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Born in New Orleans, LA
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Received Bachelor Degree in Science
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Received Masters Degree both in Electrical Engineer and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Started working on Unix in the late 1960s
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Collaborated with Dennis Ritchie on the Unix operating system.
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Thompson worked with Joseph Condon and created the hardware and software for Belle, a world champion chess computer.
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Continued revising research for Unix.
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Started to work hard on a replacement for Unix
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Received Turning Award which shows lasting and major technology importance to computer field.
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Received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, which is for exceptional contributions to information sciences, systems, and technology
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Started to work on Inferno Operation System, which is an operating system for creating and supporting distributed services. It was originally developed by the Computing Science Research Center of Bell Labs, the R&D arm of Lucent Technologies, and further developed by other groups in Lucent.
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Developed the UTF-8 Encoding Scheme together with Rob Pike
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Received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation award.
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Retired from Bell Labs in the Late 2000's
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Worked at Entrisphere, Inc.
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During an interview, Thompson said he uses Linux based operating systems now.
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Received the Japan Prize, a prize in which is given to individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of science and technology, thereby furthering the cause of peace and prosperity of mankind.
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Thompson now works at Google as a distinguished engineer.
