Wall of Fame - pioneers of computer technology

The Wall of Fame numbers 152 members in 36 separate categories. All the names and groups are listed here. Visit the HNF exhibition to experience the Wall of Fame presentation in all its glory with photos, films, texts and audio material.

1. Basics:
Claude Shannon (Information theory)
Noam Chomsky (Formal languages)
Lotfi Zadeh (Fuzzy logic)
Norbert Wiener (Cybernetics)

 

2. Transistor:
William Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain (Germanium transistor)
Gordon Teal (Silicon transistor)

 

3. First Generation:
Maurice Wilkes (EDSAC)
Tom Kilburn (Manchester "Baby")
Sergej Lebedev (USSR computers)
Jay Forrester (MIT computers)

 

4. Germany:
Heinz Nixdorf (NCAG)
Heinz Billing (First German electronic computer)
Joachim Lehmann (East German computers)
Friedrich Bauer (Stack principle, PERM etc.)

 

5. Mainframes:
Fred Brooks (IBM 360)
Gene Amdahl (Amdahl computers)
Heinz Zemanek (Mailuefterl computer)
Fritz-Rudolf Güntsch (influential scholar & administrator)

 

6. Mini Computer:
Ken Olsen, Gordon Bell (DEC)
An Wang (Wang)
Otto Müller, Ilse Müller (Nixdorf, CTM)

 

7. Computer Chip:
Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce (Fairchild, Intel)
Jack Kilby (TI IC)

 

8. Microprocessor:
Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin (Intel 4004)
Jerry Sanders (AMD)
James Clark (SGI processor)
Chuck Peddle (MOS Technologies)

 

9. Micro Computer:
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak (Apple)
Ed Roberts (Altair)
François Gernelle (Micral)

 

10. Personal Computer:
Don Estridge, William Lowe (IBM PC)
Robert Taylor (Xerox Alto)
Jef Raskin (Macintosh)
Rod Canion (Compaq)

 

11. Computer Systems:
Andreas von Bechtolsheim (Sun)
Mark Hannah (SGI)
Jeff Hawkins (Palm Pilot)
Bill Moggridge (First laptop)

 

12. Supercomputer:
Seymour Cray (Cray)
Daniel Hillis (Thinking Machine)
Thomas Sterling (Linux cluster)

 

13. Processor Technology:
Carver Mead (VLSI)
John Cocke (RISC)
Robert Dennard (Transistor storage)
Alain Martin (Asynchronous processor)

 

14. Peripherals:
Douglas Engelbart (Mouse)
Alan Shugart (Hard disk)
Gary Starkweather (Laser printer)
Wolfgang Helfrich (TN-effect)

 

15. Computer Science:
Donald Knuth ("The Art of Computer Programming")
Edsger Dijkstra (Structured programming)
Niklaus Wirth (various languages)
Charles Simonyi (Microsoft)

 

16. Operating Systems:
Linus Torvalds (Linux)
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie (UNIX)
Gary Kildall (CP/M)
Tim Paterson (QDOS/MS-DOS)

 

17. Programming Languages:
John Backus (FORTRAN)
Grace Hopper (Compiler)
John Kemeny, Tom Kurtz (BASIC)
James Gosling (Java)

 

18. Interfaces:
Alan Kay (Graphic User Interface)
Ivan Sutherland (Virtual Reality)
Susan Kare (Apple icons)
 

 

 

19. Data Bank:
Larry Ellison (Oracle)
Edgar Codd (Relational data bank)
Wayne Ratliff (dBase)

 

20. Application Programs:
Dan Bricklin, Mitch Kapor (Speadsheets)
Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica)
Michael Shrayer (Word processing)
Kai Krause (Computer graphics)

 

21. Software Houses:
Hasso Plattner (SAP)
Ross Perot (EDS)
Robert Young (Red Hat)

 

22. Artificial Intelligence:
Ed Feigenbaum (Expert systems)
John McCarthy (LISP)
Frans Morsch ("Fritz" chess programs)
Wolfgang Wahlster ("Verbmobil" speech processing software)

 

23. Computer Graphics:
Daniel Langlois (Softimage)
Ed Catmull (RenderMan, Pixar)
Benoit Mandelbrot (Fractals)
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann (MIRALab)

 

24. Robotics:
Rodney Brooks (hexapods, facial robots)
Ichiro Kato (Bipedal robots)
Joseph Engelberger (Industrials robots)
Gerd Hirzinger (Hands)

 

25. Networks:
Larry Roberts, Frank Heart (ARPANET)
Vinton Cerf (TCP/IP)
Robert Metcalfe (Ethernet)
Ray Tomlinson (electronic mail)

 

26. World Wide Web:
Tim Berners-Lee (WWW)
Marc Andreessen (Netscape browser)
Larry Page, Sergey Brin (Google)
Pierre Omidyar (eBay)

 

27. Cryptology:
Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman (Public-key cryptology)
Ronald Rivest (RSA)
Phil Zimmermann (PGP)
Wau Holland (CCC)

 

28. Executives:
Bill Gates (Microsoft)
Bill Hewlett, David Packard (Hewlett-Packard)
Andy Grove (Intel)
Hans-Olaf Henkel (IBM Germany/Europe)

 

29. Media:
Esther Dyson (Release 2.0)
Wolfgang Back, Wolfgang Rudolph (Television computer shows)
Walter Fuchs (Early introductions)
Werner "Tiki" Küstenmacher (PC books)

 

30. Games:
Nolan Bushnell (Atari)
Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo)
Bruce Artwick (Flight simulator)
John Conway ("Life")

 

31. Teams:
Californian Hacker of the 1970s
Japanese Otaku
Indian programmers
Dotcommies of the 1990s

 

32. Science Fiction:
William Gibson (Cyberpunk)
Isaac Asimov (Robots)
Neal Stephenson ("Cryptonomicon")
Stanislaw Lem (Robots, Virtual Reality)

 

33. Virtual Characters:
Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)
Pac-Man, Kyoko Date (Virtual celebrity)
Ananova (News avatar)

 

34. Audiovision:
Karlheinz Brandenburg, Bernhard Grill, Harald Popp, Heinz Gerhäuser, Jürgen Herre, Ernst Eberlein (MP3)
Robert Glaser (Real Networks)
Shawn Fanning (Napster)
Kraftwerk (Techno music)

 

35. Philosophy:
Joseph Weizenbaum (Computer critic)
Marshall McLuhan (Media guru)
Max Bense, Gotthard Günther (Computer philosophy)

 

36. Paderborn:
Karl-Heinz Stiller (Wincor Nixdorf)
Burkhard Monien (University)
Jürgen Sonntag (b.i.b.)
Horst Joepen (Webwasher)