Mike Cowlishaw is a visiting professor at the Department of Computer Science at the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (202 ...

, and a Fellow of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

. He is a retired

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achie ...

, and was a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, and the

British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

. He was educated at

Monkton Combe School (Thy Word is Truth) , established = , type = Public school Independent school Boarding school , founder = The Revd Francis Pocock , head_label = Head Master , head ...

and the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...

Career at IBM

Cowlishaw joined IBM in 1974 as an electronic engineer but is best known as a programmer and writer. He is known for designing and implementing the

Rexx Rexx (Restructured Extended Executor) is a programming language that can be interpreted or compiled. It was developed at IBM by Mike Cowlishaw. It is a structured, high-level programming language designed for ease of learning and reading. ...

programming language (1984), his work on colour perception and image processing that led to the formation of

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and im ...

(1985), the STET

folding editor Code or text folding, or less commonly holophrasting, is a feature of some graphical user interfaces that allows the user to selectively hide ("fold") or display ("unfold") parts of a document. This allows the user to manage large amounts of text ...

(1977), the

LEXX ''Lexx'' (also known as ''LEXX: The Dark Zone Stories'' and ''Tales from a Parallel Universe'') is a science fiction television series created by Lex Gigeroff and brothers Paul and Michael Donovan. It originally aired on April 18, 1997, on Cana ...

live parsing editor with colour highlighting for the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

(1985), electronic publishing,

SGML The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML; ISO 8879:1986) is a standard for defining generalized markup languages for documents. ISO 8879 Annex A.1 states that generalized markup is "based on two postulates": * Declarative: Markup should d ...

applications, the IBM

Jargon File The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANE ...

''IBMJARG'' (1990), a programmable

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

world globe ''PMGlobe'' (1993), ''MemoWiki'' based on his ''GoServe''

Gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They ar ...

http The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

server, and the

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

-related

NetRexx NetRexx is an open source, originally IBM's, variant of the REXX programming language to run on the Java virtual machine. It supports a classic REXX syntax, with no reserved keywords, along with considerable additions to support object-oriented p ...

programming language (1997). He has contributed to various computing standards, including ISO (

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

, C, C++), BSI (SGML, C),

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organ ...

(REXX),

IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and ...

(

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

1.0/RFC 1945), W3C (

XML Schema An XML schema is a description of a type of Extensible Markup Language, XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed ...

ECMA Ecma International () is a nonprofit standards organization for information and communication systems. It acquired its current name in 1994, when the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) changed its name to reflect the organizatio ...

(

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262 ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scriptin ...

, C#, CLI), and

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

( 754 decimal floating-point). He retired from IBM in March 2010.

Decimal arithmetic

Cowlishaw has worked on aspects of decimal arithmetic; his proposal for an improved Java BigDecimal class ( JSR 13) is now included in Java 5.0, and in 2002, he invented a refinement of

Chen–Ho encoding Chen–Ho encoding is a memory-efficient alternate system of binary encoding for decimal digits. The traditional system of binary encoding for decimal digits, known as binary-coded decimal (BCD), uses four bits to encode each digit, resulting ...

known as

densely packed decimal Densely packed decimal (DPD) is an efficient method for binary encoding decimal digits. The traditional system of binary encoding for decimal digits, known as binary-coded decimal (BCD), uses four bits to encode each digit, resulting in signi ...

encoding. Cowlishaw's decimal arithmetic specification formed the proposal for the decimal parts of the IEEE 754 standard, as well as being followed by many implementations, such as Python and

SAP NetWeaver SAP NetWeaver is a software stack for many of SAP SE's applications. The SAP NetWeaver Application Server, sometimes referred to as WebAS, is the runtime environment for the SAP applications and all of the mySAP Business Suite runs on SAP Web ...

. His decNumber decimal package is also available as open source under several licenses and is now part of GCC, and his proposals for decimal hardware have been adopted by IBM and others. They are integrated into the IBM POWER6 and IBM System z10 processor cores, and in numerous IBM software products such as

DB2 Db2 is a family of data management products, including database servers, developed by IBM. It initially supported the relational model, but was extended to support object–relational features and non-relational structures like JSON and ...

