Martin Richards (computer scientist) facts for kids

Martin Richards was born on July 21, 1940. He is a British computer scientist. A computer scientist is someone who studies computers and how they work. Martin Richards is famous for creating a programming language called BCPL. A programming language is like a special code that tells a computer what to do.

BCPL was very important because it helped make computer programs that could work on many different types of computers. This is called software portability. BCPL also led to other important programming languages. One of these was the B programming language, which was used in early versions of Unix. Then, the B language was used to create the widely used C programming language.

Studying Computers

Martin Richards studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge. After that, he earned a special degree called the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science. He then went on to get his PhD. A PhD is a very high university degree. His PhD research was about how to design and build programming languages.

He worked as a senior teacher, called a lecturer, at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. He taught there until he retired in 2007.

Important Discoveries

Besides creating BCPL, Martin Richards also helped develop an operating system called TRIPOS. An operating system is the main software that makes a computer run, like Windows or macOS. TRIPOS was also designed to be portable, meaning it could work on different computers.

In 2003, he received the Computer Pioneer Award from the IEEE Computer Society. This award recognized him for being one of the first people to make computer software work easily on many different computers. He achieved this through his BCPL programming language.

Martin Richards is also a fellow of St John's College at the University of Cambridge. A fellow is a senior member of the college.