Let's Raise A Glass To The Many Tech Pioneers Who Died In 2016 (slashdot.org)

In technology, you're always "standing on the shoulders" of those who came before you -- and together, each individual's contribution becomes part of a larger ongoing story. So as this year finally winds to a close, click through to see our list of some of the pioneers who left us in 2016. And feel free to share any memories and reflections of your own in the comments.

• David Balme, the lieutenant-commander in Britain's royal Navy during World War II who captured one of the Nazi's Enigma encryption device
• Jane Fawcett, one of the British codebreakers who deciphered a crucial Enigma-encoded message
• Erich Bloch, who helped develop the first IBM mainframe
• Intel CEO (and first hire) Andy Grove
• Ray Tomlinson, considered the inventor of email
• John Ellenby, "godfather of the modern laptop"
• Bill Campbell, the legendary tech executive who passed along his advice to Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's Larry Page, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos
• John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the earth
• Joe Sutter, the lead designer on the 747
• Bob Ebeling, one of five engineers who'd forewarned NASA that the Challenger Space Shuttle could explode at liftoff.
• Vera Rubin, the astronomer who helped confirm the existence of dark matter.
• The 'Radioactive Boy Scout', the ambitious teenager whose efforts to build a breeder reactor turned his parents' home in Michigan into an EPA superfund cleanup site.
• Sound designer Jory K. Prum, who worked on more than 120 video games
• David Bunnell, said to have founded more computer magazines than anyone (including PC Magazine and Macworld)

Comments

Re:What about Carrie Fisher?

[Y2K is bogus]

*quack* *quack* *quack*

Omission

[Empiric]

Surely Marvin Minsky should be present on this list.

Re:Omission

[Zocalo]

There are far too many other notable sci/tech omissions amongst Wikipedia's list of 2016 deaths. I started to list and link them, but it just got too damn depressing. :(

Also: Jay Forrester and Bob Fano

[saccade.com]

Also you should add Jay Forrester (inventor of core memory, among other things) and Bob Fano (founder of the MIT computer science lab).

RIP

[mfh]

2016 seems like a year where far too many awesome people died, but it's just the baby boomer curve.

2017 will be much worse.

Re: RIP

[serviscope_minor]

He's a 70 year-old baby boomer, though, so here's hoping for a Happy 2017.

If Trump dies, Pence is president. I hope Trump does not die.

Re: RIP

[haruchai]

And here, in words direct today from our new Leader, is some V. Putin bromantic fanfic:

https://twitter.com/realDonald...

Weren't you moved by the warmth of his New Year's Greetings?

Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me
and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love!
https://twitter.com/realDonald...

Re:RIP

[gravewax]

sad but I think this is more a sign of how people have become more aware and exposed to people through the internet. 20 years ago the media and communication that someone important died was non existent unless they were important enough to make the local news. As internet use and exposure continues to rise each year will seem like ever increasing numbers of well known people will die. The world is just a much smaller place than it used to be.

Re: RIP

[KozmoStevnNaut]

The size of his ego and the crassness of literally everything he does, is absolutely staggering.

Re: RIP

[PopeRatzo]

You're right. I just moved down here recently, and I hadn't really thought about it, but IAH is named for Pappy Bush, not Shrub.

Re: RIP

[haruchai]

The size of his ego and the crassness of literally everything he does, is absolutely staggering.

Much as I've always considered him a deplorable human being, he's not the real problem - he didn't elect himself.
The problem are the people who supported his campaign and the voters who elected him

Re: RIP

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I agree.

The enablers are the truly despicable shitheels.

Seymour Papert, predeceased by

[jpellino]

Steve Ocko - two thirds of the team at the Media Lab who along with Mitch Resnick provided the leadership that kept new cool things in front of kids and let them express creativity in tech in ays that were engaging and fun. The three of them once presented via satellite from our place to kids who said hi then quickly wanted to speak to the kids on set building the whatever out of legos and code. They realized that the kids knew where the real action was.

Re: What about Carrie Fisher?

[haruchai]

>but you'll never forget Princess Leia.

Because Disney won't let you.

So not all Disney princesses have to spend 20 years in the Vault?

Bummer.

[mmell]

APK didn't make the list. Oh, well - maybe next year?

Once again, you forgot Dave Needle.

[Anonymous Coward]

From Wikipedia:

David Lewis Needle (1947 – February 20, 2016) was a key engineer and co-chief architect in the creation of the Amiga 1000 computer with Jay Miner, Dave Morse, and RJ Mical. He was one of the main designers and developers of the custom chips of the Amiga computer. Later he co-invented the Atari Lynx and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer with Dave Morse and RJ Mical.

A 1995 article in Next Generation commented "It's true that of the machines that Mical and Needle have created, only the Amiga has been a true global mass market hit ... But it's only fair to put forward the argument that this is down to the marketing of the machines rather than the quality of the product."

Dave Needle died on February 20, 2016.

They should add, "and the idiots at Slashdot forgot about him."

Re:Andy grove doesn't count

[cheesybagel]

No. Andy Grove was actually from the time when people who knew tech led tech.

Seymour Papert

[jaskerr]

You should include Seymour Papert, co-inventor of the Logo programming language and education theorist, early AI researcher, and mensch. He will be missed.

And Slashdot is well and truly dead, judging from

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

The massive amount of shitposting this article got.