Michael Dertouzos; Pioneer in User-Friendly Computer Systems

Michael L. Dertouzos, a computer pioneer whose belief that machines could improve the human condition helped shape the modern technological era, has died. The director of the computer science laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was 64.

Associates said Dertouzos had suffered from a series of ailments for much of the past year, and had surgery for blood clots. He died Monday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, apparently of heart failure.

“He was one of those people that helped design the whole trajectory of the computer industry, both in his ideas and through the graduate students he godfathered at MIT,” said fellow computer legend Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley.

“He was one of the first people to tackle this issue of why our machines are so hard to use and don’t meet our needs,” said Saffo. “He was a consistent, articulate and effective voice on the issue.”

Born in Athens and raised in Greece, Dertouzos was the son of an admiral. Images of hungry people roaming war-torn streets tormented him for the rest of his life.

He received a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Arkansas, where he got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He later fulfilled a childhood dream by moving to MIT, where he received his doctorate in electrical engineering in 1964. He became a full professor a decade later, the same year he became director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.

In recent years, the MIT Media Lab got lots of press for glitzy and glamorous high-tech projects. Dertouzos, who sometimes quietly referred to his shop as “the other computer lab at MIT,” shunned the limelight and focused on practical applications. His lab and its graduates are credited with developing many of the fundamental principles of computing and networking used today--such as the Internet precursor ARPAnet.

Although he disdained hype and was a vocal critic of technology that was fragile or cumbersome, Dertouzos could also take a childlike delight in technologies that worked as advertised.

During an interview with The Times earlier this year, Dertouzos offered a telephone number. A computer at the other end could tell callers what the weather was in any town whose name was spoken by the caller. Dertouzos, who smiled a lot, sported a grin that got progressively larger as the reporter tried to confuse the computer by assuming accents and choosing names of towns that could easily be misinterpreted.

But the computer never made a mistake.

“This is where technology needs to go before more people can use it,” Dertouzos said. “We need to build machines that understand the way people communicate.”

In his director’s statement about the lab, Dertouzos wrote: “Our quest goes beyond utilitarian increases in human productivity to the broader ways in which information can help people. We find ourselves in the junction of two interrelated challenges: going after the best, most exciting forefront technology and ensuring that it truly serves human needs.”

Colleagues said his sense of purpose had come to infuse much of the high-tech industry, after years of false hopes and empty promises.

“As a visionary, he was interested in how technology should be evolved to better meet human needs,” said Mark Stefik, lab manager and principal scientist at Xerox PARC, the think tank behind technological advances such as the mouse.

In a field known for prima donnas who often have difficulty connecting with other people, Dertouzos stood out for his warm and forgiving manner. “He was not just brilliant; he was truly a gentleman,” said Saffo. “I’ve never met a person in this industry who didn’t love Mike. Not just like him. Love him. From Bill Gates to the lowliest MIT grad.”

In his last interview, published in the Aug. 22 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dertouzos expressed his irritation at over-hyped technologies and his drive to improve the human condition.

In that interview, he described his disappointment at attempts to build virtual universities that students would attend via computer network.

“Don’t forget the impact that love has on education,” Dertouzos said. “If you are loved by your teacher--and I mean this in the most innocent and Platonic sense--if your teacher really cares for your well-being--and you know that because your teacher will ask about you, will scold you for not doing the right thing, and will give you stories about why you should do this or do that--the learning can be unbelievably different.”

Dertouzos was married to Hadwig Gofferje from 1961 through 1993, when they divorced. He married Catherine Liddell in 1998. In addition to Liddell, he is survived by two children, Alexandra Dertouzos Rowe and Leonidas M. Dertouzos; and a granddaughter, Kiera Ann Rowe.

A funeral service will be held Tuesday in Athens, followed by a memorial at MIT.