ケン・トンプソン

ケン・トンプソン　/　けん・とんぷそん

American programmer

February 4, 1943 (age 83)　・　New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Louisiana
programmer
computer scientist

My Take

Ken Thompson is one of those rare people whose work is so foundational that most of the world runs on it without ever knowing his name. The guy co-created Unix at Bell Labs in the late 1960s, which is honestly a staggering thing to wrap your head around — every Linux server, every macOS machine, every Android phone is downstream of decisions he made in that era. He also invented the B language, the direct ancestor of C, and if that weren't enough, he later co-designed the Go programming language at Google in his late sixties. A Turing Award winner who just kept quietly building things for decades rather than writing books about himself or going on the conference circuit — that kind of low-ego, high-output career is genuinely rare in tech and I find it deeply admirable.

Overview

Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programming language, the direct predecessor to the C language, and was one of the creators and early developers of the Plan 9 operating system.

1. Profile

Name (English): ケン・トンプソン
Name (Japanese): ケン・トンプソン
Reading: けん・とんぷそん
Born: February 4, 1943 (age 83)
Zodiac / Chinese zodiac: Aquarius / Goat
Origin: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Blood type: Private
Height: Private
Agency: Private
Occupation: programmer / computer scientist

2. Background

Elementary school: Private
Junior high: Private
High school: Private
University: University of California, Berkeley

Awards & achievements

1983 Turing Award
1998 National Medal of Technology and Innovation
2003 Harold Pender Award
1982 IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award
1999 Tsutomu Kanai Award
1997 Computer History Museum Fellow
1994 Computer Pioneer Award
1983 ACM Software System Award

3. Relationships

Spouse: Private
Children: Private
Parents: Private
Siblings: Private

4. Personality

Motto

Private

5. Works & records

Category	Title	Role
Notable work	Belle	—
Notable work	Go	—
Notable work	Plan 9	—
Notable work	Multics	—
Notable work	dbm	—

6. Links

Official sitehttps://9p.io/cm/cs/who/ken/
Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B1%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%88%E3%83%B3%E3%83%97%E3%82%BD%E3%83%B3