Neil Konzen is a computer programmer who formerly worked for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

as one of its earliest employees. He was the systems programmer of Microsoft's Macintosh programs projects, including

MultiPlan Multiplan is spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft and introduced in 1982 as a competitor to VisiCalc. Multiplan was released first for computers running CP/M; it was developed using a Microsoft proprietary p-code C compiler as part of ...

and

Word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

for the Mac in 1984. He was later tasked with leading the team that created the second version of

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

at Microsoft, after the failure of the original version. Konzen is also known for creating, with

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

, the

DONKEY.BAS ''Donkey'', often known by its filename ''DONKEY.BAS'', is a video game written in 1981, and included with early versions of the IBM PC DOS operating system distributed with the original IBM PC. It is a top-down driving game in which the player mu ...

game for the IBM PC. Konzen also worked in the Ferrari F1 Racing Team around the Todt-Brawn-Schumacher era, when software development still was a major competitive advantage for the top teams. He created Vehicle Dynamics Simulation (VDS) software that could run real-time simulations at the home factory and at the track-side, during the race weekend, on the limited computational power of Personal Computers available back then. The software included features that became available on commercial software for PCs, like MATLAB, only many years later. He was also instrumental in the implementation of the real-time telemetry and contributed to other softwares developed in the Ferrari F1 Racing Team. Prior to his work at Microsoft, Konzen created the popula
G.P.L.E.
(Global Program Line Editor) for writing Applesoft programs on the Apple II. Not working for Microsoft, but still in Washington, he currently resides in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as ...

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Microsoft employees Microsoft Windows people Place of birth missing (living people) {{US-compu-bio-stub