Dick Hustvedt
Encyclopedia
Richard Irvin Hustvedt (born February 18, 1946 - April 15, 2008) was a renowned software engineer
, designer and developer of several operating systems including the RSX-11
, and VMS (OpenVMS
) systems of Digital Equipment Corporation
. He also was a principal kernel developer of the Xerox Data Systems (XDS) RAD-75, RBM-1 and CP-V operating systems.
and grew up in Radcliff, Kentucky
, home of Fort Knox
. He attended the University of California, Berkeley
studying computer science
and was later employed by the Army Security Agency. Following the ASA, Dick worked for the Xerox Corporation on the development of operating systems for their Data Systems division (Xerox DSD Development Programming in El Segundo, California
).
He was recruited by Ken Olsen
to join Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC) in 1974. He moved from Los Angeles, California
to Concord, Massachusetts
where he worked at the company headquarters at "The Mill" in Maynard, Massachusetts
.
Married to Audrey R. Reith in 1976. Father of sons Eric Hustvedt (1978) and Marc Hustvedt (1979).
On January 13, 1984, he suffered a severe head injury in an automobile accident in Acton, Massachusetts
. He resided in New Hampshire
at the time of his death on April 15, 2008.
The OpenVMS
development team, now part of Hewlett-Packard
, named a conference room in his honor in Nashua, New Hampshire
facility.
, originally called VMS (Virtual Memory System), was first conceived in 1976 as a new operating system for the then-new, 32-bit
, virtual memory
line of computers, eventually named VAX
(Virtual Address eXtension). The first VAX model, the 11/780, was code-named "Star", hence the code name for the VMS operating system, "Starlet", a name that remains to this day the name for the system library files (STARLET.OLB, etc.). VMS version X0.5 was the first released to customers, in support of the hardware beta test of the VAX-11/780, in 1977. VAX/VMS Version V1.0 shipped in 1978, along with the first revenue-ship 11/780s.
OpenVMS was designed entirely within Digital Equipment Corporation
. The principal designers were Dave Cutler
and Dick Hustvedt, with a wide variety of other contributors. OpenVMS was conceived as a 32-bit, virtual memory successor to the RSX-11M operating system for the PDP-11
. Many of the original designers and programmers of OpenVMS had worked previously on RSX-11M, and many concepts from RSX-11M were carried over to OpenVMS.
OpenVMS VAX is a 32-bit, multitasking
, multiprocessing
virtual memory operating system. Current implementations run on VAX systems from HP and other vendors.
OpenVMS Alpha is a 64-bit multitasking, multiprocessing virtual memory operating system. Current implementations run on Alpha systems from HP, and other vendors.
OpenVMS IA64 is a 64-bit multitasking, multiprocessing virtual memory operating system. Current implementations run on Itanium 2 systems from HP, and other vendors.
In March 1975, a small aggressive development task force was formed to propose a 32-bit PDP-11 architecture. The team included representation from marketing, systems architecture, software, and hardware. The company formed a group that became known as “The Blue Ribbon Committee” that included three hardware engineers: Bill Strecker, Richie Lary, and Steve Rothman, and three software engineers: Dick Hustvedt, Dave Cutler, and Peter Lippman.
—Bill Strecker
Chief Technical Officer, VP, CST
“Roger Gourd passed around the book The Mythical Man-Month
by Fred Brooks
and almost all the team members read it. Most of us already had one operating system under our belt, so Brooks’ discussion of the ‘second system effect’ struck home. The ‘second system effect’ results from each engineer wanting to fix all the mistakes and shortcomings of their first system. Left unchecked, the second system effect can cause runaway complexity that can be disastrous for software quality and schedule. A new term entered the programmers’ lexicon—‘Creeping elegance’ — a process in which a design is successively refined to be increasingly complete, eventually yielding a result that collapses because of its size and complexity. The entire software team was very conscious of maintaining the balance between producing a functional, high quality product and staying on schedule.”
—Andy Goldstein VMS Engineer on original development team
“People worked a lot of overtime during the creation of VMS. At one point, we hired an engineer from California, Ralph Weber. For the first week he had a rental car and was living in a hotel. He got there so early that he parked in exactly the same spot every morning, and he stayed late. After a week, a security guard thought the car had been abandoned and called the car rental place to come and collect it. That night Ralph went to leave, and his car was gone. So he ran into the security room shouting, ‘My rental car’s been stolen!’ They started to call the police and then, luckily, another security guard came in and said, ‘No, no, we had that one towed today because it’s been there a week and we thought it had been abandoned.’”
—Kathy Morse, VMS Engineer
“Today, OpenVMS is the most flexible and adaptable operating system on the planet. What started out as the concept of ‘Starlet’ in 1975 is moving into Galaxy for the 21st century. And like the universe, there is no end in sight.”
—Jesse Lipcon, Senior VP, UNIX and OpenVMS Systems Business Unit
“(Open)VMS remains King of the Clusters. DIGITAL’s technology is still the high bar against which other clustering schemes are measured.”
