Bob Bemer

Updated: 11/16/2019 by Computer Hope
Bob Bemer

Name: Robert (Bob) Bemer

Born: February 8, 1920, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, USA

Death: June 22, 2004 (Age: 84)

Computer-related contributions

  • Known as the father of ASCII, Bob Bemer helped develop the ASCII character code set and introduced several new characters including the Escape character, backslash, and the curly bracket.
  • Invented the Escape sequence.
  • Considered the Grandfather of COBOL, Bob helped create COBOL and also coined the words COBOL and CODASYL.
  • Helped create the 8-bits per byte standard.
  • Published world's first warning on Year 2000 problem in 1971.

Honors and awards

  • IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award, 2003.

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