Computer scientist who invented "cut, copy and paste" is dead
Computer scientist Larry Tesler, the man famed for inventing the Cut, Copy and Paste function on computers, has died.
The former Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo! employee was 74.
Keep Reading
While Tesler might not have been as famous as other revolutionaries in the technology industry, his creation has no doubt helped millions of people around the world.
Honestly, where would we be if we couldn't cut, copy and paste text, images, videos and everything else? Students trying to finish their assessments would be stuffed.
Analysts copying data from one spreadsheet to another would have their workloads explode. Trying to make a fire meme would take so much longer.
Born in America, Mr Tesler went to Stanford University to study computer science, before joining Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973. It was here that he created the classic Crtl+C, Crtl+V (although it was probably way too early to be doing keyboard shortcuts).
According to Gizmodo, Larry, along with Tim Mott, helped develop a 'mouse-driven graphical user interface' called Gypsy, which was the first version of the computer layout that we know today.
Gypsy is described as a 'click and type interface in which the user could, at any time, enter text at the current insertion point, or click where the insertion point should be repositioned'. Sounds basic, but you have to remember this was decades ago.
After coming up with that groundbreaking technology, he went to Apple from 1980 until 1997, where he worked in various roles, including Vice President of AppleNet and Apple's Chief Scientist.
He then co-founded a company called Stagecast Software, which helped kids learn programming concepts, before joining Amazon in 2001.
He eventually became Vice President of Shopping Experience and then jumped to Yahoo!, where he was in charge of the user experience and design group.
His final years were spent doing consulting work.
esler was also responsible for developing the software which allows a user to start using the keyboard when opening an application.
Agencies...
