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Charles Geschke
2002 Fellow Awards Recipient

For his accomplishments in the commercialization of desktop publishing with John Warnock and for innovations in scalable type, computer graphics and printing.

"My dad said 'Stick to the books, Charles.' I'm glad he did."

Biography

Charles Geschke was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 11, 1939.

Geschke joined Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the early 1970s as a research scientist in their Computer Sciences Laboratory where he worked on programming language design and machine architecture, including the "Mesa" language which was the basis for the Xerox Star workstation.

In 1978, Geschke formed the Imaging Sciences Laboratory at PARC where he directed research activities in the fields of computer science, graphics, image processing, and optics. He hired his long-term research partner, John Warnock, and the pair invented a Page Description Language (PDL) - a means of describing complex forms like typefaces electronically - called Interpress. When Xerox decided not to commercialize this invention, Geschke and Warnock left PARC and co-founded Adobe Systems.

Interpress evolved into "Adobe's PostScript" which, when combined in 1985 with hardware from Apple Computer (including Apple's new LaserWriter printer), formed the first "desktop publishing" (DTP) system, one in which anyone could set type, compose documents, and print them as they appeared on the screen - all electronically. Because it stored fonts as outline format descriptions, PostScript was machine-independent and extremely flexible. This new approach allowed business users to greatly improve the quality and efficiency of their document production, spawning an entire industry.

Since the invention of PostScript, Adobe has become a powerhouse in electronic imaging through both acquisitions and internal development projects, and is the industry leader in most graphic arts software, especially their PhotoShop and Illustrator programs.

Geschke is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an ACM Fellow. He retired as president of Adobe in 2000 and is now chairman of the board, a position he shares with co-founder Warnock.

Geschke holds an A.B. in classics (1962), an M.S. (1963) in mathematics - both from Xavier University - and a doctorate (1972) in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University.