Swedish American Genealogist Volume 33 | Number 3 Article 6 9-1-2013 Gene Amdahl - a computer pioneer Carl-Johan Ivarsson Elisabeth Thorsell Christopher Olsson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag Part of the Genealogy Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies Commons Recommended Citation Ivarsson, Carl-Johan; Thorsell, Elisabeth; and Olsson, Christopher (2013) "Gene Amdahl - a computer pioneer," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 33 : No. 3 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol33/iss3/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swedish American Genealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Gene Amdahl - a Swedish-Norwegian computer pioneer Computers are now a common daily tool, but they also have their history BY CARL-JOHAN IVARSSON Translation by Elisabeth Thorsell and Christopher Olsson. In the 3rd edition of the Swedish other early pioneers are mentioned South Dakota encyclopedia Bra Backer's Lexikon, as well as some known early com- Gene Myron Amdahl was born 1922 volume 5 (Coe-Dick) from 1984, we puters in Sweden with names like Nov. 16 close to Flandreau, Moody find the word "Dator" (computer). It BARK, BESK, and SMIL. Apple is Co., South Dakota. The name sounds says dator or datamaskin is "a ma- mentioned, but not Microsoft. We do Norwegian, and three of his grand- chine that without human inter- not find the business superstars of parents came from Norway. ference can perform large com- our time, people like Steve Jobs and His paternal grandfather Ole Ol- putations of a great number of Bill Gates. But one name is men- sen Amdahl was born in 1855 in Ytre arithmetic and logical operations." tioned when it states: "during the Amdal, Nedstrand parish, near Hau- On about six pages, a close de- 1970s several manufacturers started gesund on the Norwegian Vestlandet. scription of all can be found. The to build totally IBM-compatible cen- Ole immigrated with parents and pictures show integrated circuits, tral units that can directly run siblings as a tiny boy. In 1879 he came disc memories, and a computer hall. programs and operation systems to Moody County, and obtained land But to give a picture of a newer era, from IBM. The best-known manu- via the Homestead Act, where set- a young woman sitting by the Swed- facturer of these (...) was Amdahl, tlers could get land for free. ish computer ABC800 is shown. We founded by Gene Amdahl, formerly There he married Sofia Eriks- can easily see that much has hap- a head of construction at IBM." dotter (AKA Sophia Ericson), born in pened during these 29 years. Who is this Gene Amdahl, and why 1857 in Olserud in Kila parish, The historical part of the article is he considered worthy of being men- (Vrml.). Sofia came to Moody Co. in starts with Charles Babbage, the tioned in such an article? And what 1881 and had six siblings that all man who built a mechanical "stone was his connection to Varmland? came to America, most of them to age" computer in 1822, and some Moody Co. in the eastern part of South Dakota, then still a territory (it became a state in 1889). Flandreau is one of four little towns in Moody Co., which is an agri- cultural county. In the 1920 U.S. Cen- sus some 9,742 individuals lived in the county; in 2010 there lived only 6,486 individuals. The population decrease is primarily due to the diminishing need for agricultural laborers. The strange thing is that more families from Kila parish ended up in this special area on the prairie. They grew to be so many that there was a post office named Kila, South Dakota, for a few years around 1900. There was also a cemetery called "Kila Swedish Cemetery." So one can The office computer ABC 800, built in 1981 by the Swedish company Luxor, which say that Gene Amdahl had his ori- also had a home computer, ABC 80, which became very popular and was the most in gins in both places called Kila. use then. It was the start of the Swedish Computer Genealogy Society (DIS) in 1980. Gene Amdahl's father was named Swedish American Genealogist 2013:3 11 Anton Edwin Amdahl. His mother Maria Andersdotter was born in 1874 giant in the computer industry. was Ingeborg Brendsel who had her in Grunnerud, and in 1894 had im- Computers were then what are now roots in Byneset, close to Trondheim. migrated to the area of Flandreau, called mainframes, and it is in this Anton Amdahl farmed corn, barley, where her maternal uncles had come part of the industry that Gene oats, and alfalfa and raised