Dennis Ritchie

INDUCTED IN THE CLASS OF 2002

Notable accomplishments:

• Co-wrote (with Ken Thompson) the B programming language (1969)
• Developed the C programming language (1972)
• Assisted Ken Thompson in creating the Unix operating system (1973)

Quotes:
“At some point when I was an undergraduate in college (about 1960) I went to some non-course talks about computers that intrigued me, and I signed up for the regular (introductory) one-term course. The first part was about analog computers, then a brief bit about punch-card equipment, then some about real digital computers, in which we prepared a program for the Univac I. I was an undergraduate Physics major, but began to intrigued more by both the theory and practice of computing. So in grad school my thesis work was fairly theoretical (hierarchies of recursive functions), but I also began to get more into the practical aspects. I was for three years one of the teaching assistants for successive versions of that same introductory course – which by that time had moved to the IBM 7094.” (Correspondence with Anders Jensen-Urstad, Feb. 6, 2003)

“The single thing that I’m happiest about is that the notion of making the Unix system portable was mostly mine. C was already implemented on several quite different machines and operating systems, Unix was already being distributed on the PDP-11, but the portability of the whole system was new.” (Correspondence with Anders Jensen-Urstad, Feb. 6, 2003)

“The point of C (as distinct from its immediate predecessor B) was to take a language that was designed with word-oriented machines in mind and adapt it to the newer hardware that became available, specifically the PDP-11. It did not take long to learn that the kind of things introduced early on would also make it adaptable to much different machines.” (Interview in Java Report, July 2000)

Suggested reading:
“Unix: A History and a Memoir” by Brian Kernighan (2019)

Learn more:
Dennis Ritchie’s archived personal page