EE Times:

When he was diagnosed, Hawking had not even finished his doctorate in physics. He was given two years to live. However, with the help of technology from the self-proclaimed “rocket scientist” Walt Waltosz, who personally wrote the software that allowed him to get his life back, Hawking was able not only to speak to others but also to write the book A Brief History of Time, which broke all sales records by staying on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for 237 weeks (more than four-and-a-half years). He is still using the same software to serve as director of research at the University of Cambridge Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.

Amazing to me that Hawking still uses, at its heart, the same basic software to communicate after all these years. Considering the resources at his disposal, Hawking and Waltosz really hit upon an ideal solution all those years ago.