US honours IT inventors

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 08 October 2009 04:01

IT People - People

Warnock and Geschke were honoured for "for their pioneering technological contributions that were central to spurring the desktop publishing revolution and for their role in changing the way people create and engage with information and entertainment across multiple mediums including print, video, and the Web", according to the citation.

They invented the PostScript printer language that - along with Aldus PageMaker, which subsequently became an Adobe product - launched the desktop publishing revolution.

Part of PostScript's significance was that rather than being a simple set of instructions, the description of a page took the form of a program that was executed within the printer to generate the desired output.

Another important factor in its widespread adoption was that it did not come from a printer company, and (despite its proprietary nature) that made possible its adoption by a range of manufacturers.

Warnock and Geschke went on to develop the Portable Document Format (PDF), which is now widely used for the exchange of formatted documents.

"All of us at Adobe are proud of John and Chuck's remarkable achievements," said Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe. "Our success and continuous innovation are a testament to their original vision and the company values they instilled from the very beginning."


President Barack Obama congratulates Charles Geschke (left) and John Warnock (center). (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson.)

The National Medal of Technology and Innovation was also presented to Forrest Bird (medical respirator and related inventions), and Esther Takeuchi (silver oxide battery).

At the same ceremony, the National Medal of Science was presented to Berni Alder (simulation of matter), Francis Collins (genetics and genomics), Joanna Fowler (chemistry applied to neuroscience), Elaine Fuchs (genetics), Janes Gunn (astronomy), Rudolf Kálmán (systems theory, especially the invention of the Kálmán filter), Michael Posner (brain function), and JoAnne Stubbe (chemistry applied to biology).