Computer scientist Larry Tesler, famous for inventing cut, copy and paste computer concepts, has died at the age of 74. Tesler was born in New York in 1945 and studied computer science at Stanford. After graduation, he worked in the university's genetics and computer science departments before becoming a research assistant at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In 1973, Tesler joined Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and it was there that he developed cut, copy, and paste. These concepts were fundamental in the development of early text editors and computer operating systems. While cut, copy, and paste was developed at PARC, the research center is best known for its early work on graphical user interfaces and using a mouse to navigate them because Apple co-founder Steve Jobs used many of his ideas as inspiration for Apple products. . In fact, Tesler was even a part of some of Jobs's visits to Xerox.
Modelless Computing
In addition to creating cut, copy, and paste, Tesler was also a big proponent of a concept called "modelless" computing. Basically, modeless computing revolves around the idea that a program shouldn't have different "modes" where input from a user works differently depending on which mode it's in. According to Tesler's personal website, he and a colleague named Tim Mott developed the idea while working on the Gypsy text editor at PARC. He was such a big believer in modeless computing that the URL of his site is actually nomodes.com. Tesler joined Apple in 1980 and worked at the company until 1997, when he finally became chief scientist. During this time, he worked on a number of products, including the Macintosh, QuickTime, the Lisa, and even the Newton tablet. The Macintosh and Lisa were the first personal computers to incorporate cut, copy, and paste functionality thanks to Tesler's involvement in their development. After leaving Apple in 1997, Tesler had several short stints at various other large companies, including Amazon, Yahoo!, 23andMe, and others. Tesler's contribution to IT will not be soon forgotten, as the concepts of cut, copy, and paste have become central to the way we use computers and even smartphones today. Via The Verge