John Henry Thompson – invented lingo programming used in Macromedia Director and Shockwave – African American History Month 2015 #BlackHistoryMonth

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John Henry Thompson – The 25 Most Important Black Tech Pioneers @ Complex. Was Chief Scientist, the highest engineering position at Macromedia.

Known as the “Father of Lingo Programming”, Thompson developed the popular scripting language to help render visuals in computer programs. Lingo’s also been used to create flash and shockwave programs found in animation, web design, and video games. Programmers might recognize the object-oriented programming language embedded into Macromedia Director and other popular Adobe programs.

Thompson studied art at the New York Student Art League and the Boston Museum School and earned a degree in Computer Science and Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1983. Thompson was the principal engineer for Macromedia Director, the inventor and developer of Lingo and XObjects, and a professor of new media at New York University—Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program.

From 1987 until 2001, Thompson was the chief scientist at Macromedia where he developed a number of products, including the VideoWorks Accelerator, VideoWorks II, MediaMaker, Action, and Macromedia Director. He became Senior Principal Software Engineer at Macromedia in 2003. John Thompson is now an owner of JHT Consulting, Bala Cynwyd, PA, which provides consulting services for web-based application development.

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1 Comment

  1. Great series Adafruit!

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