"America's High Tech "Invisible Man""
By Tyrone D. Taborn
You may not have heard of Dr. Mark Dean. And you aren't alone. But almost everything in your life has been affected by his work.
See, Dr. Mark Dean is a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM. Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American.
So how is! it that we can celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM personal computer without reading or hearing a single word about him? Given all of the pressure mass media are under about negative portrayals of African Americans on television and in print, you would think it
would be a slam dunk to highlight someone like Dr. Dean.
Somehow, though, we have managed to miss the shot. History is cruel when it comes to telling the stories of African Americans. Dr. Dean isn't the first Black inventor to be overlooked Consider John Stanard, inventor of the refrigerator, George Sampson, creator of the clothes dryer,
Alexander Miles and his elevator, Lewis Latimer and the electric lamp.
All of these inventors share two things:
One, they changed the landscape of our society; and, two, society relegated them to the footnotes of history. Hopefully, Dr. Mark Dean won't go away as quietly as they did. He certainly shouldn't. Dr. Dean helped start a Digital Revolution that created people like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Dell Computer's Michael Dell. Millions of jobs in information technology can be traced back directly to ! Dr. Dean.
More important, stories like Dr. Mark Dean's should serve as inspiration for African-American children. Already victims of the "Digital Divide" and failing school systems, young, Black kids might embrace technology with more enthusiasm! if they knew someone like Dr. Dean already was leading the way.
Although technically Dr. Dean can't be credited with creating the computer -- that is left to Alan Turing, a pioneering 20th-century English mathematician, widely considered to be the father of modern computer science -- Dr. Dean rightly deserves to take a bow for the machine we use today. The computer really wasn't practical for home or small business use until he came along, leading a team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems! bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers.
In other words, because of Dr. Dean, the PC became a part of our daily lives. For most of us, changing the face of society would have been enough. But not for Dr. Dean.. Still in his early forties, he has! a lot of inventing left in him.
He recently made history again by leading the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz processor chip.. It's just another huge step in making computers faster and smaller. As the world congratulates itself for the new Digital Age brought on by the personal computer, we need to guarantee that the African-American story is part of the hoopla surrounding the most stunning technological advance the world has ever seen.. We cannot afford to let Dr. Mark Dean become a footnote in history. He is well worth his own history book.
Find Out More On Dr. Mark Dean:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Dr.+Mark+Dean
By Tyrone D. Taborn
You may not have heard of Dr. Mark Dean. And you aren't alone. But almost everything in your life has been affected by his work.
See, Dr. Mark Dean is a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM. Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American.
So how is! it that we can celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM personal computer without reading or hearing a single word about him? Given all of the pressure mass media are under about negative portrayals of African Americans on television and in print, you would think it
would be a slam dunk to highlight someone like Dr. Dean.
Somehow, though, we have managed to miss the shot. History is cruel when it comes to telling the stories of African Americans. Dr. Dean isn't the first Black inventor to be overlooked Consider John Stanard, inventor of the refrigerator, George Sampson, creator of the clothes dryer,
Alexander Miles and his elevator, Lewis Latimer and the electric lamp.
All of these inventors share two things:
One, they changed the landscape of our society; and, two, society relegated them to the footnotes of history. Hopefully, Dr. Mark Dean won't go away as quietly as they did. He certainly shouldn't. Dr. Dean helped start a Digital Revolution that created people like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Dell Computer's Michael Dell. Millions of jobs in information technology can be traced back directly to ! Dr. Dean.
More important, stories like Dr. Mark Dean's should serve as inspiration for African-American children. Already victims of the "Digital Divide" and failing school systems, young, Black kids might embrace technology with more enthusiasm! if they knew someone like Dr. Dean already was leading the way.
Although technically Dr. Dean can't be credited with creating the computer -- that is left to Alan Turing, a pioneering 20th-century English mathematician, widely considered to be the father of modern computer science -- Dr. Dean rightly deserves to take a bow for the machine we use today. The computer really wasn't practical for home or small business use until he came along, leading a team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems! bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers.
