Steven Levy
1951 
Philadelphia [USA]
He is an American journalist who writes about computing, technology, cryptography, the Internet, computer security, and privacy.
He has published articles on the subject in Newsweek magazine, to which he contributes regularly.
He is the author of Hackers (1984) and Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything (1994), among other books.
Contemporary computing celebrities to Steven Levy
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Alan Sugar
1947
Hackney (London) [United Kingdom]
Sugar founded Amstrad (Alan Michael Sugar Trading) in 1968. It began as an importer/exporter and general wholesaler, but soon specialized in consumer electronics, eventually manufacturing its own products.
In 1984, recognizing the opportunity of the personal computing era, Amstrad launched the Amstrad CPC 464, an 8-bit machine that competed with machines like the Commodore 64 and the popular Sinclair ZX Spectrum. -
Terry Colligan
1947
[USA]
† 2018
Terrance Colligan was the founder of Rational Systems (later renamed Tenberry Software), which, among other things, developed the DOS extender DOS/16M (for 16-bit systems) and DOS/4G (for 32-bit systems). This extension would be remembered for its DOS/4GW version included with Watcom compilers, which would eventually become an industry standard.
There was also a DOS/4GX for Quarterdeck's DESQview/X.
This allowed programs that took advantage of the new processors' real mode to run, even though DOS ran in protected mode for backward compatibility.
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Bob Frankston
1949
New York [USA]
Creator of the famous VisiCalc spreadsheet along with Dan Bricklin that boosted sales of the Apple II computer.
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Steve Wozniak
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Bjarne Stroustrup
1950
Aarhus [Denmark]
Professor of Computer Science at Texas A&M University, known for developing the C++ programming language.
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Bill Atkinson
1951
[USA]
† 1951
He was a prominent employee of Apple Computer, in charge of part of the graphical interface.
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Dan Bricklin
1951
Philadelphia [USA]
Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston are the authors of the famous Visicalc software. The first version of Visicalc was developed for the Apple II; many believe the success of the latter was due to this combination.
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Philippe Kahn
1952
Paris [France]
Kahn is one of the four founders of Borland, created in 1983 when young Danish programmer Anders Hejlsberg reached an agreement with Philip Khan to sell the Pascal compiler that Anders had created for personal computers. Turbo Pascal was a compiler with an “environment” concept that was revolutionary at the time.
The company would be acquired by Micro Focus in 2009.
Then came:
Starfish Software, founded in 1994 (acquired by Motorola in 1998), LightSurf Technologies, founded in 1998 (acquired by VeriSign in 2005),
and Fullpower Technologies, founded in 2003. -
Dave DiOrio
1953
[USA]
† 2018
Designer of the integrated circuits that came with the Commodores.
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Steve Vickers
1953
[United Kingdom]
He wrote Sinclair BASIC for the ZX80, while working for Nine Tiles, and the ROM firmware and manuals for the Sinclair ZX81 and later the ROM for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, as well as helping with user documentation, while at Sinclair.
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Paul Allen
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Richard Stallman
1953
New York [USA]
The MIT hacker and founder of the free software movement and the Free Software Foundation.
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Andy Hertzfeld
1953
Philadelphia [USA]
After purchasing an Apple II in January 1978, he joined Apple Computer from August 1979 to March 1984, where he was a software designer for the Macintosh system.
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Susan Kare
1954
Ithaca [USA]
She was the graphic designer who created many of the elements of the Apple Macintosh graphical interface in the 1980s.
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Michael Sperberg-McQueen
1954
[USA]
C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen is an American markup language specialist. He was co-editor of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 spec (1998) and chair of the XML Schema working group.
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Steve Jobs
1955
San Francisco [USA]
† 2011
Steve Jobs was the co-founder and CEO of Apple, which he founded in 1976 with a childhood friend, Steve Wozniak, and with the help of Jobs's former Atari colleague, Ronald Wayne, in his garage.
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James Gosling
1955
Calgary [Canada]
Father of the Java programming language.
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Tim Berners-Lee
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Tim Bray
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Bill Gates
1955
Seattle [USA]
Bill Gates is a computer industry magnate, founder, along with Paul Allen, of the Microsoft company.
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Burrell Smith
1955
[USA]
The hardware engineer who designed the original Macintosh motherboard.
