Gene Amdahl addressing a UW-Madison Alumni gathering, March 13 2008.

Gene Myron Amdahl (born November 16, 1922) is a Norwegian American computer architect and hi-tech entrepreneur, chiefly known for his work on mainframe computers at International Business Machines (IBM) and later his own companies, especially Amdahl Corporation. Events 534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published Year 1922 ( MCMXXII) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Norwegian Americans (norskamerikanere are Americans of Norwegian descent Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as Big Iron) are Computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications typically bulk data International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Amdahl Corporation was founded by Dr Gene Amdahl, a former IBM employee in 1970 and specializes in IBM mainframe -compatible computer products He is perhaps best known for formulating Amdahl's law, which states a fundamental limitation of parallel computing. Amdahl's law, also known as Amdahl's argument, is named after computer architect Gene Amdahl, and is used to find the maximum expected improvement Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many instructions are carried out simultaneously operating on the principle that large problems can often

Childhood and education

Amdahl was born to immigrant parents of Norwegian and Swedish descent in Flandreau, South Dakota. Flandreau is a city in Moody County, South Dakota, United States. After serving in the Navy during WWII he completed a degree in engineering physics at South Dakota State University in 1948. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including South Dakota State University is the largest University in the U Year 1948 ( MCMXLVIII) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. He went on to study theoretical physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed his doctorate there in 1952, creating his first computer, the WISC. Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Wisconsin Integrally Synchronized Computer (WISC was an early digital computer designed and built at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He then went straight from Wisconsin to a well paid position at IBM in June 1952. Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

The IBM & Amdahl years

At IBM, Amdahl worked on the IBM 704, the IBM 709, and then the Stretch project, the basis for the IBM 7030. The IBM 704, the first mass-produced Computer with Floating point arithmetic hardware was introduced by IBM in April 1954. The IBM 709 was an early Computer system introduced by IBM in August 1958. The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM 's first Transistorized Supercomputer. He left IBM in December 1955 but returned in September 1960 (after working at Ramo Wooldridge and at Aeronutronic). Year 1955 ( MCMLV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar) Year 1960 ( MCMLX) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. TRW Incorporated was an American Corporation involved in a number of businesses mostly defense-related but including Automotive, Aerospace and Aeronutronic was a defense and space related division of Ford Motor Company set up in 1956 On his return he worked on the System/360 family architecture and became an IBM Fellow in 1965, and head of the ACS Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. The IBM System/360 ( S/360) is a Mainframe computer system family announced by IBM on April 7, 1964. An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM’s CEO. Year 1965 ( MCMLXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. Menlo Park is an affluent City in San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California He left IBM again in September 1970, after his ideas for computer development were rejected, and set up Amdahl Corporation in Sunnyvale, Calif. with aid from Fujitsu. Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Amdahl Corporation was founded by Dr Gene Amdahl, a former IBM employee in 1970 and specializes in IBM mainframe -compatible computer products Sunnyvale ( or) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. is a Japanese company specializing in Semiconductors Computers ( Supercomputers Personal computers, servers, Telecommunications

Competing with IBM in the mainframe market, the company manufactured "plug-compatible" mainframes, shipping its first machine in 1975 - the Amdahl 470 V6, a less expensive, more reliable and faster replacement for the System 370/165. A plug-compatible machine is one that has been designed to be Backwards compatible with a prior machine Year 1975 ( MCMLXXV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. By purchasing an Amdahl 470 and plug-compatible peripheral devices from third-party manufacturers, customers could now run S/360 and S/370 applications without buying actual IBM hardware. Amdahl's software team developed VM/PE, software designed to optimize the performance of IBM's MVS operating system when running under IBM's VM operating system. Multiple Virtual Storage, more commonly called MVS, was the most commonly used Operating system on the System/370 and System/390 IBM An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination CP/CMS|History of CP/CMS VM (often VM/CMS) refers to a family of IBM Virtual machine Operating systems used on IBM System/370 By 1979 Amdahl Corporation had sold over a US $1 billion of V6 and V7 mainframes and had over 6,000 employees worldwide. The corporation went on to distribute an IBM-plug-compatible front-end processor (the 4705) as well as high-performance disk drives, both jointly developed with Fujitsu engineers. A front end processor (FEP or a communications processor, is a small-sized Computer which interfaces to the Host computer a number of networks Disk storage is a general category of a Computer storage mechanisms in which data is recorded on planar round and rotating surfaces ( disks, discs, or

At the Spring Joint Computer Conference, Amdahl along with three other computer architects, most notably Dan Slotnick, ILLIAC IV architect, engaged in a discussion on future architectural trends. ILLIAC IV was one of the most infamous Supercomputers ever in a series of research machines ILLIACs, from the University of Illinois. Amdahl argued, verbally and three-written pages, for performance limitations in any special feature or mode introduced to new machines. This resulted in two, major and lesser, "laws" of computer performance regarding sequential vs. parallel processing. Parallel processing is also another term for Parallel computing. These arguments continue to this day.

