{"id":447,"date":"2014-02-13T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/inside_microsoft_research\/2014\/02\/13\/lampsonfest-celebrating-a-computing-legend\/"},"modified":"2016-08-29T17:05:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T00:05:31","slug":"lampsonfest-celebrating-a-computing-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/lampsonfest-celebrating-a-computing-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"LampsonFest: Celebrating a Computing Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Rob Knies<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Butler (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mouthful. The citation for the A.M. Turing Award presented to Butler Lampson 22 years ago (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> reads as follows:<\/p>\n

For contributions to the development of distributed, personal computing environments and the technology for their implementation: workstations, networks, operating systems, programming systems, displays, security, and document publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n

As amazing as it might seem, Lampson (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, indeed, has made seminal contributions to all of these foundational computing advances. His career is as accomplished as imaginable. Oh, the stories that could be told \u2026<\/p>\n

On Feb. 13, they will be. From 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Cambridge, Mass., in the Horace Mann Conference Room at Microsoft Research New England (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Lampson\u2019s colleagues from his storied computer-science career will gather to pay tribute to a man whom his boss, Jennifer Chayes (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, a Microsoft distinguished scientist and managing director of Microsoft Research New England, refers to as \u201cone of the all-time greats of computer science.\u201d<\/p>\n

LampsonFest (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, they\u2019re calling it, and advance indications are that it will be as illuminating and compelling as the man it celebrates.<\/p>\n

The day will include a series of talks revisiting the history of computer systems\u2014and issues of current concern. Those discussions will be presented in the context of Lampson\u2019s brilliant, transformative career, one that took him from studying physics at Harvard to gaining a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley to the innovation greenhouse that was Xerox PARC back in the \u201970s, then on to the Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) and, eventually, Microsoft Research.<\/p>\n

\u201cButler Lampson has had a major impact on Microsoft,\u201d says Peter Lee (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Microsoft corporate vice president and head of Microsoft Research. \u201cHis technical expertise and contributions spanning computer security, distributed systems, operating systems, networking, software engineering, and algorithms have contributed in incalculable ways to Microsoft\u2019s success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those contributions simply constitute the latest in a sustained and successful research career. Forty years or so ago, Lampson and his colleagues in the Computer Science Laboratory at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, several of whom will be present for LampsonFest, were charged with developing the office of the future. They delivered\u2014in spades:<\/p>\n