David Neil Cutler, Sr. (born March 13, 1942) is a noted software engineer, designer and developer of several operating systems including the RSX-11, VMS and VAXELN systems of Digital Equipment Corporation and Windows NT from Microsoft. March 13 is the 72nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (73rd in leap years). ... 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... Software engineering (SE) is the profession concerned with specifying, designing, developing and maintaining software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, and other fields. ... An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... RSX-11: A family of real-time operating systems mainly for PDP-11 computers created by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), common in the late 1970s and early 1980s, designed for and much used in process control, but also popular for program development. ... OpenVMS[1] (Open Virtual Memory System or just VMS) is the name of a high-end computer server operating system that runs on the VAX[2] and Alpha[3] family of computers developed by Digital Equipment Corporation of Maynard, Massachusetts (DIGITAL was then purchased by Compaq, and is now owned... VAXeln is a real-time operating system for MicroVAX. Trivia It was originally supposed to be named ELAN but DEC discovered at the last minute that it was trademarked in a European country where DEC wished to conduct business. ... The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ...

Personal history

David Neil Cutler, Sr. was born in Lansing, Michigan and grew up in DeWitt, Michigan. After graduating from Olivet College in 1965, Cutler went to work for DuPont. One of his tasks was developing and running computer simulations on Digital machines. He developed an interest in operating systems and left DuPont to pursue that interest. Location in Ingham County, Michigan1 Coordinates: Country United States State Michigan County Ingham, Eaton Settled 1835 Incorporation 1859 Government  - Type Strong Mayor-Council  - Mayor Virg Bernero (D) Area  - City  35. ... DeWitt is a city in Clinton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. ... Olivet College is a liberal arts college located in the city of Olivet in the U.S. state of Michigan. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, or du Pont may refer to: // E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the worlds third largest chemical company Du Pont Motors Gilbert Dupont, a French stock brokerage part of retail banking network Crédit du Nord ST Dupont, a French manufacturer of fine... A computer simulation or a computer model is a computer program that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system. ...

Cutler's software career started at a small company he founded called Agrippa-Ord, located in Monument Square, Concord, Massachusetts (or possibly in Acton, Massachusetts), marketing software for the LINC and PDP-8 computers. Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... Location in Massachusetts Coordinates: Country United States State Massachusetts County Middlesex County Settled 1635 Incorporated 1635 Government  - Type Open town meeting Area  - Town  25. ... Acton MA is home to Joe Hart. ... The LINC (Laboratory Instrument Computer) was a 12-bit, 2048-word computer. ... A PDP-8 on display at the Smithsonians National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.. This example is from the first generation of PDP-8s, built with discrete transistors and later known as the Straight 8. ...

Cutler holds over 20 patents and is an affiliate professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Washington. The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. ...

David Cutler usefully summarised his own career in the foreword ^[1] to Inside Windows NT.

In addition to his engineering skills, Cutler is known for his sardonic humor. He generally referred to the RSX fork list as the "fork queue" ^[2] Sometimes even his error messages turn out to have a double meaning. RSX-11: A family of real-time operating systems mainly for PDP-11 computers created by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), common in the late 1970s and early 1980s, designed for and much used in process control, but also popular for program development. ...

David is also an avid auto racing driver. He has previously competed in the Toyota Atlantic Championship (now Champ Car Atlantic) from 1996 to 2002, scoring a career best of 8th on the Milwaukee Mile in 2000. “Racing cars” redirects here. ... The Toyota Atlantic Championship is an auto racing series with races throughout North America. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... The Milwaukee Mile (also The Mile and Americas Legendary Oval) is a race track in West Allis, Wisconsin, USA. It is a mile long (1. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

VMS

In April 1975, DIGITAL began a hardware project, code named Star, to design on a 32-bit virtual address extension to its PDP-11. In June 1975, Dave together with Dick Hustvedt, and Peter Lippman were appointed the technical project leaders for the software project, code-named Starlet, to develop a totally new operating system for the Star family of processors. These two projects were tightly integrated from the beginning. The three technical leaders of the Starlet project together with three technical leaders of the Star project formed the "Blue Ribbon Committee" at DIGITAL who produced the fifth design evolution for the programs. The design featured simplifications to the memory management and process scheduling schemes of the earlier proposals and the architecture was accepted. The Star and Starlet projects culminated in the development of the VAX 11/780 computer and the VAX/VMS operating system. Year 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The PDP-11 was a 16-bit minicomputer sold by Digital Equipment Corp. ... Richard (Dick) Irvin Hustvedt (born February 18, 1946) is a renowned software engineer, designer and developer of several operating systems including the RSX-11, 782 ASMP and VMS (OpenVMS) systems of Digital Equipment Corporation. ... VAX is a 32-bit computing architecture that supports an orthogonal instruction set (machine language) and virtual addressing (i. ...

