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. He is perhaps best known for formulating Amdahl's law, which states a fundamental limitation of parallel computing. The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public university located in Madison,Wisconsin. ... is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Norwegian-Americans are an ethnic group in the United States. ... For other uses, see Mainframe. ... International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) (NYSE: IBM) (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services. ... Amdahl Corporation was founded by Dr. Gene Amdahl, a former IBM employee, in 1970, and specializes in IBM mainframe-compatible computer products. ... The speedup of a program using multiple processors in parallel computing is limited by the sequential fraction of the program. ... Parallel computing is the simultaneous execution of the same task (split up and specially adapted) on multiple processors in order to obtain results faster. ...

Childhood and education

Amdahl was born to immigrant parents of Norwegian and Swedish descent in Flandreau, South Dakota. After serving in the Navy during WWII he completed a degree in engineering physics at South Dakota State University in 1948. 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. He then went straight from Wisconsin to a well paid position at IBM in June 1952. Flandreau is a city in Moody County, South Dakota, United States. ... USN redirects here. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... South Dakota State University is home to Julia, the Alaskan. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... University of Wisconsin redirects here. ... 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. ... 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. He left IBM in December 1955 but returned in September 1960 (after working at Ramo Wooldridge and at Aeronutronic). 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. 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. An IBM 704 mainframe (image courtesy of LLNL) The IBM 704,[1] 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 IBMs first attempt at building a supercomputer. ... 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 supply and credit reporting. ... Aeronutronic was a defense and space related division of Ford set up in 1956. ... System/360 Model 65 operators console, with register value lamps and toggle switches (middle of picture) and emergency pull switch (upper right). ... An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM’s CEO. Typically only 4 or 5 IBM Fellows are appointed each year, at the annual Corporate Technical Recognition Event (CTRE) event in June. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... Menlo Park is a city in San Mateo County, California in the United States of America, in the San Francisco Bay Area. ... 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. ... Location in Santa Clara County and the state of California Coordinates: , Country State County Santa Clara Government  - Mayor Otto Lee Area  - Total 22. ... For the district in Saga, Japan, see Fujitsu, Saga. ...

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. 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. 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 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. ... MVS (Multiple Virtual Storage) was the most commonly used operating system on the System/370 and System/390 IBM mainframe computers. ... An operating system (OS) is a software that manages computer resources and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... VM is an early and influential virtual machine operating system from IBM, apparently the first true virtual machine system. ... A front end processor (FEP), or a communications processor, is a small-sized computer which interfaces to the host computer a number of networks, such as SNA, or a number of peripheral devices, such as terminals, disk units, printers and tape units. ... Disk Drive is the afternoon show on CBC Radio Two. ...

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. 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. These arguments continue to this day. The ILLIAC IV was one of the most infamous supercomputers ever, destined to be the last in a series of research machines from the University of Illinois. ... Parallel processing is the ability of the brain to simultaneously process incoming stimuli. ...

1979–now: Entrepreneur

Amdahl left his namesake company in August 1979 to set up Trilogy Systems. With over US$200 million in funds Trilogy was aimed at designing an integrated chip for even cheaper mainframes. 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. Elxsi also did poorly and Amdahl left in 1989, having already founded his next venture, Andor International, in 1987. 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. Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ... Trilogy Systems was a computer systems company started in 1980. ... A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single integrated circuit (IC). ... VLSI may refer to: Very-large-scale integration, a process for the creation of electronic integrated circuits VLSI Technology (1979–1999), a former American integrated circuit manufacturer, now a part of Philips Electronics VLSI Solution, a Finnish integrated circuit manufacturer Category: ... This article is about the year. ... Elxsi was a minicomputer manufacturing company established in the late 1970s along with a host of other competitors (Trilogy, Sequent, Convex Computer). ... This article is about the year 1987. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...

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. 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. 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.) Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ...

In November 2004, Amdahl was appointed to the Board of Advisors of Massively Parallel Technologies. 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. Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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. 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. 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".^[1] An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM’s CEO. Typically only 4 or 5 IBM Fellows are appointed each year, at the annual Corporate Technical Recognition Event (CTRE) event in June. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... Founded in 1964, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in the United States provides engineering leadership in service to the nation. ... 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 home to Julia, the Alaskan. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... An honorary degree (Latin: honoris causa ad gradum, not to be confused with an honors degree) is an academic degree awarded to an individual as a decoration, rather than as the result of matriculating and studying for several years. ... For other uses, see Alma mater (disambiguation). ... An organizational unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), established in 1963 when the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) merged to create the IEEE. At the time of the merger, the AIEE’s Subcommittee on Large-Scale Computing (established...

In November 2007, Amdahl was recognized with the SIGDA Pioneering Achievement Award^[2]. 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). The talk and debate were both videotaped, and are available through the SIGDA web page, and the ACM Digital Library^[3] Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... SIGDA, Association for Computing Machinerys Special Interest Group on Design Automation, is a professional development organization for the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) community. ... Gustafsons Law (also known as Gustafson-Barsis law) is a law in computer engineering which states that any sufficiently large problem can be efficiently parallelized. ... SIGDA, Association for Computing Machinerys Special Interest Group on Design Automation, is a professional development organization for the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) community. ... ACM is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, as described below: Abstract Control Model Academy of Country Music Academic Common Market Academy of Contemporary Music Advanced Cruise Missile Adaptive Combat Model Aerial Combat Maneuver Air combat manoeuvering Air Cycle Machine Airspace Coordination Measure Adams Capital Management Advanced compact MOSFET...

See also

• Amdahl's law
• Amdahl Corporation
• IBM mainframe

The speedup of a program using multiple processors in parallel computing is limited by the sequential fraction of the program. ... Amdahl Corporation was founded by Dr. Gene Amdahl, a former IBM employee, in 1970, and specializes in IBM mainframe-compatible computer products. ... SAS 8 on an IBM mainframe, seen here via one of its user interfaces, classic 3270 emulation. ...

References

2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

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. 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