The New York Times is reporting today that Charles Simonyi is leaving Microsoft. No, it's not because he's ticked off that they've dropped Hungarian notation. He's leaving to start a programming tools company. According to the story, before today he was the technical person at Microsoft with the longest tenure (if you don't count Bill Gates).
I remember the interview with him in the early Microsoft Press book, Programmers at Work. I'm sure it is long out of print, but there are a surprising number of copies available on half.com. He was on an interesting discussion panel at a Computer Literacy (now Fatbrain) event I attended in Silicon Valley in '86 or '87 (also on the panel were Andy Herzfeld and John Warnock, if I remember correctly). But the highlight of the evening was Jaron Lanier demoing his virtual reality software on a Mac. His demo was so amazing for the time, that it stopped the session dead. Everybody put their diskettes back in their pockets and we all adjourned to the reception.
11:42:58 AM 
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