Charles H. Irby was a

software architect A software architect is a software engineer responsible for high-level design choices related to overall system structure and behavior. It's software architect's responsibility to match architectural characteristics (aka non-functional requirem ...

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...

's oN-Line System (NLS), where he worked to establish many of the user interface standards that exist today. He also led the design group for the

Xerox Star The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox Star 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window- ...

. He co-founded Metaphor Computer Systems and led the design of its products.

Education

Irby earned a Bachelor's in Physics and a Master's in Computer Science from

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

, and completed the required coursework towards a doctorate.

Career

Irby joined

Augmentation Research Center SRI International's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing. The main product to ...

after witnessing the 1968

The Mother of All Demos "The Mother of All Demos" was a landmark computer demonstration, named retroactively, of developments by Stanford Research Institute's Augmentation Research Center. It was presented at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Ele ...

, to work on oN-Line System (NLS), eventually becoming chief architect for the system. He then worked at

Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...

as the director of the Advanced Development Group in their Office System Division, Irby led the user interface design of the

. Irby then co-founded and was the Senior Vice President of Engineering for Metaphor Computer Systems, and was later Executive Vice President of product development at

General Magic General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to "USB, software modems, small touchscreens, to ...

, which created the

Magic Cap Magic Cap (short for Magic Communicating Applications Platform) is a discontinued object-oriented operating system for PDAs developed by General Magic. Tony Fadell was a contributor to the platform, Bill Atkinson shows the credits screen on M ...

and Telescript products. Most recently, Irby worked for

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

(SGI), where he contributed to their consumer products and technology, and managed the engineering team that had previously developed the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

. Irby retired in 1997. He was a presenter at

Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer, inventor, and a pioneer in many aspects of computer science. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...

's December 8, 1998 "Unfinished Revolution" event at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

References

External links

Charles H. Irby
on the ACM Digital Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Irby, Charles SRI International people University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Human–computer interaction researchers Living people# Year of birth missing (living people)