Kenneth Bowles

Kenneth L. "Ken" Bowles (c. 1929 – August 15, 2018) was an American computer scientist best known for his work in initiating and directing the UCSD Pascal project, when he was a professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Education Bowles received his PhD under Henry G. Booker at Cornell University in 1955 for radar studies of the Aurora Borealis.

Career Starting in 1960, Bowles worked for the Central Radio Propagation Lab, National Bureau of Standards, P-machine allowed Pascal to be implemented on a variety of machines. With graduate student Mark Overgaard and a supporting team of undergraduates, he then set out to provide low cost instructional computing services to the majority of UCSD students using small computers. Between late 1974 and 1980, that project grew into the UCSD Pascal Project.

The UCSD Pascal Project caused some controversy, with Pascal purists unhappy with UCSD Pascal extensions to the language. Some of these extensions are now present in modern Pascal compilers.

As the UCSD Pascal Project grew, it was necessary for the project to leave UCSD by licensing the software to a commercial vendor.

Bowles then started a small software development company, soon to be called TeleSoft, which became a principal supplier of compilers for the Ada programming language worldwide. He took early emeritus status in 1984 in order to concentrate his attentions at TeleSoft. After selling his part interest in TeleSoft in 1989, he participated for several years in the ISO committee responsible for the Ada 95 revision of the language.

Students Principal project members and students of Bowles include: Mark Allen Joel McCormack