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(WIRED) -- The tributes to Dennis Ritchie won't match the river of praise that spilled out over the web after the death of Steve Jobs. But they should.

And then some.

"When Steve Jobs died last week, there was a huge outcry, and that was very moving and justified. But Dennis had a bigger effect, and the public doesn't even know who he is," says Rob Pike, the programming legend and current Googler who spent 20 years working across the hall from Ritchie at the famed Bell Labs.

On Wednesday evening, with a post to Google+, Pike announced that Ritchie had died at his home in New Jersey over the weekend after a long illness, and though the response from hardcore techies was immense, the collective eulogy from the web at large doesn't quite do justice to Ritchie's sweeping influence on the modern world.

Dennis Ritchie is the father of the C programming language, and with fellow Bell Labs researcher Ken Thompson, he used C to build UNIX, the operating system that so much of the world is built on -- including the Apple empire overseen by Steve Jobs.

CNN's GeekOut blog: Without Ritchie, you wouldn't be reading this

"Pretty much everything on the web uses those two things: C and UNIX," Pike tells Wired. "The browsers are written in C. The UNIX kernel — that pretty much the entire Internet runs on -- is written in C. Web servers are written in C, and if they're not, they're written in Java or C++, which are C derivatives, or Python or Ruby, which are implemented in C. And all of the network hardware running these programs I can almost guarantee were written in C.

"It's really hard to overstate how much of the modern information economy is built on the work Dennis did."

Even Windows was once written in C, he adds, and UNIX underpins both Mac OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, and iOS, which runs the iPhone and the iPad. "Jobs was the king of the visible, and Ritchie is the king of what is largely invisible," says Martin Rinard, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

"Jobs' genius is that he builds these products that people really like to use because he has taste and can build things that people really find compelling. Ritchie built things that technologists were able to use to build core infrastructure that people don't necessarily see much anymore, but they use everyday."

From B to C

Dennis Ritchie built C because he and Ken Thompson needed a better way to build UNIX. The original UNIX kernel was written in assembly language, but they soon decided they needed a "higher level" language, something that would give them more control over all the data that spanned the OS. Around 1970, they tried building a second version with Fortran, but this didn't quite cut it, and Ritchie proposed a new language based on a Thompson creation known as B.

Depending on which legend you believe, B was named either for Thompson's wife Bonnie or BCPL, a language developed at Cambridge in the mid-60s. Whatever the case, B begat C.

Los Gatos, California (CNN) -- A line began to form at the Apple Store here on the eve of the iPhone 4S release, as is often the case around the world during the company's product launches.

At the front of this particular line Thursday, Steve Wozniak sits in a Pico armchair, sipping Diet Dr Pepper and scanning e-mails from his white iPad.

The Apple co-founder, who gets a paycheck of "a couple hundred dollars every two weeks" and still maintains his status as employee No. 1 in company records, hasn't been able to stay put for long. Crowds of Apple fans, family friends and people who have seen him riding his Segway around the neighborhood stop to say hi, take pictures and ask for his autograph.

"I'll be taking a thousand pictures," Wozniak whispered with a smile. "I'm going to sit down and see if I can get a little e-mail done, because there's no way I'm going to get it all done today."

Seconds later, an enthusiastic man in a yellow polo shirt positioned his two kids near the computer legend and pleaded for him to pose. Wozniak immediately sprang to his feet with a grin on his face.

People brought iPhones, iPods and iPads for Wozniak to sign with a marker. "Now your phone is not going to be worth as much when you sell it," Wozniak said to one woman before signing her iPhone 4.

Fans gave Wozniak their condolences over the late Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder who died last week. Flowers, partially eaten apples and notes were laid in front of Apple Stores around the world, including this one, where the memorial was set just a few feet from Wozniak's spot in line.

Wozniak explained that sending flowers or onetime celebrations are the kinds of traditions he and Jobs agreed were unnecessary. However, he talked openly about how much he misses his high-school pal, with whom he built a technology empire.

Wozniak acknowledged that he could have easily made one phone call to Apple and gotten the phone he's waiting in line for, but he didn't. He has yet to play with an iPhone 4S or its Siri voice-controlled assistant. He has said previously that he does not ask colleagues about products in development because he does not want to ruin the surprise for himself.

Steve Wozniak autographed fans' Apple products outside the Los Gatos store.

"I want to get mine along with the millions of other fans," Wozniak said. "I just want to be able to talk to my phone."

Analysts have expressed disappointment in the iPhone 4S, but Wozniak, who looks forward to every new Apple device, is especially animated when discussing it. Over the past year, he has not been shy about his anticipation for voice-assist technology, like the new 4S tool called Siri.

People who say they have waited in lines behind Wozniak during past Apple releases have written spiteful messages online claiming he had used his celebrity to cut in line just before the stores opened. Wozniak said that he is usually further back in line at these events but that fans in front of him insist that he get his devices first.

On Thursday, there is no dispute about Wozniak's place in line. His Segway, which he rode from his nearby home, is parked in a corner near the store's entrance. Wozniak arrived about noon, and he plans to stay overnight in order to get the new iPhone first, he said.