Peter Alfke has passed away

Oct 20, 2011 19 Replies

Those who've been on this newsgroup for any period of time will remember Peter Alfke, the Xilinx legend, and his infectious enthusiasm. He was a great help as I got into FPGA design 8 years ago, as I embarked on the academic track. I met him at a number of conferences, and he was just as wonderful in person. He gave some real life to the newsgroup and has been sorely missed since he stopped posting.



A tweet that carried the news:

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Our condolences to his family and friends; he will be sorely missed.



Suhaib.


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Indeed quite sad as he was a real guru with a great personality.

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Hans

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Sad news.

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He helped me more than once, and was the main reason for my choosing Xilinx. RIP.

Syd

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So far no official announcement on the Xilinx page. Sure this isn't some sick joke?

Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------

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Unfortunately this is not a joke.

Ed McGettigan

-- Xilinx Inc.

Then it is very sad news. My condolences.

Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------

Xilinx's official twitter account has retweeted a number of related tweets. So it seems not=85

It seems he had important health problems since long time. I found this on the web

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There is no a sure reference which certifies that the "Peter Alfke" on the article is really him (at least reading the article at first glance) but looking to the photo and by comparing with
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it seems to be really him.

I read many of his articles and note. We will miss him and his passion for job.

Fabio

Thats really sad news.

Although predominantly an Altera user I have really appreciated Peter's input to comp.arch.fpga over the years, one of the gentlemen of our industry.

Nial.

Very sad indeed.

Si monumentum requiris... there can't be many in our industry for whom that would be more appropriate. Peter not only leaves behind a fine body of written work, but also the traces of his infectious, generous enthusiasm and expertise in the minds of a generation (no, surely two generations) of engineers.

Thanks for letting us know.

Jonathan Bromley

/126857481812066304

He is the genius in this group. I still remember his "Six Easy Pieces"

R.I.P

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MAN! This has been a BAD YEAR! First, Jim Williams, then Bob Pease, and now Peter! Sad news indeed!

Jon

..

printf("And lets not forget Dennis Richie who passed away a few weeks ago, one of the all time great computer scientist.\n");

Hans.

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I hate to speak ill of the dead, but I've never been a great fan of the C language or Unix. Yes, it works, it certainly is a hacker's paradise, but there is so much unstructured stuff in there that it is STILL causing troubles for people

40 year later! On the other hand, a HELL of a lot of work is done in C, and Linux is a great gift to the computing community, even with the lasting warts from Unix. So, it is kind of a love/hate relationship there.

So, I don't put DMR and BWK in the same league as Jim Williams and Bob Pease. Not sure if Peter really is in their league, I'm probably unaware of a HELL of a lot of stuff that he did.

Jon

An email from some relatives was posted on a similar thread I made on LinkedIn, that confirms he passed away in July as a result of his illness.

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All,

I (and others) only recently were made aware of Peter's passing.

Xilinx will respond (soon).

We were extremely fortunate to have Peter as an employee, and I am personally quite sad, as he and I edited each others papers, posts, and articles.

Not to mention the fun we had here on comp.arch.fpga together.

Austin Lesea

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I think he's the only one who wrote poetry in comp.arch.fpga

R.I.P

Very sad, a great loss.

Peter had so many virtues, but I'll remember his generosity. It never failed, even when he had to explain metastability for the millionth time.

Sad news. I didn't knew him personally, but I remember great articles from him, like "Unusual Clock Dividers":

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and many interesting articles in this newsgroup, which helped me a lot when I was a FPGA newbie.

Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de piano and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

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