Swedish American Genealogist

Volume 33 | Number 3 Article 6

9-1-2013

Gene Amdahl - a computer pioneerCarl-Johan Ivarsson

Elisabeth Thorsell

Christopher Olsson

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Recommended CitationIvarsson, Carl-Johan; Thorsell, Elisabeth; and Olsson, Christopher (2013) "Gene Amdahl - a computer pioneer," Swedish AmericanGenealogist: Vol. 33 : No. 3 , Article 6.Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol33/iss3/6

Gene Amdahl - a Swedish-Norwegian computerpioneerComputers are now a common daily tool, but they also have their history

BY CARL-JOHAN IVARSSON

Translation by Elisabeth Thorsell andChristopher Olsson.

In the 3rd edition of the Swedishencyclopedia Bra Backer's Lexikon,volume 5 (Coe-Dick) from 1984, wefind the word "Dator" (computer). Itsays dator or datamaskin is "a ma-chine that without human inter-ference can perform large com-putations of a great number ofarithmetic and logical operations."

On about six pages, a close de-scription of all can be found. Thepictures show integrated circuits,disc memories, and a computer hall.But to give a picture of a newer era,a young woman sitting by the Swed-ish computer ABC800 is shown. Wecan easily see that much has hap-pened during these 29 years.

The historical part of the articlestarts with Charles Babbage, theman who built a mechanical "stoneage" computer in 1822, and some

other early pioneers are mentionedas well as some known early com-puters in Sweden with names likeBARK, BESK, and SMIL. Apple ismentioned, but not Microsoft. We donot find the business superstars ofour time, people like Steve Jobs andBill Gates. But one name is men-tioned when it states: "during the1970s several manufacturers startedto build totally IBM-compatible cen-tral units that can directly runprograms and operation systemsfrom IBM. The best-known manu-facturer of these (...) was Amdahl,founded by Gene Amdahl, formerlya head of construction at IBM."

Who is this Gene Amdahl, and whyis he considered worthy of being men-tioned in such an article? And whatwas his connection to Varmland?

The office computer ABC 800, built in 1981 by the Swedish company Luxor, whichalso had a home computer, ABC 80, which became very popular and was the most inuse then. It was the start of the Swedish Computer Genealogy Society (DIS) in 1980.

South DakotaGene Myron Amdahl was born 1922Nov. 16 close to Flandreau, MoodyCo., South Dakota. The name soundsNorwegian, and three of his grand-parents came from Norway.

His paternal grandfather Ole Ol-sen Amdahl was born in 1855 in YtreAmdal, Nedstrand parish, near Hau-gesund on the Norwegian Vestlandet.Ole immigrated with parents andsiblings as a tiny boy. In 1879 he cameto Moody County, and obtained landvia the Homestead Act, where set-tlers could get land for free.

There he married Sofia Eriks-dotter (AKA Sophia Ericson), born in1857 in Olserud in Kila parish,(Vrml.). Sofia came to Moody Co. in1881 and had six siblings that allcame to America, most of them toMoody Co. in the eastern part ofSouth Dakota, then still a territory(it became a state in 1889).

Flandreau is one of four littletowns in Moody Co., which is an agri-cultural county. In the 1920 U.S. Cen-sus some 9,742 individuals lived inthe county; in 2010 there lived only6,486 individuals. The populationdecrease is primarily due to thediminishing need for agriculturallaborers.

The strange thing is that morefamilies from Kila parish ended upin this special area on the prairie.They grew to be so many that therewas a post office named Kila, SouthDakota, for a few years around 1900.There was also a cemetery called"Kila Swedish Cemetery." So one cansay that Gene Amdahl had his ori-gins in both places called Kila.

Gene Amdahl's father was named

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Anton Edwin Amdahl. His motherwas Ingeborg Brendsel who had herroots in Byneset, close to Trondheim.Anton Amdahl farmed corn, barley,oats, and alfalfa and raised cattle. Inan interview Gene talks about life onthe farm, about when the firsttractors came, and how his fathermade paint by mixing skim milk,concrete, and red ochre.

