Tom Truscott is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

best known for creating

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

with Jim Ellis, when both were

graduate students Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor' ...

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. He is also a member of ACM,

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

, and

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is an international non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a faculty member and graduate students in 1886 and is one of the oldest ...

. One of his first endeavors into computers was writing a computer chess program and then later working on a global optimizer for C at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

. This computer chess program competed in multiple computer chess tournaments such as the Toronto chess tournament in 1977 (2nd place) and the Linz tournament in 1980 (3rd place). Today, Truscott works on tools that analyze software as a software developer for the

SAS Institute SAS Institute (or SAS, pronounced "sass") is an American multinational developer of analytics and artificial intelligence software based in Cary, North Carolina. SAS develops and markets a suite of analytics software ( also called SAS), which ...

. Truscott received the

USENIX USENIX is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization based in Berkeley, California and founded in 1975 that supports advanced computing systems, operating system (OS), and computer networking research. It organizes several confe ...

Lifetime Achievement Award for Usenet.

References

External links

The Evolution Of Usenet: The Poor Man's ARPANET
Contains excerpts of ''Invitation to a General Access UNIX* Network'', the original USENIX handout describing Usenet
Interview with Tom TruscottTom Truscott Biography
Contains Full Biography of Tom Truscott Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Duke University alumni American computer scientists Usenet people {{Compu-scientist-stub

Further reading

References

External links