John Walker is a computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 programmer

Programmer

A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...

 and a co-founder of the computer-aided design

Computer-aided design

Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...

 software company Autodesk

Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...

, and a co-author of early versions of AutoCAD

AutoCAD

AutoCAD is a software application for computer-aided design and drafting in both 2D and 3D. It is developed and sold by Autodesk, Inc. First released in December 1982, AutoCAD was one of the first CAD programs to run on personal computers, notably the IBM PC...

, a product Autodesk originally acquired from programmer Michael Riddle. He makes his home near Lignières, Switzerland.

Early projects

In 1974/1975, he wrote the ANIMAL software, which self-replicated on UNIVAC 1100 machines: this is considered to be 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 platforms.

Fourmilab

John Walker moved to Switzerland in 1991, after having lived almost twenty years in California. He now engages in projects at Fourmilab, including a hardware random number generator

Hardware random number generator

In computing, a hardware random number generator is an apparatus that generates random numbers from a physical process. Such devices are often based on microscopic phenomena that generate a low-level, statistically random "noise" signal, such as thermal noise or the photoelectric effect or other...

 called HotBits and his Earth and Moon viewer. John is also known for his efforts in the 196 Palindrome Quest, by taking it to 1,000,000 digits.

John Walker's interest for artificial life prompted him to hire Rudy Rucker

Rudy Rucker

Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and philosopher, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of...

, a mathematician and science fiction author, for work on Cellular Automata software. Rudy later drew from his experience at Autodesk, in Silicon Valley, for his novel The Hacker and the Ants where one of the characters is loosely based on John Walker. Part of the action in this book takes place in Switzerland in a very Fourmilab-like setting. Fourmi is the French word for ant and illustrates a facet of John Walker's sense of humor. Located near CERN

CERN

The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...

, Fourmilab is a pun of Fermilab

Fermilab

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics...

.

Activism

Besides programming, John Walker is a social advocate who has written many articles, including a well-known one about Internet censorship called The Digital Imprimatur. He is also known for his book The Hacker's Diet

The Hacker's Diet

The Hacker's Diet is a diet plan created by the founder of Autodesk, John Walker, outlined in an electronic book of the same name, that attempts to aid the process of weight loss by more accurately modeling how calories consumed and calories expended actually impact weight...

, a guide to approaching weight loss "as both an engineering and a management problem." He gained notoriety during the fall of the Soviet Union for creating a bumper sticker that announced, "Evil Empire

Evil empire

The phrase evil empire was applied to the Soviet Union especially by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who took an aggressive, hard-line stance that favored matching and exceeding the Soviet Union's strategic and global military capabilities, in calling for a rollback strategy that would, in his words,...

s: One down, one to go" with a United States flag next to a crossed out Soviet Union flag.

External links

• John Walker's home page
• John Walker's blog
• John Walker's essay "The Digital Imprimatur" about the threats of the internet
• Three Years of Computing — Reaching 1,000,000 digits in the 196 Palindrome Quest