Ron Hochsprung is retired from Apple, Inc., after 33 years of service as an engineer. At Apple, Hochsprung worked on the Lisa and Macintosh computers and was the system architect of the Mac II. Most recently he was on the team that developed Thunderbolt input-output technology.
He contributed to several IEEE standards. Prior to his work at Apple, Hochsprung worked at Fermilab, Northwestern University, Purdue University, National Semiconductor, and Illinois Tech in the computer center. Here, he was an instructor teaching operating systems and computer hardware courses. He co-developed the IITRAN coding language, which was later used to support a computer programming class for high school students, and he implemented the IITROS system that provided remote access into the IIT computer system for those students. He holds more than 20 patents.
After attending a computer science reunion at Illinois Tech in 2011, Hochsprung established an expendable scholarship fund for Illinois Tech students. Hochsprung was a scholarship recipient himself. In 2013 he established the Ron Hochsprung Endowed Chair in Computer Science—the department’s first endowed chair.