Richard M. Shupak, formerly of Dresher, a retired research software development engineer whose inventions helped improve existing Microsoft software code, died on September 17 at 60, writes Gary Miles for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates and other executives hailed Shupak as one of the most prolific software engineers in the company from 1988 to 2012. He developed the revolutionary QuickBASIC computer programming language and many other tools for the optimization of computer code and related software.

In fact, his skills were so good that he was once described by Gates “as the ‘special sauce’ of Microsoft,” said his family in a tribute.

Microsoft was awarded numerous patents based on his inventions, including the “Safe and Efficient Allocation of Memory” in 2011 which “inhibits malware from identifying the location of the executable image,” according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

“What’s important to me isn’t being the first guy to think of something,” he once said. “It’s more the charge I get from figuring it out in the first place. My ideas come mostly in response to a problem.”

Read more about Richard Shupak and his work on Microsoft software code in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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