Born Oct. 11, 1936, Detroit, Mich. Preceded in death by his parents Willa and William Irons. Survived by his brother, William Irons of Fort Collins, Colo., and his sister, Kathryn Carlson of Estes Park, Colo., and his husband of 50 years, Ray Kinlock.
Ned quietly passed away at his Makaha Beach home on the island of Oahu, on Nov. 19, 2022.
Ned first came to Solebury/New Hope in 1955 when he rented an all-glass Mies van der Rohe house on Paxon Road while an undergraduate at Princeton University. After graduation Ned went onto develop and design software for the Department of Defense, and the leading hardware manufacturers throughout the world.
A true software pioneer Ned developed among other things the first screen editor that allowed programming to evolve from punch card readers to the computer screen and the development of speech recognition, which is the basics for many of the home, and personal digital assistants in use today. He was the co-founder and first chairman of the Computer Science Department at Yale University. In 1991 he moved back to Solebury, living on Sugan Road.
He was one of the chosen readers for the New Hope Arts Commission’s summer playwright series. The Pulitzer Prize and Toni Award winning playwrights, Chris Durang, David Mamet and David Ives were among the talented writers to have Actors Equity staged performances in the community. He was one of the founding board members of Solebury/New Hope acclaimed chamber music group, The Concordia Chamber Players.
His interest in the arts led him to become the general manager of The Princeton Festival, producing some of the area’s finest operas and musical venues.
In lieu of flowers contributions can be made to:
The Concordia Chamber Players
PO Box 95, New Hope Pa. 18938
Grab a glass of wine and look for him in the sunset.
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