It is always sad when someone dies, and especially so when that person was an inspiration for you. I met John at a party that I attended with my wife at PARC where he and Bob Taylor ("Boss Bob") were discussing microcode changes in the Alto that would speed up graphics rendering. As a young over confident pipsqueak I thought I could just wade into that conversation and add my thoughts but got so thoroughly trounced (but in a nice way) I just had to nod and slowly slink away :-). While hanging out with my wife another attendee came up to me and assured me that no, neither Bob nor John were being mean, they just had already covered a lot of the basics and options and their questions were at a much higher level. He assured me I'd catch up, just takes a bit of reading. I said thanks, feeling a bit better but really still feeling like the third grader who finds themselves in a college physics class.

When we got home my wife asked me what Bob had said to me, I explained that he and John and pretty much explained that I didn't know enough about graphics algorithms yet to engage in their discussion. She said, "No, not Bob Taylor, Bob Sproul."