Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Andrew Stuart "Andy" Tanenbaum (born March 16, 1944), also known as ast or Papá Tanenbaum, is a professor of computer science at the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Tanenbaum is best known for being the creator of Minix, a free replica of the UNIX operating system for educational purposes.

Education

Tanenbaum was born in New York City, United States, although he grew up in White Plains. He graduated in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (better known as MIT) in 1965.

In 1971, he received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. He subsequently moved to the Netherlands to live with his wife, but he still retains US citizenship.

Since 2004 he has been a professor of Computer Architecture and Operating Systems at the Free University of Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) where he leads a computer systems group.

Operating systems

In 1987 he created the Minix operating system, a free Unix-like system for educational purposes, which later inspired Linux.

In 1992 he engaged in a heated debate on Usenet with Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, about the merits of Linus's idea of using a monolithic kernel instead of the microkernel-based designs that Tanenbaum believed would be the basis. of future operating systems. This discussion originated in the comp.os.minix newsgroup when Andrew posted a message with the title LINUX is obsolete.

Tanenbaum is the author, together with other members of the Free University of Amsterdam, of the Amoeba distributed research operating system, based on a microkernel architecture. Tanenbaum is also the creator of Globe, software that provides an infrastructure for a globally distributed system.

Books

• 1981, Computer networks, ISBN 0-13-066102-3
• Operating Systems: Design and Implementation ISBN 0-13-638677-6
• Modern operating systems ISBN 0-13-031358-0
• Structured Computer Organization, ISBN 0-13-148521-0
• Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms, ISBN 0-13-088893-1

Electoral-vote.com

In 2004, he created Electoral-vote.com, a website where opinion polls for the 2004 United States presidential elections were analyzed to predict what the composition of the Electoral College would be.

For most of the campaign, Tanenbaum concealed his identity under the pseudonym "Votemaster," while acknowledging that he has a personal preference for candidate John Kerry. On November 1, 2004, the day before the election, Tanenbaum reveals his identity and the reasons why he created the website.

In 2006, the Electoral-vote.com website is used again to analyze the polls for the 2006 United States congressional elections.

Awards

Tanembaum has received various awards for his work:

• 1994 winner Karl V. Karlstrom ACM Award of Exceptional Educator.
• Award for distinguished work, 10th Symposium ACM to Operating System Principles.
• Post on a roster Who is Who in the World.
• 1997 winner ACM CSE Exceptional Contributions to Computer Science Education Award.
• 2002 award winner Texty Book Excellence.
• 2003 award winner TAA McGuffey.
• 2004 member Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• 2007 receives the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal.