6 Things to Know About Dr. Mark Dean, the Black Inventor Responsible for the Modern PC

78

Early Life and Education

Mark Dean (March 2, 1957) started his career at IBM as a engineer working on the very first personal computers in the 1980s. Dean should be as famous as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak for his outstanding contributions to the modern day PC, laptop and other devices.

In 1979, he graduated at the top of his class from the University of Tennessee and went on to work for IBM. Dean also earned an electrical engineering degree from Florida Atlantic University in 1982 and a doctorate in the field from Stanford University in 1992.

 

Isa1

More Efficient and Productive PC

In 1981, during his early years at IBM, Dean and a colleague created the ISA Bus, which was intended to make PCs more useful in office and business settings. Printers, scanners, monitors, and disk drivers were now able to be connected directly to the computers themselves. The picture above shows what the first ISA Bus looked like.

Democracy needs journalism it can trust.

This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.

For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.

Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Back to top