Dr. Gene M. Amdahl

Gene Myron Amdahl received his B.S. in Engineering Physics from South Dakota State University in 1948, and earned his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1952.

His early professional career was spent at IBM where he worked on simulation studies and machine designs for character recognition; was initial planner for the IBM 709 and 7030; became Manager of Architecture for the IBM System/360 and in 1965 was named an IBM Fellow during which part of this period he was named Director of IBM's Advanced Computing Systems Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. During the 1960's he implemented a milestone in computer technology: the concept of compatibility between systems. Dr. Amdahl left IBM Corporation in the fall of 1970 to create more innovative mainframe computers.

Dr. Amdahl is perhaps best known for founding Amdahl Corporation, one of IBM's main competitors. Amdahl Corporation was the first successful IBM-compatible CPU manufacturer, opening the door for competition to advance technology. The world's first Large-Scale Integrated (LSI) chips were developed and made possible high performance, air-cooled, rather than water-cooled, CPUs. In the first full year of shipments, Amdahl Corporation shipped $96 million of product, the second full year $190 million, and the third year $320 million. In 1979, he became Amdahl's Chairman Emeritus and a consultant to the company. He retired from Amdahl in August 1980.

In 1980, Dr. Amdahl co-founded Trilogy Systems Corporation to produce fault tolerant wafer-scale chips and a high-performance CPU. The concepts were proven but the cost projections were excessive, so Trilogy acquired Elxsi in 1985 for its principal computer system entry.

Andor International, Ltd. was founded by Dr. Amdahl in 1987 to continue innovations in technology. Andor specialized in the design, manufacture, and marketing of unique IBM-compatible products designed to improve the efficiency, performance, access, capacity, and protection of programs and data.

In August 1994, Dr. Amdahl co-founded Commercial Data Services, Inc. (CDS). CDS is a development stage company with plans to design a computer with the power and functionality of traditional mainframe at a comparable size and serviceability of smaller personal computers and network servers.

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