Butler Lampson

Updated: 11/16/2019 by Computer Hope
Butler Lampson

Name: Butler W. Lampson

Born: December 23, 1943, in Washington, DC

Computer-related contributions

  • Computer scientist known for SDS 940 and Xerox Alto, now considered to be the first personal computer.
  • Lampson and others were part of Project GENIE at UC Berkeley, which help developed the Berkeley Timesharing System for Scientific Data Systems' SDS 940 computer.
  • Founding members of Xerox PARC in 1970, where he worked in the CSL (Computer Science Laboratory).
  • Helped create laser printer design; Bravo, the first WYSIWYG text formatting program; Ethernet, the first high-speed LAN; and several programming languages (e.g., Euclid).

Honors and awards

  • A. M. Turing Award (1992).
  • Charles Stark Draper Prize (2004).
  • Inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum (2006).

Related computer pioneers

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