Robert P. Goldberg (December 4, 1944 – February 25, 1994) was an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, known for his research on

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

and

virtualization In computing, virtualization (abbreviated v12n) is a series of technologies that allows dividing of physical computing resources into a series of virtual machines, operating systems, processes or containers. Virtualization began in the 1960s wit ...

. With Gerald J. Popek, he proposed the

Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements The Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements are a set of conditions sufficient for a computer architecture to support system virtualization efficiently. They were introduced by Gerald J. Popek and Robert P. Goldberg in their 1974 article " ...

, a set of conditions necessary for a computer architecture to support system virtualization. In his Ph.D. thesis "Architectural Principles for Virtual Computer Systems", he also invented the

classification Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...

for

Hypervisor A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or virtualizer, is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...

s which is now widely adopted in the area of virtual computer systems and computer science in general.

Biography

Dr. Goldberg was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York City, in 1944. He received the B.S. degree in Mathematics from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in 1965 and the MA and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, in 1969 and 1973, respectively. In his Ph.D. thesis "Architectural Principles for Virtual Computer Systems", published 1974, he invented the classification for

s which is now widely adopted in the area of virtual computer systems and computer science in general. In 1974, with Gerald J. Popek, he proposed the Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements, a set of conditions necessary for a computer architecture to support system virtualization. From 1966 to 1972, he was a member of the research staff at MIT, first at Lincoln Laboratories and then at Project MAC. From 1971 to 1972, Goldberg served as a consultant to the director of engineering at Honeywell's Boston Computer Operations. His teaching experience included lectureships at

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

and

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

. Dr. Goldberg was a member of ACM. He was the organizer of the Virtual Machine session at the 1973 National Computer Conference, was the program chairman and proceedings editor for the ACM SIGARCH-SIGOPS Workshop on Virtual Computer Systems, 1973 and has written and lectured extensively on many different aspects of virtual machine systems. Goldberg was a member of the Honeywell Information Systems Technical Office in Waltham, MA and also a lecturer on Computer Science at Harvard University. His research interest included computer architectures, operating system design and evaluation, and data management systems at that time. In 1978, Dr. Goldberg filed a patent under the name "Hardware virtualizer for supporting recursive virtual computer systems on a host computer system" (Patent Nr. 4253145), which was accepted in 1981 and is held by Honeywell Information Systems Inc. In 1975, Dr. Goldberg, together with Dr. Jeffrey Buzen and Dr. Harold Schwenk (whose last names are represented in the initials of the company), founded a company called "BGS Systems, Inc." in the basement of Buzen's home in Lexington, MA. Over the next fifteen years, it moved five times, but always within Waltham, MA. The company set out to develop products that provided centralized capacity management and planning capabilities for all major computing platforms. In addition, BGS created products that managed and evaluated computing systems such as

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

, MVS, VM, OpenVMS, and the AS/400 as well as

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

and

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

. By the early 1980s, the company would claim over 30,000 installations worldwide with its BEST/1 product. This software, which was based on queuing theory, was devised by the three founders and promoted by the company as being the de facto standard for capacity management and planning in heterogeneous distributed environments. (1998 BGS Systems was acquired by BMC Software, Inc. The transaction was valued at approximately $285 million.)

Death and afterward

Goldberg died on 25 February, 1994 in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, at the age of 49, after suffering from cancer.Mentioning of his death in a statement to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
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Published works

* Goldberg, Robert P.
Architectural Principles for Virtual Computer Systems
Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1972
PDF available.
* Goldberg, Robert P.
Survey of Virtual Machine Research
Honeywell Information Systems and Harvard University, 1974.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldberg, Robert P. 1944 births 1994 deaths American computer businesspeople American computer scientists Harvard University faculty Harvard University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni