- Robert S. Barton
Robert S. "Bob" Barton is recognized as the chief architect of the Burroughs B5000 and other computers such as the B1700. He directed a research lab for Burroughs Corporation in La Jolla, CA. He also taught, from 1968-1973, as a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Utah with
David C. Evans ,Ivan Sutherland andThomas Stockham .Barton was the first recipient of the ACM/IEEE Computer Society
Eckert-Mauchly Award in 1979: "For his outstanding contributions in basing the design of computing systems on the hierarchical nature of programs and their data."He was also recognized as a "Charter Computer Pioneer" by the IEEE Computer Society for his work in "Language Directed Architecture." Barton designed machines at a more abstract level, not tied to the technology constraints of the time. He employed high level languages and a
stack machine in his design of the B5000. Barton's B5000 design lives on in the modernUnisys ClearPath/MCP systems. His work with stack architectures was the first implementation in amainframe computer .Hewlett-Packard would later use the stack architecture in itsHP calculators withreverse polish notation .Barton's thinking has been broadly influential. He influenced the thinking of
Alan Kay in the development of object-oriented programming,Smalltalk , and the modern GUI systems built into theMacintosh and laterMicrosoft Windows .His students at the University of Utah included:
Alan Kay ,James H. Clark co-founder ofSilicon Graphics ,John Warnock , co-founder ofAdobe Systems ,Ed Catmull ofPixar , Alan Ashton co-founder ofWord Perfect ,Duane Call co-founder of Computer System Architects,Henri Gouraud (Gouraud Shading ) andBui Tuong Phong (Phong shading and thePhong reflection model ).External links
* [http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html The Early History of Smalltalk by Alan C. Kay]
* [http://www.cs.utah.edu/dept/history/ History of the School of Computing - University of Utah]
* [http://www.coe.utah.edu/about/History/history.pdf/attach/history.pdf History of the University of Utah School of Engineering p.52, 63,]
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