John Macdonald

John B. Macdonald, born in 1936, passed away September 7th, 2025, at Stonebridge Senior Residence surrounded by family.

Born in Scotland, John attended The George Watsons School, Edinburgh, and The Whitgift School, Croydon. After an initial apprenticeship with English Electric in Stafford John entered Pembroke College Cambridge, gaining a Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering.

After a summer at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, he declined a physics assignment for his first employment with The Marconi Company in Essex, England involving Circuit Tolerancing for Spacecraft, Radar and Air Traffic Control.

In 1965 John and his new wife Yvonne moved to the United States with RCA Astro Electronics. Due to a 12 out of 12 success rate in launching TIROS Weather Satellites, “John’s Box”, basically the CPU, is currently still somewhere “up there” and used in a Navy project, managed out of Johns Hopkins near Washington. Its goal was to provide accurate fixes for the nuclear sub fleet. On moving to Bell Labs Research Facility in Princeton, he started a Computer Graphics Research Group and is honored with at least eight patents in engineering. His system was sold to Boeing and worked so well they moved their whole documentation world to that platform. John finally ended his career by working on machine vision, putting his systems into factories all over the country.

John is survived by his wife of 60 years, Yvonne, daughter Michele Jagodzinski, son Ian Macdonald, and three Grandchildren Ian Angus, Peyton and Logan.

In addition to Engineering John was an avid sports man all his life. In his youth in England, he won National awards in both High and Long Jump events. In his New Jersey life, he was a member of Shore Athletic Club, won a World Record in sprinting in the 4 x 400 Meters Relay in his 70’s and a National Medal for 200 Meters in the under 85 class in 2022. An enthusiastic private pilot, he flew out of Robbinsville and Princeton Airports. As a talented musician, he played with his band Rum and Onions and the Princeton Country Dancers. John played clarinet with the Lawrenceville Sight Reading Orchestra and Handbells and Folk music with the Princeton United Methodist Church, where he was a member for 60 years, ran the sound system and rang the steeple bells before services.

A memorial celebration of life will be held at PUMC. 7 Vandeventer Ave., Princeton at 11 am, on Saturday, September 27th. Memorial contributions in memory of John may be sent to the church and to the PBS Memorial Foundation :