RALEIGH – Donald Michael Ludlow, 73, passed away peacefully in his sleep at home on Saturday morning May 24, 2008.
Memorial services will be held at St Francis of Assisi Church, 11401 Leesville Rd, Raleigh, NC , on Thursday, May 29th. Visitation for family and friends at 11am, funeral mass at 12 followed by a light reception at the church.
Don is survived by his loving wife of 42 years, Frances Ludlow; son Darrell Ludlow of Raleigh; son Drew Ludlow, daughter-in-law Whitney, and grandson Cayden of Apex; sister Josephine Schlags, and several nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents Rose and Irwin Ludlow.
Don touched the lives of many people with his volunteer work, which included SourceForce and Kramden Institute. He enjoyed serving as usher in his parish and being part of the Italian American Heritage Club, from which he received the President’s Award just last week. He was known for going to great lengths to help out anyone with their computer at any time.
Donald was born in Detroit and grew up in Melvindale. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Wayne State University and a Masters of Science in Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Don joined IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY in 1963. He transferred to Lexington, KY in 1973, and then to the RTP/ Cary, NC area in 1984 before retiring in 1992. During his career he held various technical and managerial positions in programming, computer design, and systems architecture.
He received three IBM Outstanding Achievement awards, an Outstanding Innovation award, and an Excellence award. He received an Outstanding Contribution Award in 1967 for early OS/360 system design efforts. Don made numerous disclosure submissions with several being published. He holds two U.S. patents.
Don was the principle design and developer and later manager of the Input-Output Supervisor (IOS) component of OS/360. He headed PLS/85 and PLS/86 compiler development. He also authored the program called SUPERZAP, whose file name is IMASPZAP. He worked in the development of SuperC which was first released as an IBM System/370 MVS/VM and IBM PC product and later integrated as part of ISPF/PDF V2.3 Utilities.
After retiring from IBM, Don continued his programming and consulting efforts through his company, DLSuperC. The firm released a shareware family of software for performing super code & file comparison.
“Sometimes you have to put your arms around the problem and embrace it” he would preach to his co-workers and later his sons. He was a voracious reader, selfless mentor, devoted family man, and friend to many.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The Franciscan School at St. Francis of Assisi, 11401 Leesville Rd, Raleigh, NC, 27613. Donations in his name will be earmarked for technology education.