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Born in Bronxville, New York
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At the time, Bell was the premier lab in the country for electronics, and Ritchie was brought on to work in their labs.
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Ritchie graduated with a bachelors degree in physics, going on to complete his Doctorate in 1968.
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This gave the basic format for how to work with UNIX as an operating system; this was a rudimentary version of the later full program.
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Ritchie, with the help of Kenneth Thompson, rewrote UNIX using their new language, C; it was an answer to B, which had failed them in previous application
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This collaboration of UNIX users was the first meeting of what would later form into an organization known as "USENIX"
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Both Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson were awarded the Turing Award for their combined work.
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The U.S. Department of Justice broke up the Bell System, getting AT&T out of the previous limitations on licensing and selling Unix; this allowed them to commercialize the system.
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For his accomplishments and prolific work in the computing field, Ritchie was elected to the USNAoE.
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Assigned as head of System Software Research Department
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Two new operating systems were pushed on the market in the space of two years, both developed under the direction of Ritchie at Bell Labs
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Ritchie, along with Kenneth Thompson, was awarded the medal for the development of UNIX.
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Ritchie stepped down as head of Bell's System Software Research Department
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Ritchie died at the age of 70 from health complications.