1979–now: Entrepreneur

Amdahl left his namesake company in August 1979 to set up Trilogy Systems. Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) Trilogy Systems Corporation was a computer systems company started in 1980 With over US$200 million in funds Trilogy was aimed at designing an integrated chip for even cheaper mainframes. A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a Central processing unit (CPU on a single Integrated The chip development failed within months of the company's $60 million public offering; thereafter, the company focused on developing its VLSI technology and, when that project failed, in 1985 Trilogy merged into Elxsi. Year 1985 ( MCMLXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar) Elxsi (now Tata Elxsi) was a Minicomputer manufacturing company established in the late 1970s along with a host of other competitors ( Trilogy Systems, Elxsi also did poorly and Amdahl left in 1989, having already founded his next venture, Andor International, in 1987. Year 1987 ( MCMLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar) Andor hoped to compete in the mid-sized mainframe market, using improved production techniques to make smaller, more efficient machines. Production problems and strong competition led the company into bankruptcy by 1995. Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995

Ever determined, Amdahl co-founded Commercial Data Servers in 1996, again in Sunnyvale, and again developing mainframe-like machines but this time with new super-cooled processor designs and aimed at physically smaller systems. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) One such machine, from 1997, was the ESP/490 (Enterprise Server Platform/490), an enhancement of IBM's P/390 of the System/390 family. ESA/390 (Enterprise Systems Architecture/390 was introduced in September 1990 and is IBM 's last 31-bit -address/ 32-bit -data mainframe computing Since then, CDS has changed its name and narrowed its focus. As Xbridge Systems, the company now builds connectivity software to link mainframes and open systems. (As of early 2005, however, Xbridge's website did not list Amdahl as a member of their current management team. )

In November 2004, Amdahl was appointed to the Board of Advisors of Massively Parallel Technologies. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " The absence of an otherwise noticeable web presence after the turn of the millennium suggested that he had scaled back his industry involvement to an advisory capacity.

Awards

Dr. Amdahl was named an IBM Fellow in 1965, became a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1967 and was recognized as the Centennial Alumnus of South Dakota State University in 1986. An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM’s CEO. Year 1965 ( MCMLXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. The United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE is a private non-profit institution which was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the Year 1967 ( MCMLXVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. South Dakota State University is the largest University in the U Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) He has numerous awards and patents to his credit and has received Honorary Doctorates from his two alma maters and two other institutions as well. An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa ( Latin: 'for the sake of the honour' is an Academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding Alma mater is Latin for "nourishing mother" It was used in Ancient Rome as a title for the mother Goddess, and in Medieval In 1983, Amdahl was awarded the Harry H. Goode Memorial Award by the IEEE Computer Society "in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the design, applications and manufacture of large-scale high-performance computers". Harry H Goode ( 30 June 1909 &ndash 30 October 1960) was an American Computer engineer and Systems engineer and Professor IEEE Computer Society is an organizational unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE ^[1]

In November 2007, Amdahl was recognized with the SIGDA Pioneering Achievement Award^[2]. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. SIGDA, Association for Computing Machinery 's Special Interest Group on Design Automation, is a professional development organization for the Electronic Design A banquet dinner in his honor featured a short talk by Amdahl on his career, and a panel debate on the future of parallel processing. Panelists included Dr. John Gustafson (well known for Gustafson's Law). Gustafson's Law (also known as Gustafson-Barsis' law) is a law in Computer engineering which states that any sufficiently large problem can be efficiently parallelized The talk and debate were both videotaped, and are available through the SIGDA web page, and the ACM Digital Library^[3]

See also

• Amdahl's law
• Amdahl Corporation
• IBM mainframe

References

External links

• Gene Amdahl - Computer History Museum Fellow Awards Recipient
• Massively Parallel Technologies Hosts Discussion With [...] Dr. Gene Amdahl and Dr. Robert Duncan [...] – Primeur Monthly, February 2005

• Oral history interview with Gene M. Amdahl. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing Amdahl starts by describing his early life and education, recalling his experiences teaching in the Advanced Specialized Training Program during and after World War II. Amdahl discusses his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin and his direction of the design and construction of WISC. Amdahl also discusses his role in the design of several computers for IBM including the STRETCH, 701, 701A, and 704. He also mentions his work with Ramo-Wooldridge, Aeronutronic, and Computer Sciences Corporation.
• Xbridge Systems
• Massively Parallel Technologies