Bob Frankston
E682901
Bob Frankston is an American software engineer best known as the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first widely used spreadsheet program for personal computers.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Bob Frankston canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7699619 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Bob Frankston Context triple: [VisiCalc, developer, Bob Frankston]
-
A.
Alan Riche
Alan Riche is a film producer known for his work on major Hollywood projects, including action-adventure and genre films.
-
B.
Donald Gordon
Donald Gordon was a prominent South African-born businessman and philanthropist known for founding the financial services group Liberty Life and for his major contributions to the arts and education.
-
C.
Gordon Jennings
Gordon Jennings was an American special effects artist renowned for his pioneering visual effects work in mid-20th-century Hollywood science fiction and adventure films.
-
D.
Lee Clow
Lee Clow is a legendary American advertising executive best known for his groundbreaking work at TBWA\Chiat\Day, where he helped create iconic campaigns for Apple and other major brands.
-
E.
Dan Rowan
Dan Rowan was an American comedian and television host best known as one half of the comedy duo Rowan & Martin, which fronted the groundbreaking sketch series "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Bob Frankston Target entity description: Bob Frankston is an American software engineer best known as the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first widely used spreadsheet program for personal computers.
-
A.
Alan Riche
Alan Riche is a film producer known for his work on major Hollywood projects, including action-adventure and genre films.
-
B.
Donald Gordon
Donald Gordon was a prominent South African-born businessman and philanthropist known for founding the financial services group Liberty Life and for his major contributions to the arts and education.
-
C.
Gordon Jennings
Gordon Jennings was an American special effects artist renowned for his pioneering visual effects work in mid-20th-century Hollywood science fiction and adventure films.
-
D.
Lee Clow
Lee Clow is a legendary American advertising executive best known for his groundbreaking work at TBWA\Chiat\Day, where he helped create iconic campaigns for Apple and other major brands.
-
E.
Dan Rowan
Dan Rowan was an American comedian and television host best known as one half of the comedy duo Rowan & Martin, which fronted the groundbreaking sketch series "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
computer programmer
ⓘ
entrepreneur ⓘ human ⓘ software engineer ⓘ |
| almaMater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| awardReceived |
Computer Museum Hall of Fame induction
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
IEEE Internet Award NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| coCreated | VisiCalc NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| coFounderOf | Software Arts NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| collaboratedWith | Dan Bricklin NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| developedForPlatform | Apple II NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| educatedAt | Massachusetts Institute of Technology ⓘ |
| familyName | Frankston NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
computer software
ⓘ
networking ⓘ personal computing ⓘ |
| gender | male ⓘ |
| givenName | Bob NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasBlog | Frankston.com blog NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasBusinessPartner | Dan Bricklin NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasRole |
internet policy commentator
ⓘ
technology advocate ⓘ |
| hasWebsite | https://frankston.com ⓘ |
| influenced |
business computing
ⓘ
personal computer software industry ⓘ |
| knownFor | co-creating VisiCalc ⓘ |
| languageSpoken | English ⓘ |
| memberOf | IEEE NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| name | Bob Frankston NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableAchievement | helped create the first widely used spreadsheet program for personal computers ⓘ |
| notableConcept | ambient connectivity ⓘ |
| notableWork | VisiCalc NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| occupation |
computer programmer
ⓘ
entrepreneur ⓘ software engineer ⓘ |
| programmingLanguageUsed |
Assembly language
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
BASIC NERFINISHED ⓘ C NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| residence | United States of America ⓘ |
| speaksAt | technology conferences ⓘ |
| spouse | Mary Frankston NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| workedOn | VisiCalc NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| writesAbout |
internet economics
ⓘ
network architecture ⓘ telecommunications policy ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Bob Frankston Description of subject: Bob Frankston is an American software engineer best known as the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first widely used spreadsheet program for personal computers.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.