![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/packages/flash/multimedia/ICONS/transparent.png)
Mr. Taylor at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California in an undated photo.
Palo Alto Research Center; thumbnail, Peter DaSilva, 1999
Robert W. Taylor
Died on April 13, 2017 at age 85
Like many inventions, the internet was the work of many inventors. But perhaps no one deserves more credit for that world-changing technological leap than Mr. Taylor. Indeed, few people had a stronger hand in shaping the modern connected computer world than he.
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.