TPF TPF may refer to: * Tibial plateau fracture * Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants * Transaction Processing Facility, an operating system by IBM * Terrestrial Planet Finder, a proposed system of telescopes to detect extrasola ...

(in

Sabre A sabre (French: �sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as the ...

), WebSphere MQ, operating systems, and C and PL/I compilers.

Other activities

Cowlishaw wrote an emulator for the Acorn System 1, and collected related documentation. Outside computing, he caved in the UK, New England, Spain, and Mexico and continues to cave and hike in Spain. He is a life member of the

National Speleological Society The National Speleological Society (NSS) is an organization formed in 1941 to advance the exploration, conservation, study, and understanding of caves in the United States. Originally headquartered in Washington D.C., its current offices are in H ...

(NSS), wrote articles in the 1970s and 1980s on battery technology and on the shock strength of caving ropes, and designed LED-based caving lamps. His current programming projects include MapGazer. and PanGazer

Publications (primary author)

* ''The NetRexx Language'', Cowlishaw, Michael F., , Prentice-Hall, 1997 * ''The REXX Language'', Cowlishaw, Michael F., in English: , (second edition) 1990; in German: , Carl Hanser Verlag, 1988; in Japanese: , Kindai-kagaku-sha, 1988 * ,

Cowlishaw Cowlishaw is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Gillian Cowlishaw (born 1934), New Zealand-born anthropologist * James Cowlishaw (1834–1929), Australia architect, businessman and politician * Mary Lou Cowlishaw (1932–2010), ...

, Michael F., ''Proceedings

16th IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic The IEEE International Symposium on Computer Arithmetic (ARITH) is a conference in the area of computer arithmetic. The symposium was established in 1969, initially as three-year event, then as a biennial event, and, finally, from 2015 as an annu ...

''
ARITH 16
, , pp. 104–111, IEEE Comp. Society, June 2003
Densely Packed Decimal Encoding
Cowlishaw, Michael F.,
''IEE Proceedings – Computers and Digital Techniques'' ISSN 1350-2387, Vol. 149, No. 3, pp. 102–104, IEE, May 2002
A Decimal Floating-Point Specification
Cowlishaw, Schwarz, Smith, and Webb, ''Proceedings 15th IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic'' (Arith15), , pp. 147–154, IEEE Comp. Society, June 2001 * , Cowlishaw, Michael F., ''Proceedings of IEEE CompCon 97'', , pp. 200–205, IEEE Press, Los Alamitos, Spring 1997
The Early History of REXX
Cowlishaw, Michael F., ''IEEE Annals of the History of Computing'', ISSN 1058-6180, Vol. 16, No. 4, Winter 1994, pp. 15–24
A large-scale computer conferencing system
Chess and Cowlishaw, ''IBM Systems Journal'', Vol. 26, No. 1, 1987, IBM Reprint order number G321-5291
LEXX – A programmable structured editor
Cowlishaw, Michael F., ''IBM Journal of Research and Development'', Vol. 31, No. 1, 1987, IBM Reprint order number G322-0151
Fundamental requirements for picture presentation
Cowlishaw, Michael F., ''Proceedings Society for Information Display'', Volume 26, No. 2 (1985)
The design of the REXX language
Cowlishaw, Michael F., ''IBM Systems Journal'', Volume 23, No. 4, 1984, IBM Reprint order number G321-5228
The Characteristics and Use of Lead-Acid Cap Lamps
Cowlishaw, Michael F.
Speleogroup
, ''Transactions British Cave Research Association'', Volume 1, No. 4, pp. 199–214, December 1974

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowlishaw, Mike Living people British computer scientists Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering IBM Fellows Programming language designers Free software programmers Rexx British cavers Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Academics of the University of Warwick Alumni of the University of Birmingham People educated at Monkton Combe School Year of birth missing (living people)