“Anyone involved with computers will tell you how powerful it is for creativity,” Russell Kirsch said.Walden Kirsch photo.

“My dad, he was a super curious guy, always asking questions,” said his son, Walden Kirsch, who works at Intel in Oregon.

In 1957, Kirsch created a small, 2-by-2-inch black-and-white digital image of Walden as an infant – among the first images ever scanned into a computer, using a device created by his research team.

Russell Kirsch with the image of his son, Walden, scanned into the world's first digital scanner in 1957.Oregonian file photo/2007.

Russell Kirsch is survived by his wife of 65 years, Joan, by children Walden, Peter, Lindsey and Kara, and by four grandchildren.