cattle. In during the 1880s. These uncles were Amdahl made his mark. IBM worked an interview Gene talks about life on married to the sisters of Gene Am- at this time with Model 701, and the farm, about when the first dahl's paternal grandmother's moth- Amdahl worked on Model 704, the tractors came, and how his father er, so there was another connection first machine with a programming made paint by mixing skim milk, to Kila. language. concrete, and red ochre. In the 1920s a new generation of immigrants came to Moody County Mainframes Education when Hulda's brother's son John Tak- Mainframes have a much longer his- Gene Amdahl went to an ordinary man tried his luck in America. He tory than personal computers (PCs), rural school in Moody County with returned to Sweden after his time in and are still an important part of the about 15-20 pupils, and passed the U.S. and became a communist, a infrastructure in, for instance, banks, through eight grades there. The last social doctor, and finally a member authorities, and processing indus- two years in high school he studied of parliament for the then Vanster- tries. Even if the development of the at the Augustana Academy boarding partiet Kommunisterna (Swedish PC had gone faster, mainframes are school in Canton, South Dakota. In Communist Party). He kept up the regarded as a more secure and reli- spite of meagre conditions, education contacts with his cousin Marian, and able alternative when huge amounts was important in his family, especial- invited the Amdahls to visit him at of data are to be handled. ly for his mother who was a trained Stora Backa in Kila in 1984. Gene Amdahl resigned from IBM teacher. He was accepted in the fall in 1955, and then worked for two of 1941 at the South Dakota State Research student smaller electronics companies in Cal- College (later University) in Broo- Gene Amdahl was accepted as a re- ifornia, but returned to IBM in New kings. He applied to this school most- search student in theoretical physics York State in September 1960 to lead ly because of the wishes of his par- at the University of Wisconsin in the development of the System 360, ents, and he did not want to become Madison, WI, in 1948. There he was one of IBM's most successful main- a farmer but to escape the need to given the task, with two other stu- frame systems. Gene Amdahl wanted depend on the changeable weather dents, of calculating the nuclear to go back to California, and was giv- in South Dakota. power of the stable isotope of "the en this choice in February 1965, when The United States became in De- tritium nucleus." he was elected an IBM Fellow, with cember 1941 involved in World War After calculating for thirty days the opportunity to work for five years II, and everyone had to take part in with the help of a mechanical cal- on anything in the many depart- the war effort. After a year as a culator, they decided it was impos- ments of this enormous company teacher of physics, Gene Amdahl ser- sible to make as exact a calculation that he wanted. He chose an attach- ved for two years in the Navy as a as they wished. Gene Amdahl then ment to IBM's new Advanced Com- teacher of electronics. His three decided to build a computer, later puting Systems Laboratory in Menlo brothers all enlisted in the Army and known as WISC (Wisconsin Inte- Park, CA. In the fall of 1969 he left sailed overseas, while Gene Amdahl grally Synchronized Computer). For IBM for the second time as he was only served on a ship in dry dock. In Gene Amdahl the construction of the an advocate for IBM building larger April 1945, just three weeks before computer became the start of his lat- and more powerful computers, com- the end of the war, Gene Amdahl lost er career. He wrote his doctoral the- bined with a frustration of the bu- his brother Orin, who was leading his sis (The Logical Design of an Inter- reaucratic company culture of IBM. army group across the Rhine when mediate Speed Digital Computer) he was shot by a sniper. about the computer and it was ap- Success proved in February 1952. Gene Am- Gene Amdahl decided to start his End of war and marriage dahl told that at that time there was own company. IBM is called "Big In the fall of 1946 Gene could return not a single book about computers in Blue" as it has a blue company to South Dakota State, where he the university library of University logotype. Thus this new company, received his BSc degree in technical of Wisconsin, so his thesis was a Amdahl Corporation, founded in the physics in 1948.