IBM introduced the Personal Computer in 1984 thanks to the work of this man who holds three of the patents for the design.

The Inventor of the Personal Computer

Mark E. Dean (born March 2, 1957) is an American inventor and a computer engineer. He led the design team for making a one-gigahertz computer processor chip He holds three of IBM’s original nine PC patents In August 2011, writing in his blog, Dean stated that he now uses a tablet computer instead of a PC.

Born in Jefferson City, Tennessee, Dean holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Florida Atlantic University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.Dean is the first African-American to become an IBM Fellow which is the highest level of technical excellence at the company. In 1997, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Currently, he is the John Fisher Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee. He was previously CTO for IBM Middle East and Africa and was an IBM Vice President overseeing the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California prior to that Dean now holds more than 20 patents.

Dean was part of the team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers. Dean also taught computer science at Harvard.

by the UI Historian