Ken Olsen

Kenneth H. Olsen (born on February 20, 1926) is an American engineer who cofounded Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson and venture capital provided by Georges Doriot's American Research and Development Corporation. He was born in Stratford, Connecticut. Olsen was a Massachusetts engineer who had been working at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on the TX-2 project.

In 1977 he infamously quipped "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home" and in 1987 gave the first of his infamous 'snake oil speeches' and quipped "UNIX is snake oil". While Olsen did believe OpenVMS was a better solution for DEC customers and often talked of the strengths of the system, he did approve and encourage an internal (albeit rather half-hearted) effort to produce a native BSD-based UNIX product on the VAX line of computers called Ultrix. However this line never got enthusiastic comprehensive support at DEC.

He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in course 6, or EECS from MIT.

External links

• 1988 Transcript of a Oral History Interview with Ken Olsen
• National Inventor's Hall of Fame profile
• Snopes' account of Olsen's "computer in his home" remark