John Walker is a
computer programmer, author and co-founder of the
computer-aided design software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
company Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartere ...
. He has more recently been recognized for his writing on his website Fourmilab.
Early projects
In 1974/1975, Walker wrote the
ANIMAL
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
, which self-replicated on
UNIVAC 1100
The UNIVAC 1100/2200 series is a series of compatible 36-bit computer systems, beginning with the UNIVAC 1107 in 1962, initially made by Sperry Rand. The series continues to be supported today by Unisys Corporation as the ClearPath Dorado Series ...
machines. It is considered one of the first computer viruses.
Walker also founded the hardware integration manufacturing company Marinchip. Among other things, Marinchip pioneered the translation of numerous computer language compilers to
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
platforms.
Autodesk
In 1982, John Walker and 12 other programmers pooled US$59,000 to start Autodesk (AutoCAD), and began working on several computer applications. The first completed was
AutoCAD
AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. Developed and marketed by Autodesk, AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers. ...
,
a software application for computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting. AutoCAD had begun life as ''Interact'',
a
CAD
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
, written by programmer
Michael Riddle 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.
By mid-1986, the company had grown to 255 employees with annual sales of over $40 million.
That year, Walker resigned as chairman and president of the company, continuing to work as a programmer.
In 1989, Walker's book, ''The Autodesk File'', was published. It describes his experiences at Autodesk, based around internal documents (particularly email) of the company.
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 about $45 million of stock in Autodesk at the time.
Fourmilab
He publishes on his personal domain, "Fourmi Lab", designed to be a play on
Fermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been opera ...
and , French for “ant”, one of his early interests. On his Web site, Walker publishes about his personal projects, including a
hardware random number generator
In computing, a hardware random number generator (HRNG) or true random number generator (TRNG) is a device that generates random numbers from a physical process, rather than by means of an algorithm. Such devices are often based on microscopic ...
called HotBits, along with software that he writes and freely distributes, such as his Earth and Moon viewer. Another notable book was called
The Hacker's Diet.
The digital imprimatur
Among other things, he is noted for a frequently cited article entitled ''The Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle'', an article about
Internet censorship
Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Wikipedia.org) but exceptionally may extend to all Int ...
written in 2003.
["The digital imprimatur and the right to read"]
M. Kathleen Milberry, Geeks & Global Justice, 23 April 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2014. It was published in the magazine ''Knowledge, Technology & Policy''.
[John Walker (2003)]
"The Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle"
''Knowledge, Technology & Policy'', Volume 16, Issue 3 (Fall 2003), Springer, pages 24-77, (print), (online), . Retrieved 11 August 2014. 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 digital
imprimatur
An ''imprimatur'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''impr.'', from Latin, "let it be printed") is a declaration authorizing publication of a book. The term is also applied loosely to any mark of approval or endorsement. The imprimatur rule in the R ...
" is
digital rights management, or DRM.
In popular culture
![Evil_empires_bumper_sticker](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Evil_empires_bumper_sticker.png)
Walker's interest in artificial life prompted him to hire
Rudy Rucker
Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (; born March 22, 1946) is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known f ...
, a mathematician and science fiction author, for work on
cellular automata
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
software. Rucker later drew from his experience at Autodesk in Silicon Valley for his novel ''
The Hacker and the Ants
''The Hacker and the Ants'' is a science fiction novel by American writer and mathematician Rudy Rucker, published in 1994 by Avon Books. It was written while Rucker was working as a programmer at Autodesk, Inc., of Sausalito, California from 1 ...
'', in which one of the characters is loosely based on John Walker.
See also
* ''
The Right to Read
''The Right to Read'' is a short story by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, which was first published in 1997 in Communications of the ACM. It is a cautionary tale set in the year 2047, when DRM-like technologies are e ...
''
*
Amazon Kindle remote deletion controversy
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, John
Computer programmers
Living people
1950s births
Autodesk people
American technology company founders
Digital rights management
Internet censorship
2003 in technology