Ken Olsen, who died today, was one of the true characters of modern computing, and we shouldn't forget his legacy.

Olsen made a number of crazy assertions that were mocked and ridiculed for years because his vision didn't really include the general public as a consideration. He famously said, for example, that he didn't see why anyone would want a computer in their home. Though Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was leading the way in the development of smaller and smaller computers, it stopped short because of Olsen. For some reason, Olsen could never take his actual vision to what he saw as the ludicrous endpoint of computer ubiquity.

This cynicism permeated his thinking. My favorite Olsenism was his comment that the only reason people would advertise would be so their Moms knew they were working in a real company. This was a classic engineer speaking. Few engineers or engineer-driven companies can comprehend the rationale for advertising.

Sun Microsystems was a clone of DEC, and it pretty much felt the same way. I think in my 30 plus years of covering the computer scene as a writer I've seen maybe one Sun Microsystems ad. I've probably seen one DEC ad.

In its heyday, before DEC was bought by Compaq in a merger that will remain in infamy, DEC had designed some of the most awesome hardware in the world. Its Web servers were preeminent in their day. The company developed Alta Vista, the progenitor to Google. A continuation of that project (which was essentially killed by Compaq) would have made DEC a world beater.

DEC had also designed the world's most powerful microprocessor, the Alpha. Again, this was scrubbed by Compaq. Does anyone recall why Compaq bought DEC for anyway? For office space?

DEC was notorious for customer service with little vans that went from place to place for hands-on service. It was phenomenal.

Ken Olsen's death is sad, but he must have been amused by the complete botch everyone made of his great creation. There is actually no reason that DEC, if everything fell into place, would not have become the most dominant Internet services company in the world today.

I'm amused that Bill Gates is quoted in the PCMag article about Olsen's death, since it was once well known that the inspiration for Microsoft BASIC, the product that started the company on its way to become the massive software company that it is today, was inspired by DECsystem-10 BASIC. It is the first example of Microsoft taking someone else's ideas and making them its own without a thank you. In fact, Microsoft BASIC was developed on DEC gear.

Thus, it's not a stretch to credit DEC as the godfather of Microsoft. And let's not forget about the Internet itself. Its origins were ARPANET, which was developed and executed on DEC equipment.

Ken Olsen was in many ways the godfather of the Internet, Microsoft, and Google, as well as countless other trends and ideas. I would argue that the comment that nobody wants a computer in their home might even portend cloud computing. Why would people want computers in the homes when they can use a terminal and the cloud?

So perhaps everything happening today can be credited to Olsen and DEC. Too bad he didn't reap the benefits. May he rest in peace.

You can Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter @therealdvorak.

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