Jerome Howard "Jerry" Saltzer (born October 9, 1939) is an American computer scientist.

Career

Jerry Saltzer received an ScD in Electrical Engineering from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

in 1966. His dissertation '''Traffic Control in a Multiplexed System was advised by Fernando Corbató. In 1966, he joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. One of Saltzer's earliest involvements with computers was with MIT's Compatible Time-Sharing System in the early 1960s. In the later 1960s and early 1970s, he was one of the team leaders of the

Multics Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of ...

operating system project. Multics, though not particularly commercially successful in itself, has had a major impact on all subsequent operating systems; in particular, it was an inspiration for

Ken Thompson Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programmi ...

to develop

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser 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, an ...

. Saltzer's contributions to Multics included the now-standard kernel stack switching method of process switching, as well as oft-cited work on the security architecture for shared information systems. Saltzer led the Computer Systems Research group of MIT's

Laboratory for Computer Science Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Computer Systems Research group was one of the key players in the development of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and ring network technology for

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

s. During this time, Saltzer patented the Proteon ProNet ring network. Another contribution in that area was the

end-to-end principle The end-to-end principle is a design framework in computer networking. In networks designed according to this principle, guaranteeing certain application-specific features, such as reliability and security, requires that they reside in the commu ...

in systems design, which is one of the important underlying principles that governs the operation of the Internet. From 1984 to 1988 Saltzer served as Technical Director of MIT's

Project Athena Project Athena was a joint project of MIT, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM to produce a campus-wide distributed computing environment for educational use. It was launched in 1983, and research and development ran until June 30, 1991. , A ...

. "Saltzer@mit.edu" is one of the few Athena usernames with a capital letter, and legend has it that several special case hacks were required to support this functionality. In September 1995 Saltzer retired from his full-time faculty position, but continued writing and teaching part-time at MIT.

Family

Saltzer is known to all (colleagues, students, friends and family) as "Jerry". In 1961 he married Marlys Anne Hughes. They have two children: Rebecca (born 1962) and Sarah (born 1963). He has two grandchildren: Hannah (born 1997), and Caroline (born 1999).

Other interests

Saltzer is also very interested in 19th century landscape art of the western United States; he has prepared the

catalogue raisonné A ''catalogue raisonné'' (or critical catalogue) is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media. The works are described in such a way that they may be reliably identified ...

of the paintings of the painter Frederick Ferdinand Schafer ( de).

Software

Saltzer has been the programmer, a designer, or the inspiration, for a number of important pieces of systems software, which are either still in use or have descendants still being used today: *

RUNOFF Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock marke ...

, a very early text-formatting program which was the basis for roff and

nroff nroff (short for "new roff") is a text-formatting computer program, program on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It produces output suitable for simple fixed-width computer printer, printers and computer terminal, terminal windows. It is an ...

* TYPSET, the "

Project MAC Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

editor", was the first interactive text editor, developed to write documentationHistory of UNIVAC's ED processor (ED-1100)
/ref> * PCIP, the first TCP/IP stack for the IBM PC, which became the basis for a company called FTP Software * Kerberos, an authentication protocol, part of

, still widely used today As Technical Director of

, he supported development of the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

, an open-source windowing system, still used and developed on

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

systems.

References

External links

* *
home page
- Jerome H. Saltzer

- Jerome H. Saltzer ** {{DEFAULTSORT:Saltzer, Jerome H 1939 births Living people Saltzer, Jerome H. Saltzer, Jerome H. People from Nampa, Idaho Fellow Members of the IEEE Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering MIT School of Engineering alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty Multics people