Ritchie, Dennis M (1941– )

US computer scientist. He and Kenneth Thompson developed C language, which was the basis for their Unix multi-user operating system, in 1973.

Ritchie was born in Bronxville, New York. At the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, which he joined in 1967, he worked on the design of computer languages and operating systems. He continued to refine and add to Unix after 1973 and retired in 2007.