At DEC he is widely credited for terminating the 1979-80 Desktop RSTS project and scrapping the manufacturing prototype. Compared to the subsequently announced IBM-PC, RSTS had 40,000 running applications, ANSI languages and DBMS. Not to mention a reputation as a robust, stable and reliable multi-user, multi-tasking operating system. RSTS also had a virtual operating mode that allowed it to faithfully emulate other operating systems such at RSX, RT11 and the IBM-1403. But it's not fair to blame Cutler for this loss; it was Ken Olsen who couldn't understand why anyone would want to have his/her own computer on the desk. RSTS/E (an acronym for Resource Sharing Time Sharing Extended) was a multi-user time-shared operating system developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers, and used primarily during the 1970s and 1980s, although some installations were still being upgraded well into... The IBM PC (Personal Computer), was the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. ... Ken Olsen calling UNIX snake oil Kenneth H. Olsen (born on February 20, 1926) is an American engineer who cofounded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson. ...

Prism and Mica projects

DIGITAL began working on RISC technology in 1986 and Cutler, who was then working in DEC's Seattle facility, was elected to head Prism, a project to develop the company’s RISC machine. Its operating system, code named Mica, would embody the next generation of design principles and have a compatibility layer for UNIX and VMS. The RISC machine was to be based on ECL technology and was one of three ECL projects DIGITAL was undertaking at the time. On the basis of the R&D cost involved in funding multiple ECL projects to yield products that would ultimately compete against each other, Prism was cancelled in 1988 in favor of a system running Ultrix on processors produced by MIPS. Of the three ECL projects, the VAX 9000 was the only one that was commercialised. Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), is a microprocessor CPU design philosophy that favors a smaller and simpler set of instructions that all take about the same amount of time to execute. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... PRISM was a 32-bit RISC CPU design from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). ... In electronics, emitter coupled logic, or ECL, is a logic family in which current is steered through bipolar transistors to compute logical functions. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... Ultrix (officially all-caps ULTRIX) was the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporations (DEC) native Unix systems. ... ...

Windows NT

Cutler left Digital for Microsoft in October 1988 and led the development of Windows NT. Later, he worked on targeting Windows NT to Digital's 64-bit Alpha computer (itself based on the Prism design), then on Windows 2000. After the demise of Windows on Alpha (and DEC, itself), Cutler was instrumental in porting Windows to AMD's new 64-bit architecture. He was involved with the Windows XP Pro 64-bit and Windows Server 2003 SP1 64-bit releases, as well as Windows Vista. He moved to working on Microsoft's Live Platform in August 2006. Dave Cutler was awarded the prestigious status of Senior Technical fellow in Microsoft. Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... DEC Alpha AXP 21064 Microprocessor The DEC Alpha, also known as the Alpha AXP, is a 64-bit RISC microprocessor originally developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corp (DEC). ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... Microsoft awards the title of Technical Fellow to someone whose technical vision, expertise, and world-class leadership is widely recognized. ...

Trivia

• Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of the Dead or Alive video game series, mentioned Cutler as the programmer he admires the most.[1]

• Accidentally or otherwise, the initials for Windows NT, "WNT", are a 1-step transposition of "VMS", and VMS was the DEC operating system that greatly influenced Cutler's later development of Windows NT.

Tomonobu Itagaki is a Japanese video game designer who heads Team Ninja, one of Tecmos development teams. ... Dead or Alive ) is a video game series produced by Tecmo that comprises primarily fighting games. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. ... OpenVMS[1] (Open Virtual Memory System or just VMS) is the name of a high-end computer server operating system that runs on the VAX[2] and Alpha[3] family of computers developed by Digital Equipment Corporation of Maynard, Massachusetts (DIGITAL was then purchased by Compaq, and is now owned... The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. ...

References

• Zachary, G. Pascal (1994). Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft. Warner Books. ISBN 0-02-935671-7. 

External links

• Dave Cutler video on 64 bit computing at AMD Site