Gene Amdahl
| Gene Amdahl | |
|---|---|
Gene Amdahl addressing a UW–Madison Alumni gathering, March 13, 2008
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| Born |
November 16, 1922 Flandreau, South Dakota |
| Died | November 10, 2015 (aged 92) Palo Alto, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Entrepreneur Computer science |
| Institutions | degrees in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin. |
| Alma mater |
South Dakota State University (B.S., 1948) University of Wisconsin–Madison (M.S.; Ph.D., 1952) |
| Thesis | The Logical Design of an Intermediate Speed Digital Computer (1953) |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert G. Sachs |
| Known for | founding Amdahl Corporation; formulating Amdahl's law; IBM 360, 704 |
| Influences | Harold A. Peterson |
| Notable awards |
National Academy of Engineering (1967) Computer History Museum Fellow (1998) |
| Spouse | Marian Delaine Amdahl (née Quissell) |
| Children |
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Gene Myron Amdahl (November 16, 1922 – November 10, 2015) was an American computer architect and high-tech entrepreneur, chiefly known for his work on mainframe computers at IBM and later his own companies, especially Amdahl Corporation. He formulated Amdahl's law, which states a fundamental limitation of parallel computing.
Amdahl was born to immigrant parents of Norwegian and Swedish descent in Flandreau, South Dakota. After serving in the Navy during World War II 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 under Robert G. Sachs. However, in 1950, Amdahl and Charles H. "Charlie" Davidson, a fellow Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics, approached Harold A. Peterson with the idea of a digital computer. Amdahl and Davidson gained the support of Peterson and fellow electrical engineering professor Vincent C. Rideout, who encouraged them to build a computer of their unique design. Amdahl completed his doctorate at UW–Madison in 1952 with a thesis titled A Logical Design of an Intermediate Speed Digital Computer and creating his first computer, the Wisconsin Integrally Synchronized Computer, WISC. He then went straight from Wisconsin to a position at IBM in June 1952.
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). He quit out of frustration with the bureaucratic structure of the organization. In an interview conducted in 1989 for the Charles Babbage Institute, he addressed this:
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