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Ken Olsen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kenneth Harry Olsen (born on February 20, 1926) is an American engineer who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson and venture capital provided by Georges Doriot's American Research and Development Corporation. He was born in Stratford, Connecticut. Olsen was a Massachusetts engineer who had been working at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on the TX-2 project.
In 1977, he infamously quipped, "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home"[1] He believed that " personal computers are just toys!". So he did not allow his engineers to spend the company's resourses to create new kinds of personal computers, and he almost ruined his company!!and in 1987 gave the first of his infamous 'snake oil speeches' and quipped, "UNIX is snake oil", referring to the Unix Conspiracy. Mr. Olsen was referring to a '2001'-like computer controlling every aspect of a person's life. (This is discussed in more detail in the Snopes article listed in the External links section.)
While Olsen did believe VMS was a better solution for DEC customers and often talked of the strengths of the system, he did approve and encourage an internal (albeit rather half-hearted) effort to produce a native BSD-based UNIX product on the VAX line of computers called Ultrix. However, this line never got enthusiastic comprehensive support at DEC.
He holds S.B. and S.M. degrees in course 6, or EECS, from MIT.
Jargon File article: Unix Conspiracy
