Monday, August 22, 2005

Computer Pioneer John Clarke dead at 77

John D Clarke 77 of Winchester died at Boston Medical Center after heart surgery on August 6, 2005. He was the husband of Marcia A. Russell.

John was a graduate of Uxbridge public schools and Worcester Academy. He enlisted in the US NAVY in 1945 and was assigned to the USS John Land in the South Pacific. Upon his arrival home he attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. While at Rensselaer John was forever proud of being an active member of the Ned Harkness Lacrosse Team that won an exhibition game at The 1948 Olympics in London. John was graduated from Rensselaer in 1953 with an engineering B.E.E. He also received from Harvard a Masters in Education in 1992. While at Harvard he found an interest in studying the transition of young girls to adulthood under the renowned child education specialist Carol Gilligan.

He began his career at Crompton and Knowles in Worcester In 1954 He jointed MIT's Lincoln Lab as the staff engineer responsible for supervising the building of the first transistorized power supply for the computer TXO. His career in high tech at Sylvania in 1957 led to innovative research for EMP lightning protection for government and commercial aircraft. AT RCA John designed and developed disk drives.

John joined Digital Equipment Corp in 1971 in PDP8 small systems engineering. He led the design Team that created The Decmate with its innovative 6120 computer chipset that became the parent technology of every laptop and desktop in the industry. He led the team that designed all of the Digital Vax Workstations, which won international acclaim across the industry with over $6 billion in revenue and 500,000 users. John retired from Digital in 1991 and pursued a Second career in Education. He joined Fisher College in 1994 as a Computer Support Technician. He moved from hardware to software support and was greatly stimulated by the students and the academic environment.

He loved sports and classical music. He had played in the 1950's semi pro football in Troy NY and had been a member of the Boston Lacrosse Club. He loved Golf and followed Tiger Woods faithfully. Always aware of new trends in sports or technology he followed Lance Armstrong from the beginning.

His real passion was travel. He and his wife Marcia traveled extensively for 20 years throughout North America and Europe from Newfoundland to Russia to North Africa.

He was a founding member of the Digital Computer Museum Boston; Director of the Melissa Mason Scholarship Fund, Winchester; founding member and treasurer Of the Winter Pond Association, Winchester.

He is survived by his wife Marcia Russell, his son John D. Jr. and wife Nancy and their daughter Katharine of Edgartown; daughter Cathy N. Clarke. Also survived by many cousins. Visiting hours will be held at the Lane Funeral Home 760 St. (Rte. 38) WINCHESTER on Sunday August 21st from 1-3 pm followed by a Celebration Gathering of Johns' life will at The Jenks Center Winchester from 3:30pm to 6:30pm. Relatives and friends are kindly invited to attend. A mass of Christian burial will be held at St, Mary's Church, 158 Washington St., Winchester on Monday August 22nd at 10:00 am Interment Wildwood Cemetery Winchester.