Overview
One of the original architects of the
business mainframe computer, including IBM’s System/360 computer
line, Amdahl started the IBM-compatible market when he left IBM to found
Amdahl Corporation. Amdahl’s work has been called brilliant and genius
by his peers. The Times of London named him one of the "1,000 Makers
of the 20th Century" in 1991, and mainframe magazine Computerworld
considered Amdahl one of the 25 people "who changed the world."
He is the founder of four companies, Amdahl Corporation, Trilogy Systems
(now part of Elxsi Corporation), Andor Systems, and Commercial Data Servers
(CDS).
Early history
Gene Myron Amdahl was born in South Dakota in 1922. After serving two
years in the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he learned electronics,
and taking a course in computer programming, he received a bachelors degree
in engineering physics at South Dakota
State University in 1948. In 1952 he completed his doctorate in theoretical
physics at the University of Wisconsin,
where he designed his first computer, the Wisconsin Integrally Synchronized
Computer (WISC).
He began his career with IBM in 1952, and became the chief design engineer
of the IBM 704. In 1955, Amdahl worked with others to design the Datatron,
which led to a computer called the Stretch, and eventually became the
IBM 7030, a computer that used the new transistor technology. In 1956,
after just four short years with IBM, Amdahl became unhappy with the company
and quit. After five years of working for other computer companies, he
returned to IBM in 1960.
During the 1960s, Amdahl gained recognition as the principle architect
of IBM’s impressive System
360 series of mainframe computers. The IBM System 360 was based on
the Stretch, which Amdahl had worked on in 1955. The 360 series was one
of the greatest success stories in the computer industry and became the
main ingredient to IBM’s enormous profitability in the late 1960s.
Leaving IBM…again
Amdahl became an IBM Fellow and was able to pursue his own research projects.
In 1969, he was director of IBM’s
Advanced Computing Systems Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. He
recommended that the laboratory be shut down, which IBM did, and presented
his ideas about the internal barriers that prevented IBM from shooting
for the high end of computer development. Although his ideas were accepted,
IBM executives refused to change policies and Amdahl left IBM again.
In 1970, Amdahl formed his own company, Amdahl
Corporation, in Sunnyvale, California. His plan was to compete head-to-head
with IBM in the mainframe market. Most industry analysts considered this
to be career suicide and gave his start-up company very little chance
of surviving. But survive it did, and actually prospered. Instead of creating
a rival system to IBM, Amdahl created discounted computers that could
be substituted for name brand models and run the same software. Basically,
he designed the first computer clones, known then as "plug-to-plug
compatibles." Amdahl became the most celebrated entrepreneur in the
computer industry for awhile. The only major criticism that was raised
about Amdahl Corporation at the time was that Amdahl took start-up money
from Fujitsu Ltd. of Japan in exchange for American mainframe technology.
In 1975, Amdahl Corporation shipped its first computer, the Amdahl 470
V/6. Over the next few years, Amdahl and IBM leap-frogged each other with
faster, smaller, and cheaper computers. In 1979, Gene Amdahl began moving
away from Amdahl Corporation when he resigned his post as chairman. He
became chairman emeritus for less than a year, leaving Amdahl Corporation
in 1980 to found Trilogy Systems Corporation.
With the success of Amdahl Corporation, Amdahl had no trouble interesting
investors in this new company and easily raised $230 million in start-up
money. Again, his plan was to compete with IBM, and also Amdahl Corporation,
in the high-end mainframe computer market. In addition, Amdahl planned
to completely redesign the semiconductor chips that powered the computers.
His dream was to combine the functions of 100 separate chips onto one
superchip that would work faster and more efficiently than the multiple
chips.
Trilogy’s Misfortune
Unfortunately, Trilogy was hounded by disasters. Torrential rains delayed
construction of the chip plant, then invaded the air conditioning, destroying
the clean room atmosphere and all the chips currently being created. At
that point, Amdahl had spent one-third of the start-up money with nothing
to show for it. To save Trilogy, Amdahl spent the remainder of the money
to acquire Elxsi Corporation, a computer manufacturer, in 1985. The new
company continued to flounder and never achieved great success. In 1989,
Amdahl stepped down as chairman of Elxsi to devote more time to his next
venture.
In 1987, Amdahl founded his third company, this one called Andor Systems
after the "and" and "or" logic gates of computer circuitry.
This time his aim was to build computers that would compete with IBM’s
smaller mainframes. Industry analysts uniformly gave the company very
little chance of success. But Amdahl felt he had an edge — he could make
small mainframe computers more cheaply than IBM. He could use new technology
that allowed him to pack the computer’s central processor onto one
board, rather than the several used by IBM, and he redesigned the compiler
to work more quickly and efficiently. These innovations allowed Andor’s
computers to take up less space and generate less heat, a distinct advantage
to customers who no longer would need giant air-conditioned rooms in which
to place their computers.
But Andor was plagued by bad chips, causing a delay of almost two years
before the first computers hit the market. Meanwhile, IBM came out with
its own midsize computer using some of the same technology employed by
Andor. To survive, Andor had to come up with other peripheral products
that it could quickly get on the market. But Andor never achieved the
success it was after with the small mainframes, and in 1991 it had scaled
back products to include only a data backup system. By 1994, the company
had yet to turn a profit. Eventually, the company declared bankruptcy.
The Main-frame Devotee
But Gene Amdahl was not ready to give up. In 1996, at the age of 74,
he started his fourth company, this one called Commercial
Data Servers (CDS). Through CDS, Amdahl intends to distribute IBM-compatible,
PC-based mainframes that use cryogenically-cooled CMOS processors and
a new processor design that he created. CDS is targeting its products
at companies that need the capabilities and selling price of a smaller
mainframe, a market that CDS believes IBM and other manufacturers aren’t
serving adequately.
Gene Amdahl continues his quest to merge mainframe technologies with
the more popular PC technology. Though many find these two areas incompatible
(mainframe means centralized, controlled computing; PCs are for individual
computing), Amdahl won’t give in to those who believe mainframes
are dinosaurs that have outlived their usefulness. And, apparently he
doesn’t intend to ever give up.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Who’s Who in America
Levine, Jonathan B. "Gene Amdahl tries for two out
of three" Business Week, June 27, 1988
Pare, Terence P. "Lions in winter" Fortune,
July 4, 1988
"Elxsi names chairman" The New York Times,
March 16, 1989, p.D14
Pitta, Julie "Strike two?" Forbes,
December 9, 1991
Nash, Jim "Gene Amdahl: mainframe guru still driven,
still a believer in vision" The Business Journal, January
10, 1994
Hast, Adele, Ed., International Directory of Company
Histories, Volume III, St. James Press, 1991
"Cryogenically-cooled CMOS systems will come out
of Amdahl" IBM System User International, July 19, 1996
31d
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