Magyar News, 2004. szeptember-2005. augusztus (15. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2005-05-01 / 9. szám
S B B s A HUNGARIAN - AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY with 4K memory and had lots of vacuum tubes. Every time they were shut down and restarted in the morning, some of the tubes would bum out. He became good friends with the engineer and later volunteered to be a night watchman so they could leave the computers on. Here, while he was watching them, had time to write his first compiler and sold it to a state organization as an innovation. Around this time he met some Danish computer people at a trade fair in Budapest and showed them a demo program he has written. They took it back to Denmark to show their superiors. They liked it and offered him a job. After graduating from high school a year early in 1966, he went to Denmark to work for A/S Regnecentralen in Copenhagen, at his fathers urging - (his father would later suffer for it because he didn't return to Hungary). After a year and a half, working on second-generation computers as a programmer, he saved enough money to come to the U.S. and enroll at the University of California at Berkeley in 1968. He worked at the UC Berkeley Computer Center on a CDC 6400, third-generation computer and at other jobs, working his way thru college as a "starving student". (As a foreign student he couldn't get a real job nor was he ellegeable for scholarships). After all the hardships he had to endure, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Mathematics in five years. He continued his graduate studies at DR. CHARLES SiMONYL PhD by Louis D. Voros CHARLES SIMONYI is a self-made billionaire, (#445, on the World's Richest People, in 2002), engineer, businessman, and philanthropist. He is an internationally renowned computer scientist also regarded as a programming legend who has been one of the most influential figures behind the development of the personal computer revolution. He is the creator of the socalled "Hungarian Notation" (used in programming, a naming convention). He lives in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington and is co-owner of Intentional Software Corporation. He was bom in Budapest in 1948, the oldest son of the famed professor of Electrical Engineering and Physicist, Karoly Simonyi, (1916-2001) winner of the Kossuth Award and the Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Gold Medal. His mother Zsuzsa, was a French-Spanish teacher. His father's family were simple farmers in the town of Egyhazasfalu in Dr. Charles Simonyi Sopron County. “Egyházasfalu” translated means - Onehouse village. It really means a village with a church. This goes back to the Turkish occupation. Young Charles was first exposed to computers in 1964 when his father arranged for him to assist an engineer working on one of the few computers in Hungary. First, he would get him lunch and coffee, hold the probes and be useful. The computers were Russian-made Ural II SKAT, the 240foot yacht Károly Simonyi, father of Charles Stanford University, earning his Ph.D. in computer science in 1977. He worked for the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center from 1972-80 and here he developed Bravo, the first WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processor on the Alto PC. Looking for better opportunities in November of 1980, he met with Bill Gates. They hit it off and he joined Microsoft We were walking along the harbor with our tour guide in beautiful Copenhagen, Denmark last August, when we came upon a beautiful, modern-looking 240ft yacht, named SKAT, tide-up along the pier. We remarked what a nice boat it was. Our "know-it-all" tour guide said, "Oh, it belongs to Mr. Charles Simonyi - he works for Microsoft - he is Hungarian also". I must admit, I never heard of him but then I'm not a computer geek. It did make me curious. Most Hungarians I know don't travel on their own yacht. After arriving home, I did a quick search on the Internet and there he was. After reading some of the information about him, I thought he qualified to be included with the Hungarians who made a significant contribution to this country and the world at large.
