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Charles Simonyi
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Gennady Padalka, Michael Barratt, and Charles Simonyi in spacesuits walk with support crew toward the Soyuz launch pad in Kazakhstan, with flags and onlookers in the background.
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Gennady Padalka, Michael Barratt, and Charles Simonyi in spacesuits walk with support crew toward the Soyuz launch pad in Kazakhstan, with flags and onlookers in the background.
Charles Simonyi, Gennady Padalka, and Michael Barratt (Foreground, from left) Charles Simonyi, Gennady Padalka, and Michael Barratt walking to the bus that will take them to the Baikonur space center, Kazakhstan, March 26, 2009.

Charles Simonyi

American software executive and space tourist
Also known as: Simonyi Karolyi
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History

Charles Simonyi (born September 10, 1948, Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian-born American software executive and space tourist. Simonyi left Hungary in 1966 to work at the Danish computer company Regnecentralen. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in engineering mathematics and later earned a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University. After working at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC)—where he created the first WYSIWYG (what you see is...

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