Farewell legend Fernando 'Corby' Corbató, the father of computer passwords

One of MIT's legendary computer scientists and also the most respected name in the information technology world: Fernando 'Corby' Corbató died at the age of 93, in his co-workers and relatives at home in Newton, Massachusetts, USA.

This is a great loss for not only Fernando 'Corby' Corbató's family and friends, but also technology lovers around the world. To send gratitude to the genius computer scientist with great contributions to this mankind, let's take a look at the memorable milestones in his respectable life and career.

Fernando 'Corby' Corbató (1926 - 2019)

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About the life and career of Fernando 'Corby' Corbató

Corbató was born on July 1, 1926 in Oakland, California. His father was the Hermenegildo Corbató, a famous Spanish literature professor, and his mother Charlotte (née Carella Jensen) Corbató. By 1930, Mr. Hermenegildo was appointed to work at the University of California (UCLA), the Corbató family moved to live in Los Angeles to serve the work of his father. It was this move that greatly influenced Fernando 'Corby' Corbató, as well as his later learning and career.

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Corbató is retained at MIT's Computer Science Center

In 1943, Corbató was recruited by UCLA, but not yet enrolled, World War II broke out, he was recruited by the Navy and served many important campaigns. Retaining the academic results and joining the invisible army is a positive turning point in Corbató's life. During the years of the US Navy service, Fernando 'Corby' Corbató had access to a myriad of state-of-the-art equipment and systems. With a curious, curious nature and an extremely intelligent mind, Corbató quickly learned how to operate and master most of the complex computer systems used in the unit, so he had He was reminded by his superiors that he was tasked with operating and maintaining the computer system, and it was this "left-handed profession" that inspired his future career intensely.

The war ended, Corbató left the Navy in 1946 and rushed to study. He attended the California Institute of Technology and received a bachelor's degree in physics in 1950. After 6 years (1956), Corbató received a doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - one of the institutions The world's most prestigious university and graduate education.

Shortly after earning his Ph.D., Corbató was retained at MIT's Computer Science Center, and officially became a professor in 1965. He spent almost his entire career at MIT.

Fernando 'Corby' Corbat is a veteran of the US Navy, and an alumnus of the California Institute of Technology, as well as MIT. He has full family life with his wife Emily Corbató, 2 daughters Carolyn and Nancy, 2 sons David and Jason Gish; Charles's brother; and 5 grandchildren.

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Fernando 'Corby' Corbató and the invention of the password

Computer scientist born in 1926 was the biggest contributor to some important advances in the field of computer science space, most notably the introduction of passwords - into achievements that he invented immediately in the first research project that he presided over, related to computer time sharing (computer time sharing).

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Fernando 'Corby' Corbató at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Corbató is the foundation for the formation and development of Computer Time-Sharing System (CTSS). This is considered one of the first "operating systems" in the world, allowing many people to use the computer at the same time, while contributing to speed up the speed of the programmers. In addition, CTSS is also recognized as the first computer system to use passwords.

The advent of passwords allows developers to work on shared computer systems through their own accounts. In this account, they can optionally store and back up their data in a completely secure manner.

CTSS is also considered a pioneering system in computer messaging - the first version of email, supports instant messaging and quick word processing. Programmers can write code with a text editor named QED, precursor of ed, vi and vim. Ken Thompson, who later designed Google's Go programming language, also contributed significantly to the overall development of QED. He added the ability to select and edit text with regular expressions.

After the success of the CTSS project, Fernando 'Corby' Corbató did not rest but continued to launch another project called Multics, and the success of this project greatly influenced day-to-day computer systems. now on. Multics was inspired in part by Unix and used by Dennis Ritchie, who joined Brian Kernighan, developing the C programming language that is still in widespread use today.

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Corbato's successful projects are the inspiration for many other projects at MIT

Corbató's projects at MIT are believed to be a great inspiration to the launch of Project MAC - the precursor to Laboratory for Computer Science - which was then combined with the Tri Lab Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Lab) constitutes the world famous Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) that anyone who loves technology has heard.

MIT CSAIL currently owns more than 600 of the best researchers in the world, is the cradle of the most impressive advances in the field of computer science and artificial intelligence.

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Awards and heritage

With his great contributions in the field of computer science, Fernando 'Corby' Corbató was honored with numerous small and large awards, the most prominent of which was the 1990 Turing Prize "as a person. pioneering in organizing concepts and leading the development of multipurpose computer systems, time sharing and resource sharing ".

Fernando 'Corby' Corbató was honored with the noble Turing award in 1990

In 2012, he became a member of the Computer History Museum "with a pioneering career in time sharing and Multics operating systems".

Besides the widely known achievements, perhaps the greatest legacy that Fernando 'Corby' Corbató left for posterity is the Corbató Code (Corbató's Law), which states:

"The number of lines of code that programmers can write over a fixed period of time is the same, regardless of the language used."

At the same time Corbató is also recognized as the world's first computer password maker.

However, for Fernando 'Corby' Corbató, perhaps the respect from colleagues and the recognition of technology lovers around the world for the above achievements is the highest award in his life.