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Robert W. Taylor, 85, a Woodside resident for 34 years and a visionary in the development of computer networks and modern personal computing, died Thursday of complications of Parkinson’s disease, his son Kurt told the New York Times.
Mr. Taylor was instrumental in the formation of a computer network at the famed Advanced Research Projects Agency for the Department of Defense in the 1960s, and during the 1970s led a computer lab at the equally famous center of innovation, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
As head of a new research center in Palo Alto for Digital Equipment Corp., Mr Taylor was involved in the development of technologies that led to digital books, modern workstations, and the Java programming language.
In recognition of his achievements, Mr. Taylor was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1999 and the Charles Stark Draper Prize in 2004, the highest award of the National Academy of Engineering and one he shares with Computer History Museum fellows Charles Thacker, Butler Lampson and Alan Kay.
In 2013, he was inducted into the Computer History Museum Hall of Fellows in Mountain View.
See a comprehensive Almanac story on Mr. Taylor, written by Marion Softky in 2000.
