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"Computer science pioneer Dennis Ritchie has died after a long illness, with people comparing his influence over the technology world as on the same level as Steve Jobs. Ritchie was one of the original creators of the Unix operating system and the C programming language, both of which have underpinned many modern technologies. Those paying tribute to Ritchie described him as a &amp;quot;titan&amp;quot; of the technology industry, despite being largely unknown to the public, reports BBC News. Alongside Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy and Joe Ossanna, Ritchie was one of the pioneers of Unix at Bell Labs in the 1960s and 1970s. It became the operating system of choice for the internet, established the open source movement and has been used on various types of hardware ever since.  Also while at Bell, Ritchie created C, which went on to become one of the most widely adopted programming languages in the world.  Jeong Kim, the president of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, said that Ritchie would be &amp;quot;greatly missed&amp;quot;. He added: &amp;quot;He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for his many accomplishments, but because of who he was as a friend, an inventor, and a humble and gracious man.&amp;quot; Ritchie&amp;#039;s achievements were recognised in 1999 when he was awarded the US National Medal of Technology - the highest honour in America for a technologist. People turned to Twitter to pay tribute to Ritchie, including Google programmer Tim Bray tweeting: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been living in a world he helped invent for over thirty years.&amp;quot; Developer James Grimmelman said that Ritchie&amp;#039;s influence was equivalent to Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder who passed away last week.  He tweeted: &amp;quot;Ritchie&amp;#039;s influence rivals Jobs&amp;#039;s; it&amp;#039;s just less visible.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a345461/unix-creator-dennis-ritchie-dies-aged-70/>