William W. Tunnicliffe, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

William W. Tunnicliffe

Canadian computer pioneer

Date of Birth: 22-Apr-1922

Place of Birth: Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, United States

Date of Death: 12-Sep-1996

Profession: engineer, computer scientist

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

William Warren Tunnicliffe (April 22, 1922 – September 12, 1996) is credited by Charles Goldfarb as being the first person (1967) to articulate the idea of separating the definition of formatting from the structure of content in electronic documents (separation of presentation and content). In September 1967, during a meeting at the Canadian Government Printing Office, Tunnicliffe gave a presentation on the separation of information content of documents from their format.
In the 1970s, Tunnicliffe led the development of a standard called GenCode for the publishing industry and later was the first chair of the International Organization for Standardization. Tunnicliffe was a member and former chairman of the Printing Industries of America, and held the rank of captain in the US Navy and Navy Reserves until 1982.