Communications of the ACM
The Computer Scientist Responsible for Cut, Copy, and Paste, Has Passed Away
Larry Tesler, who was closely involved in the invention of many of the now-familiar low-level interaction techniques used in all graphical user interfaces (and received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Practice Award in 2011 as a result), passed away earlier this
Credit: Imgur.com
The advent of the personal computer wasn't just about making these powerful machines available to everyone, it was also about making them accessible and usable, even for those lacking a computer science degree. Larry Tesler, who passed away on Monday, might not be a household name like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but his contributions to making computers and mobile devices easier to use are the highlight of a long career influencing modern computing.
Born in 1945 in New York, Tesler went on to study computer science at Stanford University, and after graduation he dabbled in artificial intelligence research (long before it became a deeply concerning tool) and became involved in the anti-war and anti-corporate monopoly movements, with companies like IBM as one of his deserving targets. In 1973 Tesler took a job at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) where he worked until 1980. Xerox PARC is famously known for developing the mouse-driven graphical user interface we now all take for granted, and during his time at the lab Tesler worked with Tim Mott to create a word processor called Gypsy that is best known for coining the terms "cut," "copy," and "paste" when it comes to commands for removing, duplicating, or repositioning chunks of text.
From Gizmodo
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