Gene Amdahl has died

#1

Post by andrewbinstock » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 3:05 AM UTC

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#2

Post by orionblastar » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 3:52 AM UTC

He really invented a lot of good mainframe technology. Worked at IBM and then left to make his own company to compete with IBM making IBM Mainframe clones that ran faster and cost less than an IBM Mainframe.

I grew up in the era that used IBM 360/370 mainframes and I learned them in college for FORTRAN and COBOL and JCL with DOS/VSE. I don't think colleges teach mainframe technology anymore now that PCs have taken over.

Things moved from PCs to mobile devices so quick as well.

Edit;Typo

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#3

Post by mbreese » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:07 AM UTC

For those who may not have heard of him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#4

Post by gepoch » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:09 AM UTC

Amdahl's law is such a powerful idea. I use it to prioritize development items every week if not every day.

Always sad to see a story like this on hacker news. I'll be talking about his ideas for the rest of my career, guaranteed.

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#5

Post by redroo » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:11 AM UTC

The purpose of Amdahl's 1967 paper was to dissuade customers that multiprocessors were cost-effective (read: more expensive for him to produce at Amdahl Corp). In a certain sense, he was correct. Ironically, however, that same paper is now the most quoted in the parallel processing literature. Moreover, he never wrote down the "law" that is now attributed to him---a marketing coup.

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#6

Post by techdragon » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:13 AM UTC

I think he deserves a HN Back Bar tribute.

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#7

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:25 AM UTC

> With funding from Fujitsu, he formed the Amdahl Corporation, setting up offices in Sunnyvale, Calif.

I didn't realize that the tradition of "avoid SV VC and get funding for cheap from an overseas operating company" went so far back.

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#8

Post by jmspring » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:28 AM UTC

Honest question for those who got received CS/Engineering degrees in the last 10 years, did Amdahl's Law come up?

I've seen programming courses go away from assembler/c/c++ over the years to Java and then scripting languages at a couple local schools.

I wonder if the history/theory side changed as well.

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#9

Post by Blackthorn » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:29 AM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #8

Honest question for those who got received CS/Engineering degrees in the last 10 years, did Amdahl's Law come up? I've seen programming courses go away from assembler/c/c++ over the years to Java and then scripting languages at a couple local schools. I wonder if the history/theory side changed as well.

For me, yes.

Re: Gene Amdahl has died

#10

Post by mindcrime » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 4:35 AM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #8

Honest question for those who got received CS/Engineering degrees in the last 10 years, did Amdahl's Law come up? I've seen programming courses go away from assembler/c/c++ over the years to Java and then scripting languages at a couple local schools. I wonder if the history/theory side changed as well.

I did a degree in High Performance Computing and Amdahl's Law came up there. It never came up back when I was working on my undergrad C.S degree, but I didn't finish my degree either, so maybe it would have eventually.