EducationGene Amdahl went to an ordinaryrural school in Moody County withabout 15-20 pupils, and passedthrough eight grades there. The lasttwo years in high school he studiedat the Augustana Academy boardingschool in Canton, South Dakota. Inspite of meagre conditions, educationwas important in his family, especial-ly for his mother who was a trainedteacher. He was accepted in the fallof 1941 at the South Dakota StateCollege (later University) in Broo-kings. He applied to this school most-ly because of the wishes of his par-ents, and he did not want to becomea farmer but to escape the need todepend on the changeable weatherin South Dakota.

The United States became in De-cember 1941 involved in World WarII, and everyone had to take part inthe war effort. After a year as ateacher of physics, Gene Amdahl ser-ved for two years in the Navy as ateacher of electronics. His threebrothers all enlisted in the Army andsailed overseas, while Gene Amdahlonly served on a ship in dry dock. InApril 1945, just three weeks beforethe end of the war, Gene Amdahl losthis brother Orin, who was leading hisarmy group across the Rhine whenhe was shot by a sniper.

End of war and marriageIn the fall of 1946 Gene could returnto South Dakota State, where hereceived his BSc degree in technicalphysics in 1948. By then he had alsomarried Marian Delaine Quissell,whose origins were from the samearea in Moody Co.

Marian also had strong roots inKila, where her grandmother Hulda

Maria Andersdotter was born in 1874in Grunnerud, and in 1894 had im-migrated to the area of Flandreau,where her maternal uncles had comeduring the 1880s. These uncles weremarried to the sisters of Gene Am-dahl's paternal grandmother's moth-er, so there was another connectionto Kila.

In the 1920s a new generation ofimmigrants came to Moody Countywhen Hulda's brother's son John Tak-man tried his luck in America. Hereturned to Sweden after his time inthe U.S. and became a communist, asocial doctor, and finally a memberof parliament for the then Vanster-partiet Kommunisterna (SwedishCommunist Party). He kept up thecontacts with his cousin Marian, andinvited the Amdahls to visit him atStora Backa in Kila in 1984.

Research studentGene Amdahl was accepted as a re-search student in theoretical physicsat the University of Wisconsin inMadison, WI, in 1948. There he wasgiven the task, with two other stu-dents, of calculating the nuclearpower of the stable isotope of "thetritium nucleus."

After calculating for thirty dayswith the help of a mechanical cal-culator, they decided it was impos-sible to make as exact a calculationas they wished. Gene Amdahl thendecided to build a computer, laterknown as WISC (Wisconsin Inte-grally Synchronized Computer). ForGene Amdahl the construction of thecomputer became the start of his lat-er career. He wrote his doctoral the-sis (The Logical Design of an Inter-mediate Speed Digital Computer)about the computer and it was ap-proved in February 1952. Gene Am-dahl told that at that time there wasnot a single book about computers inthe university library of Universityof Wisconsin, so his thesis was apioneering effort. WISC is now at theComputer History Museum in Moun-tain View, CA.

Thanks to his work with WISC, hewas recruited by IBM in Pough-keepsie, New York, at that time the

giant in the computer industry.Computers were then what are nowcalled mainframes, and it is in thispart of the industry that GeneAmdahl made his mark. IBM workedat this time with Model 701, andAmdahl worked on Model 704, thefirst machine with a programminglanguage.

MainframesMainframes have a much longer his-tory than personal computers (PCs),and are still an important part of theinfrastructure in, for instance, banks,authorities, and processing indus-tries. Even if the development of thePC had gone faster, mainframes areregarded as a more secure and reli-able alternative when huge amountsof data are to be handled.

Gene Amdahl resigned from IBMin 1955, and then worked for twosmaller electronics companies in Cal-ifornia, but returned to IBM in NewYork State in September 1960 to leadthe development of the System 360,one of IBM's most successful main-frame systems. Gene Amdahl wantedto go back to California, and was giv-en this choice in February 1965, whenhe was elected an IBM Fellow, withthe opportunity to work for five yearson anything in the many depart-ments of this enormous companythat he wanted. He chose an attach-ment to IBM's new Advanced Com-puting Systems Laboratory in MenloPark, CA. In the fall of 1969 he leftIBM for the second time as he wasan advocate for IBM building largerand more powerful computers, com-bined with a frustration of the bu-reaucratic company culture of IBM.

