Bob Frankston

Robert M. Frankston was born on June 14, 1949. He is an American software engineer and businessman. Together with Dan Bricklin, he created a company called Software Arts. They also made an important program called VisiCalc. This program was sold by a company named VisiCorp. VisiCalc was one of the first spreadsheets. It helped people organize and calculate numbers on computers more easily.

Early life and education

Bob Frankston was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He finished high school at Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1966. He went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and got a degree in computer science and mathematics. Later, he earned a Master of Engineering degree in computer science from the same school.

Career

Bob Frankston worked with Dan Bricklin. He later joined companies like Lotus Development Corporation and Microsoft. He talked about how some companies and rules make it hard to improve the Internet, especially for better phone and internet services. He created a new word, "Regulatorium," to describe how these groups work together to block new ideas.

Awards and recognition

Bob Frankston received many awards for his work. In 1994, he became a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery for creating VisiCalc. This helped change how people used computers. He also got the MIT William L. Stewart Award for helping start the Student Information Processing Board. In 1985, he won the Association for Computing Machinery Software System Award. He received other awards too, like the MIT LCS Industrial Achievement Award. He also got the Washington Award from the Western Society of Engineers in 2001, shared with Dan Bricklin. In 2004, he became a Fellow of the Computer History Museum for making personal computers more useful with VisiCalc.