Backslash man dies
Bob Bemer -- the man who developed the ASCII coding system, pioneered the Escape Key (found on all PCs and Macs), and introduced the backslash into computer use -- has died at his home in Texas following a battle with cancer. He was 84.
Bemer worked at RAND Corporation, Marquardt, Lockheed, IBM Corp., Univac, Bull GE, General Electric Co., and Honeywell Inc.
At Lockheed, he devised the first computerized 3D dynamic perspective, prelude to today's computer animation. And in 1959 his internal IBM memo proposed word processing.
Pronounced "As-kee," the American Standard Code for Information Interchange is an encoding system that allows computers to see text as a series of numbers. He contributed 10 ASCII characters, including the escape, or "ESC," key and the backslash.
Bemer invented the escape sequence concept, which is critical to terminals (for colors and screen movement), and for laser printers (which won't work without it). It is also the critical coding concept now used in hyperlinks. At its most basic level, the escape sequence is a command that tells a computer to make a shift in its processing -- allowing a user to move up, down or sideways through files, programs or networks.
He is recognized as the first person in the world to publish warnings of the Year 2000 'Millennium Bug' problem -- first in 1971, and again in 1979.
Macworld.co.uk
Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world
jfruh
Apple syncing patent can't come soon enough
pasmith
New Twitter features borrow from 3rd party clients
Esther Schindler
Open Source Changes the Software Acquisition Process
mikelgan
How to set up continuous podcast play on the new iTunes
David Strom
Five important Windows 7 mobility features
sjvn
Guard your Wi-Fi for your own sake
Sandra Henry-Stocker
Grepping on Whole Words
Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News
Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325
Join the conversation here
Quick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.
Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.













