Bob Bemer dies

Computer pioneer Bob Bemer dies at 84
POSSUM KINGDOM LAKE, Texas (AP) ?- Computer pioneer Bob Bemer, who helped invent the widely used ASCII coding system used by computers to represent text, has died from complications related to cancer.
Mr. Bemer's personal motto was ((((DO SOMETHING!) SMALL) USEFUL) NOW!), in form and spirit a mantra true to tech culture.
Image courtesy Bemer family

Bemer, 84, died Tuesday evening at his home along Possum Kingdom Lake, said his stepson, Glen Teeler.

Bemer was born Feb. 8, 1920, in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., and later attended Albion College.

He began his programming career in 1949, working at companies including RAND Corporation, IBM, Univac and Honeywell.

It was his time with IBM during the 1950s and 1960s where he contributed to the development of ASCII.

Pronounced "As-kee," the American Standard Code for Information Interchange is an encoding system used in nearly every computer. It allows computers to see text as a series of numbers. He contributed 10 ASCII characters, including the escape, or "ESC," key and the backslash.

As recently as a month ago, "he was on the computer every day," Teeler, 48, said Wednesday. "He is a man who literally worked just about every day until he died. He felt at home sitting in front of a (computer) screen."

He first published warnings of the so-called Y2K computer problem in 1971 and again in 1979, and made frequent appearances to discuss the issue on CNN, the BBC, the New York Times and other media.