Close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine a technology you simply couldn't live without. OK, now think of all the technologies your company needs in order to operate. The steam engine, for example, was a dud until someone managed to come up with a system that enabled the engine builders to drill perfectly straight holes for the pistons.

In a similar vein, you can't do much with an operating system without a computer to run it on, and you can't use either without access to electricity, or a phone line for that matter. Technology is cumulative - all innovations or inventions are derived from previous innovations and inventions, and many go on to spark others.

And while the IT industry isn't exactly recognised for the modesty of its participants, scratch the surface of most cowboy hackers and you'll discover their careers were in fact inspired by former greats.

When we asked ZDNet Australia's readers to tell us who have been the greatest contributors to IT, we got a wide range of replies. From former work colleges and authors to high profile corporate leaders, readers came up with a veritable who's who of computing history.

In response, ZDNet has tracked down the people whose inventions have been central to the development of computing in the 19th, 20th and now 21st centuries, in an attempt to discover how those that inspire others, were inspired themselves.

Jump to: Thomas Edison - Seymour Cray - Bruce Schneier - Bill Gates - Alan Cox

But if you don't find any inspiration here, stay tuned next week for the second part of this series when we will profile Steve Gibson, Donald Knuth, Sir Clive Sinclair, Ivan Sutherland, Linus Torvalds and Alan Turing.

Thomas Edison

Better known for electronics rather than logic machines, Edison gets a guernsey as a hexadecimal hero on the basis that if it wasn't for his capacity for invention we may well have been left to design CPUs and code in the dark.

Read more about Thomas Edison



Seymour Cray

Born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 1925, Seymour Cray became involved in computing when digital circuits were still very much in a developmental phase, and went on to design and build the world's first general purpose supercomputers.

Read more about Seymour Cray



Bruce Schneier

Cryptographer, network security guru and food writer, Bruce Schneier grew up in New York in the sixties. His first introduction to computers was a punch-tape terminal which he learnt to program in BASIC. Although he says he enjoyed school, the opening screening of Star Wars was too much to miss out on.

Read more about Bruce Schneier



Bill Gates

If you've been inhabiting a cave in the outer reaches of Nepal for the last decade or so there is a slim chance you are not aware of William Gates III. Bespectacled, socks-and-sandals shod, sporting a characteristic drab cardigan, Gates emerged as the world's richest man in the mid nineties, thanks to the growing prevalence of personal computers.

Read more about Bill Gates



Alan Cox

Born in Birmingham, in the mid the sixties, Alan Cox grew up in a family of model train tinkerers and chemical engineers, and made it to puberty just as the Commodore PET and Sinclair ZX81 were coming onto the market.

Read more about Alan Cox

Thomas Edison

(1847 - 1931)

Better known for electronics rather than logic machines, Edison gets a guernsey as a hexidecimal hero on the basis that if it wasn't for his capacity for invention, we may well have been left to design CPUs and code in the dark.

Edison was home schooled by his mother after an altercation with a teacher who described the child as "addled", although his apparent absentmindedness could well have been due to his gradually deteriorating hearing. And while it probably appeared to the rest of the world as though he was ignoring them, Edison credited his disability for removing distractions and enabling him to concentrate on his research.

In a 1800s equivalent to connecting up a neighbourhood LAN, Edison hitched up a telegraph service between the houses in his area so he could pass messages to his neighbours. He also read voraciously, consuming a wide variety of texts on a range of subjects, from Edmund Gibbons' Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, to Issac Newton's Principia. He began self-funded research at 12, selling newspapers on trains to pay for chemicals and equipment.

An act of bravery in his mid teens saw the local station-master offer to take him on as an assistant, and Edison became a telegraph operator. As necessity is often the mother of invention, his first innovation enabled messages to be automatically "repeated", allowing him to catch up on his sleep during work hours.

At the ripe old age of 21, Edison returned home to find his mother gradually losing her grip on sanity, and his father jobless and virtually destitute, so he took to invention in an attempt to revive the family's fortunes. With his first patent, an electronic vote tallier, rejected by the parliament on the grounds it would be too efficient, he trained his skills on developing projects which would be commercially successful.

He made his way to New York City, and despite spending his first couple of weeks in the city begging for food, he eventually found himself work in the financial sector and was once again able to fund his own research.

By 1876, after a string of successful patents he managed to establish a laboratory in New Jersey where he pumped out up to 400 patents a year including the phonograph and the light bulb.

By the end of his life Edison managed to amass 1,093 patents, including the alkaline storage battery, carbon-button telephone transmitter, the cement mixer, an electric distributing system, an electric generator, the electric locomotive, an electric pen, the incandescent lamp (yep the light bulb), a kinetoscope (movie camera), a loud-speaking telephone, microphone, mimeograph, magnetic iron ore separator, a perforator for the automatic telegraph, a phonograph, a printer for stock ticker, a printer for telegraph, a sonar system to detect submarines and torpedoes and of course his telegraph repeater.

Seymour Cray

(1925 - 1996)

Born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 1925, Seymour Cray became involved in Computing when digital circuits were still very much in a developmental phase, and went on to design and build the world's first general purpose supercomputers.

