John Walker | |
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| Born | John Wallace Walker (1949-05-16)May 16, 1949 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | February 2, 2024(2024-02-02) (aged 74) Neuchâtel, Switzerland |
| Alma mater | Case Western Reserve University (BS) |
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| Known for | Autodesk,AutoCAD |
| Spouse | |
| Website | fourmilab.ch |
John Wallace Walker (May 16, 1949 – February 2, 2024) was an Americancomputer programmer, author and co-founder of thecomputer-aided design software companyAutodesk. He was later recognized for his writing on his website Fourmilab.
Walker was born inBaltimore, Maryland on May 16, 1949.[1] He studied electrical engineering atCase Western Reserve University.[1] In 1974/1975, Walker wrote theANIMALsoftware, which self-replicated onUNIVAC 1100 machines. It is considered one of the first computer viruses.[2][3][4]
Walker also founded the hardware integration manufacturing companyMarinchip.[5] Among other things, Marinchip pioneered the translation of numerous computer language compilers toIntel platforms.[citation needed]
In 1982, John Walker and 12 other programmers pooled US$59,000 to start Autodesk, and began working on several computer applications.[6] The first completed wasAutoCAD,[7] a software application forcomputer-aided design (CAD) and drafting.[8] AutoCAD had begun life asInteract,[9][10] a CAD program, written by programmerMichael Riddle[11] in a proprietary language. Walker and Riddle rewrote the program, and established a profit-sharing agreement for any product derived from InteractCAD. Walker subsequently paid Riddle US$10 million for all the rights.[citation needed]
The companywent public in 1985. By mid-1986, the company had grown to 255 employees with annual sales of over $40 million.[7] That year, Walker resigned as chairman and president of the company, continuing to work as a programmer.[6] In 1989, Walker's book,The Autodesk File, was published.[12] It describes his experiences at Autodesk, based around internal documents (particularly email) of the company.[13]
Walker moved to Switzerland in 1991. By 1994, when he resigned from the company, it was the sixth-largest personal computer software company in the world, primarily from the sales of AutoCAD. Walker owned more than 850,000 shares of Autodesk at the time of his departure, worth about $45.8 million at the time ($97,163,044 adjusted for inflation).[6]
He published on his personal domain, "Fourmi Lab", designed to be a play onFermilab andFourmi, French for “ant”, one of his early interests.[14] On his Web site, Walker published about his personal projects, including ahardware random number generator called HotBits, along with software that he wrote and freely distributed, such as his Earth and Moon viewer.[15][16] Another notable book was calledThe Hacker's Diet.
Among other things, he is noted for a frequently cited article entitledThe Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle, an article aboutInternet censorship written in 2003.[17][18] It was published in the magazineKnowledge, Technology & Policy.[19] In the article, Walker argues that there is increasing pressure limiting the ability for Internet users to voice their ideas, as well as predicting further Internet censorship. Walker said that the most likely candidate to usher what he calls "the digitalimprimatur" isdigital rights management, or DRM.[19]
Walker married Roxie Smail in 1973.[1] They moved to Switzerland in 1991.[1] He died of head injuries sustained after a fall on February 2, 2024, inNeuchâtel, Switzerland, at the age of 74.[1][20]
Walker's interest inartificial life prompted him to hireRudy Rucker, a mathematician and science fiction author, for work oncellular automata software. Rucker later drew from his experience at Autodesk in Silicon Valley for his novelThe Hacker and the Ants, in which one of the characters is loosely based on John Walker.[21]
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