In other words, because of Dr. Dean, the PC became a part of our daily lives. For most of us, changing the face of society would have been enough. But not for Dr. Dean.. Still in his early forties, he has! a lot of inventing left in him.
He recently made history again by leading the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz processor chip.. It's just another huge step in making computers faster and smaller. As the world congratulates itself for the new Digital Age brought on by the personal computer, we need to guarantee that the African-American story is part of the hoopla surrounding the most stunning technological advance the world has ever seen.. We cannot afford to let Dr. Mark Dean become a footnote in history. He is well worth his own history book.
Find Out More On Dr. Mark Dean:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Dr.+Mark+Dean
14 comments:
dr dean: AH DIDS IT! AH MADE AH KOMPYOOTER THINGY! HYUK!
OH KOARSE OL WHITEY GET DA KREDUT! AH INVAINTED DA INTERNTEZ!
Not funny at all very very ignorant.
Niggers invented fuck all- just a bunch of fantasist monkeys. ALL go back to africa and stop taking handouts of the whiteman
Handouts? Lol The white man stole a bunch of inventions from the blacks. Also, monkeys look more like whites than blacks, lol look at a naked monkey his not black his white.
black people where the first people on the planet, we are the the creators of humanity its all about science,white people are the last
I totally disagree with this article. What about George Washington Harvey? He was an important American inventor. One of my favorites. And he was African American. Nobody forgets about him.
The fact that important inventors are forgotten to the public is not limited to blacks. There are many influential and important inventors that time just doesn't seem to remember. Whites and blacks alike.
If all the innovators in the computer industry were remembered, then there would be hundreds of names to learn. So people just end up with certain ones, and others are forgotten.
It has nothing to do with racism. I do not believe for one second that people, when looking for examples of computer history, pass this man over because of his ethnicity. Maybe one or two, but certainly not "the media".
I totally disagree with this article. What about George Washington Harvey? He was an important American inventor. One of my favorites. And he was African American. Nobody forgets about him.
The fact that important inventors are forgotten to the public is not limited to blacks. There are many influential and important inventors that time just doesn't seem to remember. Whites and blacks alike.
If all the innovators in the computer industry were remembered, then there would be hundreds of names to learn. So people just end up with certain ones, and others are forgotten.
It has nothing to do with racism. I do not believe for one second that people, when looking for examples of computer history, pass this man over because of his ethnicity. Maybe one or two, but certainly not "the media".
whaaat deeh helll biq boyee dis is an outerrage da chinee iz dee smar... how you say how you say dee smartistder one >_<
If Africa was so advanced thousands of years ago then how come they all still live how European man did a thousand years ago???
"If Africa was so advanced thousands of years ago then how come they all still live how European man did a thousand years ago???"
Ok very slowly...dont believe everything you see on TV. All of africa isnt like that. The media is your master. When you admit, the world will become better because you will become better. There are people (alot of them white) in AMERICA ...and EUROPE living worse than poverty-stricken Africans do.... get your head out your ANUS.
Smh all of our history was stolen from whites! The white man lived in caves while the black man in Africa was thriving! Learn our history because the whites have none!
I just can't agree with this article. Although Dr. Mark Dean is a good and smart man, and a strong part of PC history, he did not invent the PC as we know it today. The first PC was created by Henry Edward "Ed" Roberts, not IBM/Dr. Dean, and IBM even acknowledges that fact. Furthermore, the PC we know today is the result of Roberts, Gates, and Wozniak/Jobs.
Your an idiot that doesn't know history. While your people were in the Dark Ages, we were building Pyramids, and doing surgeries (so called, Edwin C. Smith papers). You're desolate without our development of math, science, astronomy, and many other fields. Stop being envious and just say 'Thank you!', you ungrateful ass hole.
ATTENTION MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS: The european is the newest and least evolved race on this planet. They are not HUman, because they have know Hu, which is color. The european derived from a thawed out ice box on all fours eating raw meat and each other, living in dark dank caves with their own feces and dead animal carcasses. Europeans seem to be into comparing AFRICANS to monkeys, when monkeys have thin lips, straight hair, and pink skin under their hair, like europeans.
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