Theo Mercer

Seven application builders and product strategists helped turn separate productivity programs into integrated office-software suites.

Seven pioneers helped move writing from typewriters and dedicated office systems to WordStar, Microsoft Word, WYSIWYG editing, and linked digital text.

Seven pioneers helped unite PostScript, Macintosh graphics, laser printing, PageMaker, and QuarkXPress into the desktop-publishing revolution.

Seven pioneers helped bring digital image editing, paint simulation, compositing, graphics effects, and professional creative workflows onto personal computers.

Seven pioneers helped turn the spreadsheet from VisiCalc's electronic worksheet into Lotus, Excel, and integrated office productivity software.

Seven pioneers helped combine personal interactive computing, bitmap displays, Ethernet, Unix, and high-performance hardware into the modern workstation.

Seven engineers, programmers, documenters, and business leaders helped turn the Apple II into one of personal computing's first durable platforms.

Seven organizers, engineers, and entrepreneurs helped turn the Homebrew Computer Club into an accelerator for the microcomputer revolution.

Seven pioneers helped transform microprocessors and hobbyist kits into complete, programmable, mass-market personal computers.

Seven members of IBM's personal-computer effort illuminate how fast project leadership, open architecture, firmware, expansion, and systems engineering made the IBM PC an industry standard.