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: A very sad note... Obituary for Ron Ayres
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:18:17 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () tera ics keio ac jp> Date: January 24, 2007 6:28:00 PM EST To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: A very sad note... Obituary for Ron Ayres] Reply-To: rdv () tera ics keio ac jp Dave, for IP, if you wish... I'm devastated. Ron is the guy who brought me from Caltech to ISI. He was the sweetest guy on the planet -- and one of the smartest. Ron was Caltech's very first CS Ph.D. I think there were two the year he graduated, and he came earlier in the alphabet, so he was the first to receive his diploma. Not mentioned in the obituary is that Ron was the pivotal technical figure in the early days of the MOSIS project (http://www.mosis.com/). MOSIS, many of you know, is the microchip prototyping service originally run by USC's Information Sciences Institute. When started in the early 1980s, the idea that you could email or FTP a VLSI chip design somewhere and receive several (hopefully) working pieces of silicon ten weeks later was extremely radical, and transformed VLSI research in the U.S.Ron and Danny Cohen were, if memory serves, the cofounders of the project.
Ron was an early proponent of silicon compilation, taking a text program description of desired functions and creating a chip layout to match. His Integrated Circuit Language (ICL), a strongly-typed, polymorphic, garbage-collected, interactively compiled system, was perfect for the task. Unfortunately, Ron wasn't interested in playing the academic publishing game, and his influence is smaller than I think it ought to be. Ron was also very interested in computer graphics. His Ph.D. adviser was Ivan Sutherland, who essentially invented the field of computer graphics. In the early 1970s, Ron did some clever and beautiful wire-frame stereograms of mathematical functions and printed them on a large plotter. In Ron's story, Ivan was unimpressed, and he later discovered that Ivan lacked stereoscopic vision -- apparently a common trait. Ron may not (or may) have been as smart as Feynman, but he shared an intellectual trait: he thought *differently* from other people. He arrived at questions and solutions in a different fashion. He also had an impressive collection of Hawaiian shirts, and was a lousy but enthusiastic volleyball player, an incorrigible punster, and an unrepentant TECO user into at least the mid-1990s. The link didn't work for me, but you can go to the obituaries page and search for "Ayres", though it will remain online for only a few more weeks. --Rod ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robert Wormuth <wormuth () mosis com> Date: Jan 24, 2007 6:38 AM Subject: A very sad note... Obituary for Ron Ayres To: Wook <mr.wook () gmail com> Cc: Robert Wormuth <wormuth () mosis com> In case you had not heard.http://www.legacy.com/latimes/Obituaries.asp? Page=3DLifeStory&PersonId=3D861=
24019Ayres<http://www.legacy.com/latimes/Guestbook.asp? Page=3DGuestBook&PersonID=
=3D86124019> [] AYRES , Dr. Ronald F. (53); Child Cello Virtuoso, Computer Scientist and Cal Tech Faculty Instructor. Dr. Ron Ayres, former Computer Science Lecturer at the California Institute and Technology, Computer Scientist at the University of Southern California/Information Sciences Institute and holder of numerous software patents, passed away from natural causes at his home in Marina District on January 9, 2007. Ron was the son of J. Marx Ayres, Consulting Mechanical Engineer and Anita Lauda, Concert Pianist. They raised their three children: Denise, Ron and Gary in the Carthay Circle District at 611 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles. They all became musicians, playing the violin, cello and viola respectively. Ron studied with Naum Bendinsky and was a child protege student of cellist icon, Gregory Priatagorsky. Denise and Ron became teenage concert musicians, winning numerous competitions, scholarships and rewards. They performed in youth symphony orchestras, as soloists and in trios. They were members of the University of Southern California Junior Symphony Orchestra and the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra under the direction of Michel Tilson Thomas. Ron was a brilliant student, completing Los Angeles High School in 11/2 years and entering Cal Tech at age 17. He set the cello aside to concentrate on math and physics as a student of Nobel Laureate, Dr. Richard P. Feyman. Ron lived in Blacker House at Cal Tech for his first two years, 1971-1972. He received his Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees from Cal Tech. His 1979 PhD research in Integrated Circuit Language was later used to define and implement languages. Dr. Ayres's groundbreaking work was first published in his 1983 book, "VLSL Silicon Compilation and the Art of Automatic Microchip Design". He has numerous additional publications on the enhancements and applications of his work. He became a Founder and Vice President of Silicon Compilers, Inc. along with Dr. Carver Mead for the period 1981-1983. When the firm was sold, he joined USC/Information Sciences Institute for the period 1984-1995. In the last decade, Dr. Ayres provided expert consultation services to others and greatly enhanced his patented software. His latest development efforts resulted in a 2003 Java compiler written in ICL, and a 2004 Type-centric ICL with modular implementation. Ron Ayres lived in Venice, California for 29 years. He wanted to be close to the ocean and he loved the creative activities and spirit of the Venice Community. He liked to be known as a beach bum who deeply loved his cat Precious. Ron was never married and is survived by his sister Denise, brother Gary, and father, Marx. Published in the Los Angeles Times on 1/23/2007. ------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: Archives: http://archives.listbox.com/247/
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- : A very sad note... Obituary for Ron Ayres David Farber (Jan 24)