May 22, 2024 13:20:00

[Obituary] Father of the minicomputer, Gordon Bell, passes away

Gordon Bell , a computer engineer who designed computers at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and helped shape the minicomputer industry in the 1960s, died on May 17, 2024 at the age of 89. His family said the cause of death was pneumonia.

C. Gordon Bell, Creator of a Personal Computer Prototype, Dies at 89 - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/technology/c-gordon-bell-dead.html

Gordon Bell, an architect of our digital age, dies at age 89 | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/gordon-bell-an-architect-of-our-digital-age-dies-at-age-89/

Born in Kirksville, Missouri in 1934, Bell earned a degree in electrical engineering from MIT before being recruited by DEC founders Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1960. As an early researcher at DEC, Bell was instrumental in developing smaller, more affordable computers. During his time at DEC, he invented the first integrated circuit for serial communications, the UART .

Bell and DEC were looking to introduce small, powerful machines that could be purchased at a fraction of the cost of the expensive computers that computer companies like IBM were selling, and Bell is credited with designing all of DEC's early products for what was then called the 'minicomputer market.'

Later, as the first and founding assistant director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering Division, he led the effort to link supercomputers around the world over the Internet, transforming the way researchers collaborate and share data. In the 1970s, as an engineering manager, he oversaw the development of the 'VAX' architecture. After retiring from DEC in 1983, Bell continued to work as an entrepreneur, policy advisor, and researcher. In 1987, the Gordon Bell Award was established in his honor to recognize outstanding achievements in high performance computing.

Bell was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received the National Medal of Technology from President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and the IEEE's John von Neumann Medal in 1992.

Upon hearing of his passing, John MacShay, co-founder

of the Computer History Museum (CHM) in California , offered a eulogy. CHM also posted a notice of Bell's passing on its homepage to express its condolences.

Home - CHM
https://computerhistory.org/

'During my time at Microsoft, Gordon met with me many times, was a sounding board for me, and helped me with problems I was facing,' said Ray Ozzie, a former chief technology officer at Microsoft who studied under Bell at Microsoft Research. 'Gordon, we will miss you. Thank you for what you gave to each and every one of us. You were one of my heroes.'

In 2005, just after joining Microsoft, I was invited to speak at our first senior leadership retreat at Semiahmoo.

My themes as a newly-arrived technical leader, who was trying to listen and observe, revolved around the need to slash complexity - that self-imposed constraints…

— ray ozzie (@rozzie) May 21, 2024

On the social networking site Hacker News, a startup founder reminisced , 'I remember Bell becoming an early investor and having dinner with us.'