John Walker, founder of the computer-aided design software company Autodesk and co-author of AutoCAD, passed away on February 2nd. He was 74 years old. Consultant and programmer Owen Wengerd shared this news on behalf of John's family (via Scanalyst, a website created by John): It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of John on Friday, February 2, 2024. John was born in Maryland, USA to William and Bertha Walker and was preceded in death. John is survived by his wife, Roxie Walker, and his brother, Bill Walker of West Virginia. John declined to follow his family's tradition of becoming a doctor, and in order to pursue a future in astronomy he attended Western Heath Reserve University (CWRU). But once he discovered the brave new world of computers, he never looked back. John attended university where he worked at the Project Chi (X) Computing Center, where he studied Computer Science and earned a degree in Electrical Engineering.
John met Roxy on Thanksgiving Day in 1972 and they married the following year. A few months later, Roxy and John drive across the border to John's new job in California. Eventually, he quit his first job and worked at various other jobs in the Bay Area. In late 1976, John designed his own circuit board based on his then-new Texas Instruments TMS9900 microprocessor. This venture led him to Marinchip Systems and eventually to Autodesk. The beginnings of Autodesk are well documented by John himself in The Autodesk File 2.0k, and John's story from there is best told in John's own prodigious writings. . All this work is systematically organized and published on his website his Fourmilab 1.4k.