Very sad to hear. From what I know of Berlekamp's academic work, he always had a good sense of fun in his research. Such researchers are a rarity in my experience, and thus bring a very valuable aspect to the research enterprise.

As an aside, not many in information/coding theory know that he was the advisor of Ken Thompson (of UNIX fame) according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Berlekamp