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 STAR CITY, Russia (AP) - Decades before helping to write the programs that led to Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, Charles Simonyi learned the basics on a clunky, Soviet-era computer called Ural-2. Next month, the U.S. billionaire programmer will carry a paper-tape memento from that first computer and put his faith in the heirs to that Soviet-era technology when he blasts into space aboard a Soyuz rocket to become the world's fifth space tourist.
"I will take one of those paper tapes with me to remind me where it all started," Simonyi told reporters Thursday at Russia's Star City cosmonaut preparation center.
Simonyi's skill at computers and his work in helping to develop the world's most commonly used word processing and spreadsheet programs earned him enough money to spare more than $20 million to become the world's fifth "space tourist," set to blast off early next month.
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