John Harrison Wharton (21 September 1954 – 14 November 2018) was an American engineer specializing in
microprocessors and their applications. Wharton designed the
Intel MCS-51, one of the most implemented instruction set architectures of all time.
Education and career
John Wharton graduated from
Northwestern University with a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1976 and a Master's degree in computer science in 1977, having earlier attended
Yale University for two years before transferring to Northwestern.
He was hired by Intel at the instigation of
Tom Rolander,
[
]
working there for 5 years before leaving to start his consulting company, Applications Research.
He was a founding member of the editorial board of ''
Microprocessor Report.''
[
] He first spoke at the
Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop in 1980, along with
Carver Mead,
Jim Clark
James Clark Jr. OBE (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. A versatile driver, he competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapol ...
,
Dave Patterson
David Glenn Patterson (born July 25, 1956) is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball who made 36 relief appearances for the Los Angeles Dodgers in its 1979 season. Listed at 6' 0", 170 lb., Patterson batted and threw right handed. He was bo ...
and
Gary Kildall.
He first chaired a session in 1983, and became Chair of the workshop in 1985, a position he continued to hold through 1997. He was Program Chair from 1999 through 2017.
From 1989 to 2004, with
Dennis Allison, he coordinated Stanford University's EE380 course.
[
]
J. H. Wharton was the architect of the
instruction set
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...
of the
Intel MCS-51,
[
] commonly known as the 8051. The MCS-51 and its derivatives are
Intel's highest volume microprocessor,
[
] and among the most implemented instruction set architectures of all time.
Wharton was the subject of a 1999 ''New York Times'' profile,
and a 2001 article about his trips to
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
to collect debris from the
deorbit of the Mir space station.
[
] In 1996 he appeared on
Late Night with David Letterman
''Late Night with David Letterman'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on NBC, the first iteration of the ''Late Night'' franchise. It premiered on February 1, 1982, and was produced by Letterman's production company ...
.
[
] His friends have created a memorial Web site.
[
]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wharton, John Harrison
1954 births
2018 deaths
Yale University alumni
Northwestern University alumni
American software engineers