Silicon Valley mourned the death of the computer pioneer who invented the “cut, copy, paste” command on Wednesday. Lawrence “Larry” Tesler passed away this week at the age of 74, according to the Xerox company for which he worked for much of his career. “The inventor of cut/copy & paste, search & replace and much more was former Xerox researcher Larry Tesler,” the company said on Twitter. “His daily work is easier thanks to his revolutionary ideas. Larry passed away on Monday, so let’s join in celebrating, ”said Xerox.
He graduated from Stanford University and specialized in human-computer interaction. He also worked at Amazon, Apple, Yahoo, and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
The cut and paste function were allegedly inspired by the editorial practice of cutting portions of text and sticking it elsewhere. “Tesler created the idea of ’cut, copy, & paste’ and combined computer training with a countercultural vision that computers should be for everyone,” the Silicon Valley museum of computer history said on Twitter.
The command invented by Tesler became popular at Apple, after incorporating it in 1983 on the Lisa computer and on the Macintosh that was released the following year.
Tesler joined Apple in 1980 after company co-founder Steve Jobs sought him out from Xerox. He worked at Apple for 17 years and became the company’s chief scientist.
