He attended Duke University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1946 and his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1953. Cocke spent his entire career as an industrial researcher for IBM, from 1956 to 1992.
Perhaps the project where his innovations were most noted was in the IBM 801 minicomputer, where his realization that matching the design of the architecture's instruction set to the relatively simple instructions actually emitted by compilers could allow high performance at a low cost.
Cocke won the ACM Turing Award in 1987 "for significant contributions in the design and theory of compilers, the architecture of large systems and the development of reduced instruction set computers (RISC); for discovering and systematizing many fundamental transformations now used in optimizing compilers including reduction of operator strength, elimination of common subexpressions, register allocation, constant propagation, and dead code elimination". This contribution is notable for its breadth across many fields.
Cocke once recalled that when he was given his first bicycle at the age of 6, he dismantled it within a few hours, much to the chagrin of his mother, Mary.
Cocke (rhymes with "sock") was the principal designer of the type of microprocessor that serves as the engine of most of today's large, powerful computers and the Apple Macintosh personal computers.
JohnCocke, a leading computer scientist whose inventions spanned an uncommon range of computing technology from software to microprocessors, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Valhalla, N.Y. He was 77.
Cocke's lack of enthusiasm and curiosity, however, was confined to the classroom, and he tinkered with mechanical solutions to problems.
JohnCocke (May 30 1925 – July 16, 2002) was an American computer scientist recognised for his large contribution to computer architecture and optimizing compiler design.
Cocke won the ACM Turing Award in 1987, the National Medal of Technology in 1991 and the National Medal of Science in 1994.
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