Larry Tesler, an icon of early computing known for his revolutionary ideas, has died aged 74.
Tesler who started working in Silicon Valley in the early 1960’s invented the “cut”, “copy” and “paste” commands – that greatly helped the personal computer become simple to learn and use.
Xerox, where Tesler spent part of his colourful career, paid tribute to him.
“The inventor of cut/copy & paste find & replace, and more, was former Xerox researcher Larry Tesler,” the company tweeted. “Your workday is easier thanks to his revolutionary ideas.”
Tesler was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1945, and studied at Stanford University in California.
After graduating, he specialised in user interface design – which ideally is about making computer systems more user-friendly.
He worked for a number of major tech firms during his long career including Xerox, Apple, Amazon and Yahoo.
The cut and paste command, was reportedly based on the old method of editing in which people would physically cut portions of printed text and glue them elsewhere.
The command was incorporated in Apple’s software on the Lisa computer in 1983, and the original Macintosh that was released the following year.
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