SuccessGene Amdahl decided to start hisown company. IBM is called "BigBlue" as it has a blue companylogotype. Thus this new company,Amdahl Corporation, founded in thefall of 1970, became red! The busi-ness idea was to build mainframesthat would be compatible with theIBM machines but more powerful.The trend was to make the electron-ics smaller, but Gene Amdahl

12 Swedish American Genealogist 2013:3

thought differently. Why not producechips with more space for the elec-tronics and thus be able to increasethe power greatly, as well as increasetheir reliability?

The antitrust laws also made itpossible for Gene Amdahl to useIBM's software. Amdahl Corporationinvested more than 40 million dol-lars before they could deliver theirfirst System 470 V/6 computer. It wasthree times as powerful as IBM's sim-ilar model. Amdahl became a seriouscompetitor of "Big Blue" and succeed-ed in capturing as much as 22% ofthe market, when several big cus-tomers such as AT&T, General Mo-tors, and NASA bought Amdahlmainframes.

Gene Amdahl has always beenboth an inventor and an entrepre-neur, and in September 1979 hefound the time ripe to conclude hiswork for the company that bore hisname; in August 1980 he totallysevered all ties with Amdahl Corpo-ration. This company continues, nowwholly owned by Japanese Fujitsu,which they were already workingwith.

The next step was to challenge theIBM monopoly in the field of the mostpowerful mainframes. The new com-pany was named Trilogy Systems,and based on the good reputation ofAmdahl many were interested ininvesting in the company. GeneAmdahl himself hoped to be able tosell for a billion dollars after twoyears on the market.

Trilogy Systems business wasbuilt on Gene Amdahl's technicalknowledge, and the goal was to beable to use 20 silicon wafers insteadof 2000 electronic chips. This wouldincrease the performances considera-bly.

... is followed byadversityThe Trilogy Systems adventure inthe end turned into a big disaster.The goal was to present a finishedproduct in 1984, but various delaysand technical problems resulted inthe end of development. The 70 mil-lion dollars that was left of the in-

Gene Amdahl in 2010. (Picture from http://ibm-1401.info/)

vestors' money was used to buy acompeting company that had a pro-duct to sell, Elxsi.

Gene Amdahl has continued work-ing with mainframes. In 1994 hefounded a new company, CommercialData Servers, that was liquidated acouple of years later. Today he ismostly known for Amdahl's Lawwhich he presented in 1967, a for-mula that shows the possibilities ofimproving computers by using paral-lel processors. He has been a visitingprofessor at Stanford University, andhas received honorary doctoratesfrom both his alma maters, SouthDakota State University and theUniversity of Wisconsin, as well asfrom Luther College in Decorah, IA.He has also been honored by otherassociations such as IEEE ComputerSociety, the Association for Com-puting Machinery, the British Com-puter Society, and the National Aca-demy of Engineering. Gene and Mar-ian Amdahl live in Palo Alto, CA.

To rank his celebrity one can findthat he receives about 125,000 hitson Google. Steve Jobs who was notworth mentioning in the encyclo-pedia in 1984 now gets 830 millionhits...

Sources:Slater, Robert: Portraits in Silicon,

MIT Press 1987.Oral history - interview from the

University of Minnesota (1986 and1989).

Oral history — interview from theComputer History Museum(2000). Link on p. 30!

Letter from Gene Amdahl to theauthor 1997.

English Wikipedia — articles on GeneAmdahl, the Amdahl Corporation,and IBM.

Gene Amdahl's thesis from 1952 canbe read on the internet:see link on page 30!

Note:Sophia Erickson, paternal grand-mother to Gene Amdahl, was the sis-ter of Johan August Erickson, fatherof Eric Elmer Erickson, see SAG2013:1, p. 12.

The author Carl-Johan Ivarssonworks as a high school teacherin Sbderkoping, Sweden.His e-mail is:<cj.ivarsson@telia.com>

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