Bob Wallace (computer scientist)

Bob Wallace, who lived from 29 May 1949 to 20 September 2002, was an American software developer and programmer and the ninth Microsoft employee. He was the first popular user of the term shareware, the creator of the word processing program PC-Write and the founder of the software company Quicksoft. Born in Arlington, Virginia, he worked at Brown University on the pioneering hypertext File Retrieval and Editing System with Andries van Dam and Ted Nelson, and received his undergraduate degree in 1974 and master's degree in 1978 in computer science from the University of Washington. He joined Microsoft in 1978 as its ninth employee and was a key developer of TI BASIC; in 1983 he left to form Quicksoft and distribute PC-Write using the shareware concept he helped originate, and the company soon had 32 employees and two million dollars in annual revenue. He also devoted time and money to research on psychedelic drugs, and he died of pneumonia in San Rafael, California, at the age of 53.