John Cocke laid the groundwork for today's generation of super-computers with his work in reduced instruction set computer technology, or RISC. As a researcher for International Business Machines (IBM), Cocke pioneered the theory and applications for software that translate user programs into machine-readable systems, or compilers, and simplify instructions in order to reduce operating cycles.

The youngest of three sons, Cocke was born May 25, 1925, in Charlotte, North Carolina. As a youngster, he was a poor student, and his parents hired a private tutor to instruct him while he was in elementary school. Cocke's lack of enthusiasm and curiosity, however, was confined to the classroom, and he tinkered with mechanical solutions to problems. Although he failed in his attempt to develop a gadget to catch birds by spraying salt on their tails, he jerry-rigged an electromagnetic window-washer and a hydraulic pipe wrench. In high school, he discovered science and...