The Creation of the UNIX Operating System: Dennis Ritchie Biography

Dennis M. Ritchie

1941 -- Born in Bronxville, N.Y.

1963 -- Graduates from Harvard University with a B.S. in Physics

1968 -- Receives from Harvard University a Ph.D. in mathematics

1967 -- Joins Bell Labs, following his father, Alistair E. Ritchie, who had a long career there

1968 -- Joins the Bell Labs team working on Multics, a joint effort of Bell Labs, MIT and GE to develop a general computer operating system

1972 -- Creates C language

1989 -- Receives with Ken Thompson the NEC C&C Prize for significant contributions to computer technology

1983 -- Named Bell Labs Fellow

1988 -- Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering

1990 -- Appointed head, System Software Research Department in the Computer Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs, Murray Hill, N.J.

1995 -- Heads the effort to create the Plan 9 operating system

1996 -- Heads the effort to create the Inferno^(TM) operating system

1998 -- Awarded with Kenneth Thompson the U.S. National Medal of Technology for the development of the UNIX system