Severo Ornstein

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Severo M. Ornstein is a retired computer scientist. In 1955 he joined MIT's Lincoln Laboratory as a programmer and designer for the SAGE air-defense system. He later joined the TX-2 group and became a member of the team that designed the LINC. He moved with the team to Washington University in St. Louis where he was one of the principal designers of Macromodules. The research on Macromodules, in which he was a pioneer, led to the founding of the American Macromodule Association. ( A.M.A.)

Returning to Boston he joined BBN. When ARPA issued a Request for Proposal for the ARPANET, he joined the group that wrote the winning proposal. He was responsible for the design of the communication interfaces and other special hardware for the Interface Message Processor. In 1972 he headed the first delegation of U.S. computer scientists to the People's Republic of China.

In 1976 he joined Xerox PARC where he implemented a computer interface to an early laser printer. Later he co-led the team that built the Dorado Computer. He designed and oversaw the programming of Mockingbird, the first computer-based music-score editor. In 1980 he was instrumental in starting Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). He wrote an autobiography describing his experiences in computer science, "Computing in the Middle Ages: A View from the Trenches 1955-1983" (ISBN 978-1403315175)