Computer pioneer and inventor of the copy and paste has died

American computer pioneer Larry Tesler died on Monday at the age of 74. That was announced today by tech journalist Luke Dormehl. In the 70s, Tesler came up with a way to cut, copy, and paste pieces of text on a computer. A technique that was quickly used everywhere.

At the time, Tesler worked for the Xerox company. He hated the cumbersome systems with which he had to work and thus invented the computer commands ‘cut, copy, paste’.

After his time at Xerox, Tesler joined the young computer company Apple. He helped develop the Lisa and Macintosh computers. They made sure that the general public was introduced to copy and pastes.

Tesler also worked for Apple on the Newton MessagePad, a portable computer where people could work directly on the screen. It was not a commercial success, but it was the predecessor of the iPhone and the iPad.

“I am wrongly called the father of the graphical user environment of the Macintosh. It was not me. But a paternity test may show me as one of the grandparents,” he said. Later, Tesler also worked for Amazon and Yahoo!.