John Warnock
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John Warnock (b. October 6, 1940) is an American computer scientist best known as the co-founder with Charles Geschke of Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company. Although retired as CEO in 2001, he still co-chairs the board with Geschke.
Warnock was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has a B.S. in mathematics and philosophy, an M.S. in mathematics, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, all from the University of Utah.
Prior to co-founding Adobe, Warnock worked for Geschke at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he had started in 1978. Unable to convince Xerox management of the approach to commercialize Warnock's Interpress graphics language for controlling printing, the two left Xerox to start Adobe in 1982. At their new company, they developed an equivalent technology, PostScript, from scratch, and brought it to market.
Warnock invented what is now called the Warnock algorithm for hidden surface determination in computer graphics.
One of Adobe's popular typefaces, Warnock, is named after him.
Adobe's PostScript technology made it easier to print text and images from a computer, revolutionizing media and publishing in the 1980s.
[edit] Recognition
John Warnock, along with co-founder Chuck Geschke, received the American Electronics Association (AeA) Annual Medal of Achievement Award in Oct. 2006. They are the first software executives to receive this award.
