Butler Lampson | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lampson in 2018 | |
| Born | (1943-12-23)December 23, 1943 (age 82) Washington, D.C. |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) University of California, Berkeley (MS,PhD) |
| Known for | SDS 940,Xerox Alto |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley Xerox PARC Digital Equipment Corporation Microsoft Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | Scheduling and Protection in an Interactive Multi-Processor System (1967) |
| Doctoral advisor | Harry Huskey |
| Website | research.microsoft.com/lampson(archived) |
Butler W. Lampson (born December 23, 1943) is an Americancomputer scientist best known for his contributions to the development and implementation of distributedpersonal computing. He won the 1992 ACMTuring Award.
After graduating from theLawrenceville School (where in 2009 he was awarded the Aldo Leopold Award, also known as the Lawrenceville Medal, Lawrenceville's highest award to alumni), Lampson received anA.B. inphysics (magna cum laude with highest honors in the discipline) fromHarvard University in 1964 and aPhD inelectrical engineering and computer science from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1967.
During the 1960s, Lampson and others were part ofProject GENIE at UC Berkeley. In 1965, several Project GENIE members, specifically Lampson andPeter Deutsch, developed theBerkeley Timesharing System forScientific Data Systems'SDS 940 computer. After completing his doctorate, Lampson stayed on at UC Berkeley as an assistant professor (1967–1970) and associate professor (1970–1971) of computer science. For a period of time, he concurrently served as director of system development for the Berkeley Computer Corporation (1969–1971).
In 1971, Lampson became one of the founding members ofXerox PARC, where he worked in the Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) as a principal scientist (1971–1975) and senior research fellow (1975–1983). His now-famous vision of apersonal computer was captured in the 1972 memo entitled "Why Alto?".[1] In 1973, theXerox Alto, with its three-buttonmouse and full-page-sizedmonitor, was born.[2]It is now considered to be the first actual personal computer in terms of what has become the "canonical" GUI mode of operation.
All the subsequent computers built at Xerox PARC except for the "Dolphin" (used in the Xerox 1100 LISP machine) and the "Dorado" (used in the Xerox 1132 LISP machine) followed a general blueprint called "Wildflower", written by Lampson, and this included the D-Series Machines: the "Dandelion" (used in theXerox Star and Xerox 1108 LISP machine), "Dandetiger" (used in the Xerox 1109 LISP machine), "Daybreak" (Xerox 6085), and "Dicentra" (used internally to control various specialized hardware devices).
At PARC, Lampson helped work on many other revolutionary technologies, such aslaser printer design;two-phase commit protocols;Bravo, the firstWYSIWYGtext formatting program; andEthernet, the first high-speedlocal area network (LAN). He designed several influential programming languages such asEuclid.
Following the acrimonious resignation of Xerox PARC CSL managerBob Taylor in 1983, Lampson andChuck Thacker followed Taylor colleague toDigital Equipment Corporation'sSystems Research Center. There, he was a senior consulting engineer (1984–1986), corporate consulting engineer (1986–1993) and senior corporate consulting engineer (1993–1995). Shortly before Taylor's retirement, Lampson left to work forMicrosoft Research as an architect (1995–1999), distinguished engineer (2000–2005) and technical fellow (2005–present).
Since 1987, Lampson has been anadjunct professor of electrical engineering and computer science at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lampson is often quoted as saying "Any problem in computer science can be solved with another level of indirection", but in his Turing Award Lecture in 1993, Lampson himself attributes this saying toDavid Wheeler.[8]