By the time he had finished school, World War II was in full swing and he went to work developing glider technology for the D-Day invasion. Staying in the armed services after the war ended, he made his way to the Philippines, where he provided technical support for a Philippine guerrilla unit flushing the remaining Japanese soldiers out of the jungle.

By 1950, he had made his way back to the US and completed a Masters of Mathematicsa. In a time when one of the key aims of digital computing was cryptographic equipment, Cray found himself working for Engineering Research Associates (ERA) which was commissioned by the US Navy to create the 1100 series computers which later morphed into Univac*.

In a time when it was not uncommon to describe computers by the acre, Cray set out to develop the biggest of all, and in 1957 co-founded the Control Data Corporation (CDC), and went on to develop some of the largest and most powerful computers of his time.

In 1972 he struck off on his own and founded Cray research, and is credited with virtually single-handedly inventing supercomputing with the launch of the CRAY-1 in 1976. Looking a little like a 1970's airport sofa, the machine ran faster than any other system at the time, and as an added bonus kept the heating bills down during icy Minnesota winters.

Following the introduction of the Cray-2 system in 1985, Cray took a back seat in management, opting instead for a more hands on role with the development of Cray's systems.

After a lifetime deeply interconnected with the development of computing, Cray was actively involved in the development of micro-miniature supercomputers when he died in a car accident in 1996.

Just prior to his death, he conducted an interview with the Shannon Center for Advanced Studies, University of Virginia, in which he discussed the frontiers of artificial intelligence and called for greater cooperation between microbiologists and computer scientists.

For more information go to The Smithsonian Institute.

* One of the earliest computers, in 1951 the Univac (the name stood for Universal Automatic Computer) was placed into operation by the Census Bureau in the US. It weighed some 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second.

Bruce Schneier

(1963 -

Cryptographer, network security guru, and food writer, Bruce Schneier grew up in New York in the sixties. His first introduction to computers was a punch-tape terminal which he learnt to program in BASIC. Although he says he enjoyed school, the opening screening of Star Wars was too much to miss out on.

"My idea of teenage rebellion was cutting out early to see the first showing of Star Wars," Schneier says.

He studied a Bachelor of Science in Physics at the University of Rochester, and managed to develop a taste for non-techie subjects such as philosophy. In 1985 he went on to complete a Masters of Computer Science while working with the US Department of Defence. While he remains fairly tight-lipped about his experiences in the military, Schneier emerged as a pre-eminent figure in the realm of cryptography.

In the early nineties he became embroiled in what came to be known as the Cryptowars, which saw a motley crew of techies and political activists pitted against the US government, in an attempt to protect the rights of US citizens to use strong encryption.

Practicing as well as preaching, Schneier testified against the proposed restrictions, disseminated a monthly newsletter called Crypto-Gram, and published what has become a seminal text covering cryptology; Applied Cryptography.

A prolific author, Schneier continued to write books and columns throughout the nineties, with tips and guides to protecting everything from the a MacIntosh to an E-mail account. He also provides online tips to aspiring cryptographers.

In 1999 he teamed up with Tom Rowley to establish managed security services company Counterpane Internet Security, where he has taken on the role of chief technology officer.

He recently spoke with ZDNet Australia about technology, and his own motivation.

Q: Which were the most important technological innovations of the last century?

Antibiotics. The communications network.

Which networking technologies have been the most important in the history of computing?

Interesting question. Honestly, I don't think it matters WHICH networking technologies, only that there are some.

Who initially sparked your interest in computing, or inspired you in some way during your career?

Honestly, I can't think of anyone in particular. I was drawn to computers because I was fascinated with numbers and mathematics, and computers gave me a new way to manipulate numbers.

Bill Gates

(1955 -

If you've been inhabiting a cave in the outer reaches of Nepal for the last decade or so, there is a slim chance you are not aware of William Gates III. Bespectacled, socks-and-sandals shod, sporting a characteristic drab cardigan, Gates emerged as the world's richest man in the mid 1990s thanks to the growing prevalence of personal computers.

Born in Seattle in 1955, Gates' childhood was, by all reports, typical of any well-to-do resident of the US. Son of a schoolteacher and an attorney with liberal leanings, like all good techies Gates became interested in computing at an early age. Unlike many techies however, he was also interested in business, and began early by cutting deals with his sister over "borrowing rights" for toys and sports equipment.

An interest in maths was quickly converted to an interest in programming and computing in high school, where he programmed a game of noughts and crosses.

In 1973, Gates embarked on an ill-fated degree at Harvard University, where came across the microcomputer and worked on developing the BASIC programming language. At the time the consensus seemed to be that microcomputers would be little more than a passing fad, an expensive toy for techies, and whether or not he believed such predictions, Gates saw the mini-systems as both a technical and business opportunity.

In 1975 Microsoft was launched with programmer pal Paul Allen, however the company's big win came in 1980, when it was contracted to provide an operating system for the brand new IBM microcomputers. First and foremost a businessman, Gates bought the QDOS (quick and dirty operating system) from Seattle Computer Products and morphed it into MS DOS - Microsoft Disk Operating System.

