Andy Tanenbaum | |
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 Tanenbaum in 2012 | |
| Born | Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum (1944-03-16)March 16, 1944 (age 81) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley |
| Known for | MINIX Microkernels Electoral-vote.com |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Distributed computing[1][2] Operating systems[3][4] |
| Thesis | A Study of the Five Minute Oscillations, Supergranulation, and Related Phenomena in the Solar Atmosphere (1971) |
| Doctoral advisor | John M. Wilcox |
| Doctoral students | Henri Bal Frans Kaashoek Werner Vogels[5] |
| Website | cs pearsonhighered |
Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum (born March 16, 1944), sometimes referred to by the handleAST,[6] is anAmerican-bornDutchcomputer scientist and retired professor emeritus ofcomputer science at theVrije Universiteit Amsterdam in theNetherlands.[7][8]
He is the author ofMINIX, a freeUnix-likeoperating system for teaching purposes, and has written multiple computer science textbooks regarded as standard texts in the field. He regards his teaching job as his most important work.[9] Since 2004 he has operatedElectoral-vote.com, awebsite dedicated to analysis of polling data infederal elections in the United States.
Tanenbaum was born inNew York City and grew up in suburbanWhite Plains, New York, where he attended theWhite Plains High School.[10] His paternal grandfather was born inKhorostkiv in theAustro-Hungarian empire.[10]
He received hisBachelor of Science degree inphysics fromMIT in 1965 and hisDoctor of Philosophy degree inastrophysics from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1971.
As an undergraduate, he had obtained experience atcomputer programming, which helped him get a summer internship at theNational Radio Astronomy Observatory inWest Virginia. After receiving his PhD in astrophysics, he decided that he was more interested in programming. He became an assistant professor in Amsterdam based in part on his expertise in programming the university's new computer.[11] He taught courses on Computer Organization and Operating Systems and supervised the work ofPhD candidates at theVU University Amsterdam. On July 9, 2014, he announced his retirement.[12] He is married to a Dutch woman, but retains hisAmerican citizenship.
Tanenbaum's textbooks on computer science include:
His book,Operating Systems: Design and Implementation andMINIX wereLinus Torvalds' inspiration for theLinux kernel. In his autobiographyJust for Fun, Torvalds describes it as "the book that launched me to new heights".[13]
Tanenbaum has had a number ofPhD students who themselves have gone on to become widely known computer science researchers.These include:
In the early 1990s, the Dutch government began setting up a number of thematically oriented research schools that spanned multiple universities. These schools were intended to bring professors and PhD students from different Dutch (and later, foreign) universities together to help them cooperate and enhance their research.[citation needed]
Tanenbaum was one of the cofounders and first Dean of the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI). This school initially consisted of nearly 200 faculty members and PhD students from theVrije Universiteit,University of Amsterdam,Delft University of Technology, andLeiden University. They were especially working on problems in advanced computer systems such asparallel computing and image analysis and processing.[citation needed]
Tanenbaum remained dean for 12 years, until 2005, when he was awarded an Academy Professorship by theRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, at which time he became a full-time research professor.[citation needed]
TheAmsterdam Compiler Kit is a toolkit for producing portable compilers. It was started sometime before 1981 and Andrew Tanenbaum was the architect from the start until version 5.5.[14]
In 1987, Tanenbaum wrote a clone ofUNIX, calledMINIX (MINi-unIX), for theIBM PC. It was targeted at students and others who wanted to learn how an operating system worked. Consequently, he wrote a book that listed the source code in an appendix and described it in detail in the text.[citation needed] The source code itself was available on a set of floppy disks. Within three months, aUsenet newsgroup, comp.os.minix, had sprung up with over 40,000 subscribers discussing and improving the system. One of these subscribers wasLinus Torvalds, who began adding new features to MINIX and tailoring it to his own needs. On October 5, 1991, Torvalds announced his own (POSIX-like) kernel, calledLinux, which originally used the MINIX file system but is not based on MINIX code.[15]
In 2004, Tanenbaum createdElectoral-vote.com, a web site analyzingopinion polls for the2004 U.S. presidential election, using them to project the outcome in theElectoral College. He stated that he created the site as an American who "knows first hand what the world thinks of America and it is not a pretty picture at the moment. I want people to think of America as the land of freedom and democracy, not the land of arrogance and blind revenge. I want to be proud of America again."[16] The site provided a color-coded map, updated each day with projections for each state's electoral votes. Through most of the campaign period Tanenbaum kept his identity secret, referring to himself as "the Votemaster" and acknowledging only that he personally preferredJohn Kerry. Mentioning that he supported theDemocrats, he revealed his identity on November 1, 2004, the day before the election, and also stating his reasons and qualifications for running the website.[16]
Through the site he also covered the2006 midterm elections, correctly predicting the winner of all 33 Senate races that year.
For the2008 elections, he got every state right except for Indiana, which he said McCain would win by 2% (Obama won by 1%) and Missouri, which he said was too close to call (McCain won by 0.1%). He correctly predicted all the winners in the Senate except for Minnesota, where he predicted a 1% win byNorm Coleman overAl Franken. After 7 months of legal battling and recounts, Franken won by 312 votes (0.01%).
In 2010, he correctly projected 35 out of 37 Senate races in the Midterm elections on the website. The exceptions wereColorado andNevada.
Electoral-vote.com incorrectly predictedHillary Clinton would win the2016 United States presidential election. The website incorrectly predicted Clinton would win Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida. Electoral-vote.com did not predict a winner for Nevada, which Clinton would win. The website predicted the winners of the remaining 44 states and the District of Columbia correctly.[17] Clinton however, won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote.
TheTanenbaum–Torvalds debate was a famous debate between Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds regarding kernel design onUsenet in 1992.[18]
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