Man Behind The PC

Reported July, 2007

LOS ANGELES (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- IBM fellow and Vice President of the Almaden research center, Dr. Mark Dean, built his 1965 Cobra replica with his own two hands. He is also known to his colleagues -- and the world -- as the creator of the PC. That desktop computer you use on a daily basis -- Dean is the man that put it all into one box.

"I like seeing people use what I have done," Dean says. "I get off on watching them be able to leverage the products or inventions or technologies that we have been able to develop."

Dean is also one of a handful of African Americans to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. "It's a great group of people that have been recognized," says Dean.

Dean and his team have opened the door to many great inventions. "I managed a team that built the first gigahertz microprocessor which was a big breakthrough, I managed a team that started the world's highest performance supercomputer which was BLUEGENE -- that was great," Dean recalls.

This remarkable electrical engineer utilizes his position to act as a great role model. "[He teaches us] that everything is possible. He never says 'no.' He never says that it's not possible," says E. Michael "Max" Maximilien, Ph.D., IBM Researcher and friend of Dean. "I think this kind of an attitude is key to making things that actually do change the world."

Dean isn't so concerned about his awards and accomplishments of the past. He hopes to be honored for what hasn't even been discovered yet. "It feels funny because there is so much more to do; I am not ready to stop," says Dean.

The of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

IBM Research, Almaden Research Center
San Jose, CA 95120
(408) 927-1283

For more information on computing and computer inventions:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. IEEE-USA
Washington, DC 20036-5104
202-785-0017
http://www.ieee.org
ieeeusa@ieee.org

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