Diana Merry
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BitBLT co-inventor
Diana Merry-Shapiro | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1939 (age 86–87) Iowa, USA |
| Occupation | Computer programmer |
| Known for | 1st overlapping display windows and BitBLT co-inventor |
Diana Merry-Shapiro (née Mayhugh; born August 25, 1939)[1] is an American computer programmer.
Merry-Shapiro was born in Iowa. She graduated from Valparaiso University in 1961.[2]
In the early 1970s, Merry-Shapiro began working as a secretary for Xerox PARC. She shifted from working as a secretary to becoming a computer programmer with PARC's Learning Research Group.[3] As one of the original developers of the Smalltalk programming language, she helped write the first system for overlapping display windows.[4] Merry-Shapiro was also a co-inventor of the BitBLT routines for Smalltalk,[5][6] subroutines for performing computer graphics operations efficiently.
After leaving PARC in 1986, Merry-Shapiro worked as a financial software developer. As of 2003, she was still using Smalltalk as an employee of Suite LLC, a financial consulting firm.[7] Merry-Shapiro retired in 2014.
