Charles Simonyi is a Hungarian-American software architect.
35 Facts About Charles Simonyi
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Charles Simonyi started and led Microsoft's applications group, where he built the first versions of Microsoft Office.
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Charles Simonyi co-founded and led Intentional Software, with the aim of developing and marketing his concept of intentional programming.
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Charles Simonyi's father, Karoly Simonyi, was a Kossuth Prize-winning professor of electrical engineering at the Technical University of Budapest, and created the first Hungarian nuclear particle accelerator.
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Charles Simonyi took an interest in computing and learned to program from one of the laboratory's engineers.
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Charles Simonyi presented a demonstration of his compiler to the members of a Danish computer trade delegation.
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At the age of 17, Charles Simonyi left Hungary on a short-term visa but did not return.
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Charles Simonyi has honorary doctorate degrees from the Juilliard School in New York and from the University of Pecs in Hungary.
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Charles Simonyi was recruited to Xerox PARC by Butler Lampson during its most productive period, working alongside computer scientists Alan Kay, Butler Lampson, and Robert Metcalfe on the development of the Xerox Alto, one of the first personal computers.
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Charles Simonyi's dissertation was an attempt to describe a more efficient method of organizing programmers to write software.
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In 1997, Charles Simonyi was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for developing widely used desktop productivity software.
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Charles Simonyi became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.
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Since 1998 Charles Simonyi has served as member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and was its Chairman in 2008.
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Charles Simonyi received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 2000.
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In 1981, at Metcalfe's suggestion, he visited Bill Gates at Microsoft who suggested Charles Simonyi start an applications group at Microsoft with the first application being a WYSIWYG word processor.
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At Microsoft, Charles Simonyi built the organization and applications of what became its most profitable products, Word and Excel, as well as Excel's predecessor Multiplan.
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Charles Simonyi introduced to Microsoft the techniques of object-oriented programming that he had learned at Xerox.
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Charles Simonyi developed the Hungarian notation convention for naming variables.
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Charles Simonyi remained at Microsoft during its rapid rise in the software industry, becoming one of its highest-ranking developers.
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Charles Simonyi left Microsoft in 2002 to co-found, with business partner Gregor Kiczales, a company called Intentional Software.
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In 2004, Charles Simonyi received the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award for the industry-wide impact of his innovative work in information technology.
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Charles Simonyi is married to Lisa Persdotter, the daughter of a Swedish millionaire.
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Charles Simonyi had dated Martha Stewart for 15 years until 2008.
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Charles Simonyi formerly spent six months per year on his custom-built 233-foot long super yacht named Skat.
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Charles Simonyi's residence in Medina, Washington, "Villa Simonyi", is a modern house designed by architect Wendell Lovett, where Simonyi displays his collection of paintings by Roy Lichtenstein and Victor Vasarely.
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In early 2006, Charles Simonyi expressed interest in becoming a space tourist and signed agreements with the space tourism company, Space Adventures, Ltd.
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Charles Simonyi started training at Star City in September 2006.
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Charles Simonyi launched on April 7,2007, on board Soyuz TMA-10.
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Charles Simonyi shared a ride with two Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station, and returned aboard Soyuz TMA-9, landing on April 21,2007.
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Charles Simonyi's expected return on April 20,2007, was delayed by one day due to 'boggy ground'.
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Charles Simonyi returned to Earth on April 21,2007 along with an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut.
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Charles Simonyi became the second Hungarian astronaut, the fifth space tourist, and the only one in history who went twice to space as a space tourist who paid his own way on spaceflights.
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Charles Simonyi is a licensed amateur radio operator with the call sign KE7KDP, and planned to contact a number of schools while on his flight on the International Space Station using amateur radio for the communication with those schools.
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One of the schools Charles Simonyi contacted was Cedar Point Elementary in Bristow, Virginia.
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Charles Simonyi was portrayed by actor Brian Lester in the TV film Pirates of Silicon Valley.