With the user-friendly Apple Macintosh GUI snapping at his heals, Microsoft released Windows in 1985, and began to set a now familiar pace of consecutive annual upgrades to keep in step with improvements in computing technology. However, the similarities between the Mac OS and Windows soon landed Gates in court. In response Gates drafted a licensing agreement which covered Apple features not only in Windows 1.0, but in all subsequent Microsoft operating systems.

When the subsequent Windows 2.0 operating system began to look even more like the Mac OS, Microsoft once again faced Apple in court, however by June 1993 the court ruled in Microsoft's favour. The judgement handed down stated that the 1985 agreement enabled Microsoft to use 161 of the 170 copyrights Apple claimed as their own.

Although spectacular, Microsoft's growth has been marred by similar disputes, leaving Gate's admirers championing his business acumen, and his detractors attacking his business ethics, or lack thereof.

The Microsoft operating systems' toehold established in the late eighties was further strengthened throughout the nineties, as Gates' personal fortune further polarised his supporters and detractors. Heavily promoted by Microsoft as a philanthropist, Gates has formed a series of aid programs aimed at alleviating poverty in Africa, amid claims he and his wife intend to spend their fortune on good works rather than leave it to their progeny.

Alan Cox

(1963- )

Born in Birmingham in the mid the 1960s, Alan Cox grew up in a family of model train tinkerers and chemical engineers, and made it to puberty just as the Commodore PET and Sinclair ZX81 were coming onto the market.

After secondary school, Cox enrolled in Aberystwyth university, but was hampered by a system that required him to take classes outside of, but complimentary to, computer science.

Doomed to fail Physics at Aberystwyth due to an overriding interest in dismantling and reassembling computers, Cox set out to land a Computer Science degree that required a minimum amount of science and maths study, and eventually enrolled in Swansea University.

Cox's initial involvement with Linux grew from a mixture of frustration and an interest in games development. Specifically he was looking for a platform on which to develop multi-user games, and wanted the University bulletin board to be available for more than three hours a day. Working with a friend he created a series of patches to create a more Linux-based network, and ended up in charge of the 2.0.29 networking code.

In late 1998 he penned his now-famous feature article Cathedrals, Bazaars and the Town Council for IT info site Slashdot, expanding on a motif created in Eric Raymond's seminal text "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".

Out of Uni, Cox worked in systems administration for Internet service provider NTL, escaping later to what he described as the relative sanity of Cymru.net, until it was in turn bought by NTL, and he took refuge at Linux distributor Red Hat, where his passion became his job.

These days Cox hacks away at the Linux kernel from his home in the UK.

Linux-fanatics can follow his adventures and those of his wife Telsa on his online diary.

And while Cox has a tendency towards being media shy, he agreed to answer a few questions exclusively for ZDNet Australia.

Q: What advice would you give to young programmers, or what advice do you wish you were given when you were starting out?

Become a laywer. There is actually a more serious message there, people thinking about computing as a long term career "for the money" are probably making a mistake because the days of computing as a career with a license to print money are really over. For me the choice was easy because of the things I wanted to do computing was the only one I was good at.

If you do want to become a computer programmer then I would say read a lot of existing code as examples, and try and learn about all sorts of areas of computing from the hardware upwards. You can study computing as a very mathematical and theoretical thing. There is nothing wrong with this but if you want to be able to do useful things never forget the practical side.

The second thing is don't treat computing as the be all and end all. The most important thing to learn at university (after people skills and holding down beer) is probably how to learn new skills.

Until University, nobody really gave me any great advice, it was a new field to most of the school teachers too and I learned everything the hard way until University when I finally collided with people who knew a lot more than me. Robert Ash (the Aberystwyth University main sysadmin) taught me several important things by example then - notably the importance of tolerating new programmers and teaching them.

What have most important technological inventions?

That one is hard. Most of the key inventions this century are really building on the past

Cheap communications is one I'd have to pick. The telegraph may not be this century, but cheap and accessible communications in the form of the telephone and now the internet has been a product of modern technology and mass production

Computing is similar - the electronic computer and its move to a mass-market device has made many things possible both for individuals and for scientific research. Again building on theoretical work from long before, and practical systems in the mills and with Babbage (19th Century engineer who did a lot of preliminary work on logic machines).

Most of the technology that I and I suspect many other people value is probably overlooked - a standardised electric system delivered directly to the house, high quality piped drinking water and rubbish collection.

There is a lot of technology behind those, and the loss of them would cause a lot more chaos than having your television die.

Which programming languages have been the most important in the history of computing?

The real importance has not been the languages but the constructs they created. Algol 60 gave us good block structured programming that forms the basis of many modern ideas, LISP gave people a very elegant way to explore computation in a mathematical manner. It's more important IMHO to think questions like "Who invented the subroutine"

Who initially sparked your interest in computing, or inspired you in some way during your career?

Nobody specifically. Computers always sort of seemed interesting, and when I got involved in them proved to be so. The fact the school had staff running a computer club in the evenings made a big difference initially, since computers were expensive and the school had three computers in total.

Many thanks to Anthony Rumble of EverythingLinux without whose help this interview may not have been possible.

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