Computer History Museum

Lampson, Butler oral history

Butler Lampson's long career covers a remarkable range of topics, including computer architecture, local area networks, raster printers, page description languages, operating systems, programming languages and their semantics, fault-tolerant computing, transaction processing, computer security, and WYSIWYG editors. He is also widely admired as a technical leader. Lampson holds an A.B. degree in Physics (Harvard, 1964) and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (UC Berkeley, 1967). Working with colleagues, he designed the Alto personal workstation, the Ethernet local area network, an encryption system for Ethernet, the Bravo text editor, the Interpress page description language, and dozens of groundbreaking computer architectures and systems including the SDS 940 timesharing system and the Xerox PARC 'Dorado' computer. Lampson has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, and was a major contributor at the Computer Science Laboratory at Xerox PARC and at Digital Equipment Corporation's Systems Research Center. He holds, individually or with others, 23 patents relating to networks, security, raster printing, and transaction processing.

Item Details

Date
2006-08-22 (Made)
Type
Document
Catalogue number
102658024
Organization
Computer History Museum (Publisher)
People
Alan C. Kay (Interviewer)
Butler W. Lampson (Interviewee)
Category
Transcript
Extent
74 p.
Place of publication
North America/USA/MA/Cambridge
Language
English
Acquisition number
X3697.2007
Subject
Fellow Award Honoree, SDS 940 Timesharing System, Bravo text editor, Computer Architecture, Operating Systems (Computers), Xerox PARC Computer Science Laboratory (CSL), Xerox Dorado, Programming Languages (Electronic Computers), Ethernet (Local Area Network System), Computer Security
Archive collection
CHM Oral History Collection
Archive hierarchy
Oral History collection