Charles Simonyi

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Charles Simonyi, Gennady Padalka, and Michael Barratt

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Science & Tech

Charles Simonyi

American software executive and space tourist

Also known as: Simonyi Karolyi

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Charles Simonyi, Gennady Padalka, and Michael Barratt

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Category: Science & Tech

Original name:: Simonyi Karolyi

Born:: September 10, 1948, Budapest, Hungary (age 75)

Subjects Of Study:: WYSIWYG

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Charles Simonyi (born September 10, 1948, Budapest, Hungary) Hungarian-born American software executive and space tourist. Simonyi left Hungary in 1966 to work at the Danish computer company Regnecentralen. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in engineering mathematics and later earned a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University. After working at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC)—where he created the first WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor—from 1972 to 1980, Simonyi joined the Microsoft Corporation in 1981. While at Microsoft he led the development of the widely used software ...(100 of 284 words)

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