André Trương Trọng Thi (1936–2005) was a

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

- French

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

. He is considered to be the "

father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fathe ...

of the

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

" for his 1973 creation along with French inventor

François Gernelle François Gernelle (born December 20, 1944) is a French engineer, computer scientist and entrepreneur famous for inventing the first micro-computer using a micro-processor, the Micral N. Education In the late 1960s, Gernelle earned an engineeri ...

of the

Micral N Micral is a series of microcomputers produced by the French company Réalisation d'Études Électroniques (:fr:R2E, R2E), beginning with the Micral N in early 1973. The Micral N was the first commercially available microprocessor-based computer. ...

microcomputer based on an

Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 ("''eight-thousand-eight''" or "''eighty-oh-eight''") is an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), implemented and manufactured by Intel, and introduced in April 1972. It is an 8-bit C ...

processor, one of the world's first commercial microcomputer.

Early life

Trương Trọng Thi was born in 1936 in Cholon (

Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

). When he was 14 years old, he arrived in France to study, and later studied at the ''École française de radioélectricité'' (now

EFREI The EFREI (École d'ingénieur généraliste en informatique et technologies du numérique) (''Engineering School of Information and Digital Technologies'') is a French private engineering school located in Villejuif, Île-de-France, at the sout ...

). After working for

Schlumberger Schlumberger Limited (), doing business as SLB, is an oilfield services company. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston, London, and The Hague. Schlumberger is the world's largest offshore drilling compa ...

and

Intertechnique Zodiac Aerospace was a French aerospace group founded in 1896 that supplied systems and equipment for aircraft. It had around 100 sites across the globe and employed nearly 35,000 people. In October 2018, it was acquired by French aerospace an ...

for some time, he formed the company

R2E R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irelan ...

(''Réalisation d'Études Électroniques'') in 1971. In 1973, thanks to

and a team of engineers, his company created the

Micral Micral is a series of microcomputers produced by the French company Réalisation d'Études Électroniques (R2E), beginning with the Micral N in early 1973. The Micral N was the first commercially available microprocessor-based computer. In 1986, ...

, the first non-kit, microprocessor based

in the world. It was created two years before the

MITS Altair The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertisemen ...

Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) was an American electronics company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico that began manufacturing electronic calculators in 1971 and personal computers in 1975. Ed Roberts and Forrest Mims founded ...

arrived on the market. In 1981, R2E was absorbed by

Groupe Bull Bull SAS (also known as Groupe Bull, Bull Information Systems, or simply Bull) is a French computer company headquartered in Les Clayes-sous-Bois, in the western suburbs of Paris. The company has also been known at various times as Bull General El ...

. The Micral computers were turned into a line of PC-compatibles in 1983. André Truong Trong Thi resigned from Bull, and joined the company Normerel formed by J. R. Tissot, a former member of R2E management. He developed the ''Oplite'' personal computer for Normerel. Normerel was in 1988 the third French computer maker after

and

SMT Goupil SMT Goupil (SMT - "Society of Microcomputing and Telecommunications") was a French IT company created in 1979 by Claude Perdrillat, previously a senior executive in the General Directorate of Telecommunications. The company produced many microc ...

. In 1995, he formed APCT, a software company specializing in

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

. In 1999, he was awarded the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

. He died on April 4, 2005 in Paris after being hospitalized for two and a half years.

External links

A Talk with the Father of Computing
- Wired Magazine

- ZDNet France. Published on April 6, 2005
"Cha đẻ của máy vi tính" - Kỹ sư gốc Việt Trương Trọng Thi qua đời (the father of the personal computer passes away)
ietnam Television {{DEFAULTSORT:Truong, Andre Trong Thi French people of Vietnamese descent 20th-century French engineers Vietnamese engineers 1936 births 2005 deaths 20th-century engineers