Dave Cutler
Cutler at work onMicrosoft Azure (2008)
Born	(1942-03-13)March 13, 1942 (age 83)[1] Lansing, Michigan, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Olivet College
Known for	Developing several widely-used commercialoperating systems: Microsoft:Windows NT Digital Equipment Corporation:RSX-11M,VMS,VAXELN,MICA
Scientific career
Fields	Computer science Operating system design
Institutions	DuPont Digital Equipment Corporation Microsoft (Senior Technical Fellow) University of Washington

David Neil Cutler Sr. (born March 13, 1942) is an Americansoftware engineer. He developed several computeroperating systems, namelyMicrosoft Windows NT, andDigital Equipment Corporation'sRSX-11M,VAXELN, andVMS.^[2]

Cutler was born inLansing, Michigan and grew up inDeWitt, Michigan. After graduating fromOlivet College, Michigan, in 1965, he went to work forDuPont.

Cutler holds at least 20 patents, and is affiliate faculty in the Computer Science Department at theUniversity of Washington.^[3]

Cutler is an avidauto racing driver. He competed in theAtlantic Championship from 1996 to 2002, scoring a career best of 8th on theMilwaukee Mile in 2000.^[2]

Cutler was elected a member of theNational Academy of Engineering in 1994 for the design and engineering of commercially successful operating systems.

Cutler is a member of Adelphic Alpha Pi Fraternity atOlivet College, Michigan.^[4]

Cutler's first exposure to computers came when he was tasked to perform acomputer simulations model for one of DuPont's customers using IBM'sGPSS-3 language on anIBM model 7044.^[5] This work led to an interest in how computers and their operating systems worked.

Cutler left DuPont to pursue his interest in computer systems, beginning withDigital Equipment Corporation in 1971. He worked atDigital's headquarters inMaynard, Massachusetts.^[6]

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In April 1975, DEC began a hardware project, code-namedStar, to design a 32-bit virtual address extension to itsPDP-11. In June 1975, Cutler, together withDick Hustvedt and Peter Lipman, were appointed the technical project leaders for the software project, code-namedStarlet, to develop a totally new operating system for the Star family of processors. These two projects were tightly integrated from the beginning.

The three technical leaders of the Starlet project together with three technical leaders of the Star project formed the "Blue Ribbon Committee" at DEC that produced the fifth design evolution for the programs. The design featured simplifications to the memory management and process scheduling schemes of the earlier proposals and the architecture was accepted. The Star and Starlet projects culminated in the development of theVAX-11/780 superminicomputer and the VAX/VMS operating system, respectively.

DEC began working on a new CPU usingreduced instruction set computer (RISC) design principles in 1986. Cutler, who was working in DEC's DECwest facility in Bellevue, Washington, was selected to headPRISM, a project to develop the company's RISC machine. Its operating system, code namedMICA, was to embody the next generation of design principles and have a compatibility layer for Unix and VMS. The RISC machine was to be based onemitter-coupled logic (ECL) technology, and was one of three ECL projects DEC was undertaking at the time.

Funding the research and development of multiple ECL projects yielding products that would ultimately compete against each other was a strain. Of the three ECL projects, the VAX 9000 was the only one that was directly commercialized. Primarily because of the early successes of thePMAX advanced development project and the need for differing business models, PRISM was canceled in 1988 in favor of PMAX.

PRISM later surfaced as the basis of DEC'sAlpha family of computer systems.^[7]

Cutler is known for his disdain forUnix. Said one team member who worked with Cutler:^[8]

Unix is like Cutler's lifelong foe. It's like hisMoriarty. He thinks Unix is a junk operating program designed by a committee of PhDs. There's never been one mind behind the whole thing, and it shows. So he's always been out to get Unix.

Cutler left DEC for Microsoft in October 1988 and led the development of Windows NT. Later, he worked on targeting Windows NT to DEC's 64-bitAlpha architecture then onWindows 2000. After the demise of Windows on Alpha (and the demise of DEC), he was instrumental in porting Windows to AMD's new 64-bitAMD64 architecture. He was involved with theWindows XP Pro x64 andWindows Server 2003 SP1 x64 releases. He moved to working on Microsoft's Live Platform in August 2006. Cutler was awarded the prestigious status of Senior Technical Fellow at Microsoft.

At the 2008Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft announcedAzure Services Platform, acloud-basedoperating system which Microsoft is developing. During the conference keynote, Cutler was mentioned as a lead developer on the project, along with Amitabh Srivastava.^[9]

In January 2012, a spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed that Cutler was no longer working on Windows Azure, and had joined theXbox team.^[10] In May 2013, Microsoft announced the Xbox One console, and Cutler was mentioned as having worked in developing the host OS of the new gaming device. Apparently his work was focused on creating an optimized version of Microsoft'sHyper-V Host OS specifically designed for Xbox One.^[11]

• Recognized as a 2007 National Medal of Technology and Innovation Laureate, awarded on 29 September 2008 at a White House ceremony in Washington, DC.^[12][13]
• Honored as a Computer History Museum Fellow on 16 April 2016 at theComputer History Museum in Mountain View, California.^[14]

• Zachary, G. Pascal (1994).Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft. Warner Books.ISBN 0-02-935671-7.

• Transcript or oral history interview with Dave Cutler by the Computer History Museum
• Dave Cutler video on his career as part of his Computer History Museum Fellow award onYouTube
• Dave Cutler video on 64 bit computing at AMD Site at theWayback Machine (archived February 23, 2006)
• David Cutler career summary at DriverDB.com
• David Cutler, Microsoft Technical Fellow at theWayback Machine (archived October 7, 2010)
• Dave Cutler: The Secret History of Microsoft Windows onYouTube

• 1942 births
• Living people
• American computer programmers
• American computer scientists
• Microsoft technical fellows
• Microsoft Windows people
• Digital Equipment Corporation people
• Kernel programmers
• Atlantic Championship drivers
• People from Lansing, Michigan
• Racing drivers from Michigan
• Operating system people
• Olivet Comets football players

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