Charles Stanley "Herb" Kuta (born 1956) is an American

electronics engineer Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering that emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flow ...

and

software engineer Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining software applications. It involves applying engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop ...

who was a co-founder of

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 ...

, a major graphics workstation manufacturer.

Biography

Charles Kuta was brought up in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, United States. He attended

Atlantic College UWC Atlantic (formally the United World College of the Atlantic, and often referred to by its original name, Atlantic College) is an Private schools in the United Kingdom, independent boarding school in the Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales. Fo ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

and then

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, where he studied

engineering science Engineering physics (EP), sometimes engineering science, is the field of study combining pure science disciplines (such as physics, mathematics, chemistry or biology) and engineering disciplines (computer, nuclear, electrical, aerospace, medica ...

from 1974 to 1977, gaining a

first class degree The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied, sometimes with significant var ...

. While here, he also played

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

in the

Oxcentrics The Oxcentrics is a Dixieland jazz band founded in 1975 at Oxford University. The band's name was derived from ''The Oxontrics'', an original 1920s jazz band. Several (although by no means all) members were from University College, where many of ...

, an

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

-based

Dixieland jazz Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ( ...

band. Kuta went on to study for a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

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 ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, USA. While at Stanford, he was invited to be a co-founder of Silicon Graphics, Inc., by Dr.

Jim Clark James Clark (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British racing driver from Scotland, who competed in Formula One from to . Clark won two Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles with Lotus, and—at the time of his death—held the ...

; the company was established in 1982. He was also involved in the design of the pipelined

Geometry Engine Geometric manipulation of modelling primitives, such as that performed by a geometry pipeline, is the first stage in computer graphics systems which perform image generation based on geometric models. While geometry pipelines were originally implem ...

that undertook 3D graphical transformations in hardware. Subsequently, Kuta worked at Pellucid and co-founded

Quantum3D Quantum3D Inc. is an American computer graphics company. It was founded on 31 March 1997

in 1997, where he was Vice President of System Software Architecture.Charles KutaCEO & Executives

Quantum3D, Inc.
''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

''. More recently, he has been based at

Palm, Inc. Palm, Inc., was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and developing software. Palm designed the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, and was known for the Treo 600, one ...

, now part of

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuta, Charles 1956 births Living people Engineers from Pennsylvania People educated at Atlantic College Alumni of University College, Oxford Stanford University alumni Computer hardware engineers American software engineers Businesspeople from California Silicon Graphics people Palm, Inc. Hewlett-Packard people Silicon Valley people Oxcentrics members English tubists American electrical engineers