.com] - Pioneer of open software movement/GNU

    • Niklaus Wirth [inf.ethz.ch] - PARC researcher responsible for Algol, Pascal, Modula-2, Laser Printers, and more

    • Marvin Minsky [mit.edu] - Built the first neural net AI in 1951

    • Seymour Papert [mit.edu] - Developer of LOGO and another AI pioneer

    • Tommy Flowers [connected-earth.com] - Built one of the earliest electronic computers, with the practical application of codebreaking during WWII

    • Donald Knuth [stanford.edu] - Regarded by many as the "Father of Computer Science".

    • Edsger Wybe Dijkstra [utexas.edu] - The guy leading the way to abolish the GOTO statement is surely a hall-of-famer!

    • Konrad Zuse [vt.edu] - Another early computer pioneer that due to politics and circumstances beyond his control was never able to be fully-recognized.

    • Jeff Raskin [sourceforge.net] - Creator of the Macintosh and pioneer in computer-human interfaces.

  • No Andressen! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GPLDAN ( 732269 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @01:57PM (#9109302)
    Please, take him off the list. It's like inducting Britney Spears into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

    What would his bust say? "Walked out of the University of Illinois NCSA, with the Mosaic code under his coat. Started a private company with the code. His company pushed some inventions, like Javascript and getting SSL in broswers to fuel E-Commerce on the net, but by all accounts - he's failed at everything else he's ever done. Took his money and went to live on a farm."

    Not real impressive.

    • Re:No Andressen! (Score:4, Informative)

      by ggwood ( 70369 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @02:34PM (#9109692) Homepage Journal
      Actually, Andressen is the only one I was considering voting for. The web browser made the internet something everyone wanted to have and the interface to it seemed to come out of nowhere far after it was techincally achievable.

      However, I didn't vote for anyone because I am not knowledgable enough to know how much of the credit Andressen really deserves - and GPLDAN may well be right that he deserves very little - I don't know, but statements like "he's failed at everything else he's ever done" don't lead me to believe GPLDAN is an unbiased observer.

      Most all of the achievements on the list were worked on by many people and competing groups simultainously. This leads to complexity in awarding personal credit. First person to get it to work? First to make it work in a user friendly fashion? First to popularize it? Lifetime of good work? I assume this Hall of Fame has some criteria for selection which probably we should all read before voting, but I guess by leaving it unspecified, they are allowing us to determine what the rules should be for such a Hall.

      My thought on Mosaic was that since it was technically achievable far earlier, but not implemented so it was revolutionary.

      Whereas something like the C programming language is similar to other languages. Perhaps there is an even "better" langauge then C, but C became popular. It was an incremental change which was just big enough of an increment that people jumped onto it.

      Certainly C is more widely used then Mosaic, but if C were not invented, people would have used a similar language, whereas if Mosaic were not invented we'd be using Gopher?

  • Many missing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by majid ( 306017 ) on Monday May 10, 2004 @08:32PM (#9112850) Homepage
    This "hall of fame" has zero credibility

    Babbage is there, but not George Boole or Blaise Pascal...

    Alan Kay, Norbert Wiener, Edsger Dijkstra, Donald Knuth or Ken Thompson are not there, but frankly minor contributors like Coleman Furr (who?) are.

    This looks like the Nobel Literature prixe, where those deliberately passed over (usually because they were too controversial like Joyce or Borges) constitute a much more eminent group than many of those who did get it.

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