Charles Geschke, Founder of Adobe and developer of PDFs, dies at age 81

[Adorable Cat]

Summary

Charles "Chuck" Geschke died at age 81 died Friday according to Adobe. He founded Adobe with John Warnock in 1982 and was part of developing the PDF format and basically revolutionized modern printing and publishing.

 

Quotes

Quote

LOS ALTOS, Calif. (AP) — Charles “Chuck” Geschke — the co-founder of the major software company Adobe Inc. who helped develop Portable Document Format technology, or PDFs — died at age 81.

Geschke, who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Los Altos, died Friday, the company said.

“This is a huge loss for the entire Adobe community and the technology industry, for whom he has been a guide and hero for decades,” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen wrote in an email to the company’s employees.

“As co-founders of Adobe, Chuck and John Warnock developed groundbreaking software that has revolutionized how people create and communicate,” Narayen said. “Their first product was Adobe PostScript, an innovative technology that provided a radical new way to print text and images on paper and sparked the desktop publishing revolution. Chuck instilled a relentless drive for innovation in the company, resulting in some of the most transformative software inventions, including the ubiquitous PDF, Acrobat, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Photoshop.”

 

My thoughts

Honestly I'd never heard of him until seeing this news, but seeing someone who had such a profound impact on computing pass away is always depressing. Love them or hate them, PDFs are pretty much ubiquitous everywhere you look, and while they have their downsides they definitely get the job done better than a lot of alternatives.

 

Sources

https://apnews.com/article/business-john-warnock-san-francisco-b77f216f52d736a6b5a383a429208f51

[Helpful Tech Witch]

So he's the reason that I have to do math online!!!!

(Seriously using a PDF editor to do math sucks)

[JLO64]

All jokes and complaints about Adobe and their products/pricing aside, they truly have been a company that has helped revolutionize many industries and technologies.  Knowing that one of the people behind this company has passed on does make me feel that we have lost a person in this world who we owe a great debt to.

[whm1974]

1 hour ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

So he's the reason that I have to do math online!!!!

(Seriously using a PDF editor to do math sucks)

Why are you doing Math with with a PDF Editor for?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

4 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Why are you doing Math with with a PDF Editor for?

My printer ran out of ink...

[whm1974]

1 minute ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

My printer ran out of ink...

What does that have to do with Math?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Just now, whm1974 said:

What does that have to do with Math?

I couldn't print the worksheet. 

So I had to use a PDF.

If this guy didn't make them, I would've just been given a physical worksheet....

[whm1974]

35 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

I couldn't print the worksheet. 

So I had to use a PDF.

If this guy didn't make them, I would've just been given a physical worksheet....

Now I see. You could buy some more ink sometime tomorrow.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

42 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Now I see. You could buy some more ink sometime tomorrow.

I already got some lol. But it was frustrating. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

5 hours ago, Adorable Cat said:

Summary

Charles "Chuck" Geschke died at age 81 died Friday according to Adobe. He founded Adobe with John Warnock in 1982 and was part of developing the PDF format and basically revolutionized modern printing and publishing.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

Honestly I'd never heard of him until seeing this news, but seeing someone who had such a profound impact on computing pass away is always depressing. Love them or hate them, PDFs are pretty much ubiquitous everywhere you look, and while they have their downsides they definitely get the job done better than a lot of alternatives.

 

Sources

https://apnews.com/article/business-john-warnock-san-francisco-b77f216f52d736a6b5a383a429208f51

RIP. He truly made a dent in the universe.