Jean-Daniel Nicoud

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Picture of the miniCeline ultralight aircraft by Jean-Daniel Nicoud. This remote-controlled plane weighs only 6 g and is capable of indoor flying.

Jean-Daniel Nicoud is a Swiss computer scientist, notably inventor of the optical computer mouse and of the CALM Common Assembly Language.

He obtained a degree in physics at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 1963. Around 1965, he became interested in logical systems. He obtained his PhD at the EPFL in 1970 and became a professor in 1973.

His laboratory, LAMI (LAboratoire de Micro-Informatique), developed the Smaky computer in addition to the optical computer mouse, an update of the traditional kinetic mouse invented by Douglas Engelbart. The Khepera mobile robot was also developed at the LAMI.

He left the EPFL in August 2000 and is actively innovating in his private company, [DIDEL], especially in the area of miniature ultralight aircraft (below 10 g airplanes).

Quotations

• "Je n'aime pas trop le C et ce genre de langages qui vous éloignent de la machine" ("I rather dislike C and this sort of languages which hide away the machine from you")

External links

• [Smaky history from A History of Computing in Switzerland]
• [Prof. Jean-Daniel Nicoud]
• [DIDEL - Slow flyers, microrobots and educational kits for technical schools and hobby roboticians]

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