Gordon Bell, an architect of our digital age, dies at age 89

Enlarge / A photo of Gordon Bell speaking at the annual PC Forum in Palm Springs, California, March 1989. (credit: Ann E. Yow-Dyson/Getty Images)

Computer pioneer Gordon Bell, who as an early employee of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) played a key role in the development of several influential minicomputer systems and also co-founded the first major computer museum, passed away on Friday, according to Bell Labs veteran John Mashey. Mashey announced Bell’s passing in a social media post on Tuesday morning.

“I am very sad to report [the] death May 17 at age 89 of Gordon Bell, famous computer pioneer, a founder of Computer Museum in Boston, and a force behind the @ComputerHistory here in Silicon Valley, and good friend since the 1980s,” wrote Mashey in his announcement. “He succumbed to aspiration pneumonia in Coronado, CA.”

Bell was a pivotal figure in the history of computing and a notable champion of tech history, having founded Boston’s Computer Museum in 1979 that later became the heart of Computer History Museum in Mountain View, with his wife Gwen Bell. He was also the namesake of the ACM’s prestigious Gordon Bell Prize, created to spur innovations in parallel processing.