For someone who devised a computer chess program as an MIT undergraduate in the late 1950s, helped create the world's first video game, and held a leadership role with the World Wide Web Consortium, Alan Kotok got his start in an inauspicious fashion -- or so he was told. Subscribers to the Boston Globe get unlimited access to our archives.

Computer pioneer Alan Kotok, an MIT alumnus who helped create both the first video game and the gaming joystick, died of a heart attack in his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday, May 26. A native of Philadelphia, he was 64. Kotok (S.B. 1962) entered MIT at age 16 and became swiftly involved in developing chess-playing computer programs, designing new systems for MIT's Tech Model Railroad and, with a group of friends, coming up with their original video game, Spacewar. Tim Berners-Lee, founder and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is housed in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, described Kotok as "one of the early wise men of computer science." The unflappable Kotok was "not only technically adept well beyond the norm, but also possessed a childlike delight in all things ingenious or intriguing. Wit, wisdom and sheer human warmth defined him, yet he commanded total respect. He would humbly take on anything which simply needed doing," Berners-Lee said.