Gordon Bell

C. Gordon Bell ( born August 19, 1934 in Kirksville, Missouri) is an American computer engineer and manager. He was in the 1960s at DEC, where he developed several computer the PDP series and in the 1970s headed the VAX development.

Bell was busy early in the family for electrical installation and repair of electrical equipment. He studied electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Bachelor 's degree in 1956 and a master's degree in 1957. Afterwards he taught as a Fulbright Scholar computer science at the University of New South Wales in Australia before he returned to MIT, where he worked in the speech Computation Laboratory of voice coding programs. In 1960 he transferred to the newly established computer firm DEC. He developed the input / output system of the PDP -1 and was then one of the main architects, for example in the PDP 4 and 6, 1966, he went to Carnegie Mellon University to teach computer science. In 1972 he returned as Vice President of Technology ( VP of Engineering ) to DEC and led the VAX Development ( whose main architect was his graduate student William D. Strecker ). In 1983 he left DEC after a heart attack.

Then he was to start up their own computer companies involved ( Encore Computer and 1986 Ardent computers that merged with Stellar 1989 Star Dent computer) and was a consultant to various organizations and companies; among other things, he founded the Computing and Information Science and Engineering Directorate ( CISE ) The National Science Foundation ( NSF) in 1986. From 1991 he was a consultant at Microsoft and from 1995 a senior scientist at Microsoft Research.

In 1992 he received the first John von Neumann Medal of the IEEE in 1991 and the National Medal of Technology. 1987 was donated to his initiative of the Gordon Bell Prize of the ACM and the IEEE for parallel computing development. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the IEEE and the ACM, the National Academy of Sciences ( 2007), the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (2009) and the National Academy of Engineering ( 1977). In 2010 he was made an honorary Doctor of Carnegie Mellon University and he holds honorary doctorates from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute ( 1993). In 1975 he received the W. Wallace McDowell Award.

With his wife, Gwen Bell in 1979, he was co-founder of the Computer Museum in Boston ( the many exhibits received from DEC ). It closed in 1999; the exhibits were partly to the Boston Museum of Science, partially ans Founded in 1996, Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

Writings

  • Daniel Siewiorek, Allen Newell Computer Structures: Reading and Examples, McGraw Hill1982 ( first 1971)
  • With J. Craig Mudge. John E. McNamara Computer Engineering: A DEC view of hardware system design, Digital Press, Bedford, Massachusetts in 1978
  • With John McNamara High Tech Ventures: The Guide for Entrepreneurial Success, Addison -Wesley 1991
  • Jim Gemmell Total Recall: How the E-memory revolution will change everything, New York, Dutton 2009 ( Foreword Bill Gates ), paperback edition as Your life uploaded: the digital way to better memory, health and productivity, 2010
Kirksville (Missouri) IEEE John von Neumann Medal National Medal of Technology and Innovation National Academy of Engineering Mountain View, California Integrated Authority File
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