—Datamation, August 15, 1995
Software engineer
A software engineer is an engineer who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the software and systems that make computers or anything containing software, such as computer chips, work.- Overview :...
, designer and developer of several operating systems including the RSX-11
RSX-11
RSX-11 is a family of real-time operating systems mainly for PDP-11 computers created by Digital Equipment Corporation , common in the late 1970s and early 1980s. RSX-11D first appeared on the PDP-11/40 in 1972...
, and VMS (OpenVMS
OpenVMS
OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
) systems of Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
. He also was a principal kernel developer of the Xerox Data Systems (XDS) RAD-75, RBM-1 and CP-V operating systems.
Personal history
Hustvedt was born in Aberdeen, South DakotaAberdeen, South Dakota
Aberdeen is a city in and the county seat of Brown County, South Dakota, United States, about 125 mi northeast of Pierre. Settled in 1880, it was incorporated in 1882. The city population was 26,091 at the 2010 census. The American News is the local newspaper...
and grew up in Radcliff, Kentucky
Radcliff, Kentucky
Radcliff is a city in Hardin County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 21,961 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Elizabethtown, Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, home of Fort Knox
Fort Knox
Fort Knox is a United States Army post in Kentucky south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. The base covers parts of Bullitt, Hardin, and Meade counties. It currently holds the Army Human Resources Center of Excellence to include the Army Human Resources Command, United States Army Cadet...
. He attended the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
studying computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
and was later employed by the Army Security Agency. Following the ASA, Dick worked for the Xerox Corporation on the development of operating systems for their Data Systems division (Xerox DSD Development Programming in El Segundo, California
El Segundo, California
El Segundo is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located on the Santa Monica Bay, it was incorporated on January 18, 1917, and is one of the Beach Cities of Los Angeles County and part of the South Bay Cities Council of Governments...
).
He was recruited by Ken Olsen
Ken Olsen
Kenneth Harry Olsen was an American engineer who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson.-Background:...
to join Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
(DEC) in 1974. He moved from Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
to Concord, Massachusetts
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
where he worked at the company headquarters at "The Mill" in Maynard, Massachusetts
Maynard, Massachusetts
Maynard is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 10,106.- History :Maynard, located on the Assabet River, was incorporated as an independent municipality in 1871. Prior to that it was known as 'Assabet Village' but was legally...
.
Married to Audrey R. Reith in 1976. Father of sons Eric Hustvedt (1978) and Marc Hustvedt (1979).
On January 13, 1984, he suffered a severe head injury in an automobile accident in Acton, Massachusetts
Acton, Massachusetts
Acton is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States about twenty-one miles west-northwest of Boston along Route 2 west of Concord and about ten miles southwest of Lowell. The population was 21,924 at the 2010 census...
. He resided in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
at the time of his death on April 15, 2008.
The OpenVMS
OpenVMS
OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
development team, now part of Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, named a conference room in his honor in Nashua, New Hampshire
Nashua, New Hampshire
-Climate:-Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 86,494 people, 35,044 households, and 21,876 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,719.9 people per square mile . There were 37,168 housing units at an average density of 1,202.8 per square mile...
facility.
VMS
OpenVMSOpenVMS
OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
, originally called VMS (Virtual Memory System), was first conceived in 1976 as a new operating system for the then-new, 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
, virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
line of computers, eventually named VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
(Virtual Address eXtension). The first VAX model, the 11/780, was code-named "Star", hence the code name for the VMS operating system, "Starlet", a name that remains to this day the name for the system library files (STARLET.OLB, etc.). VMS version X0.5 was the first released to customers, in support of the hardware beta test of the VAX-11/780, in 1977. VAX/VMS Version V1.0 shipped in 1978, along with the first revenue-ship 11/780s.
OpenVMS was designed entirely within Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
. The principal designers were Dave Cutler
Dave Cutler
David Neil Cutler, Sr. is an American software engineer, designer and developer of several operating systems including RSX-11M, VMS and VAXELN at Digital Equipment Corporation and Windows at Microsoft.- Personal history :...
and Dick Hustvedt, with a wide variety of other contributors. OpenVMS was conceived as a 32-bit, virtual memory successor to the RSX-11M operating system for the PDP-11
PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
. Many of the original designers and programmers of OpenVMS had worked previously on RSX-11M, and many concepts from RSX-11M were carried over to OpenVMS.
OpenVMS VAX is a 32-bit, multitasking
Computer multitasking
In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...
, multiprocessing
Multiprocessing
Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor and/or the ability to allocate tasks between them...
virtual memory operating system. Current implementations run on VAX systems from HP and other vendors.
OpenVMS Alpha is a 64-bit multitasking, multiprocessing virtual memory operating system. Current implementations run on Alpha systems from HP, and other vendors.
OpenVMS IA64 is a 64-bit multitasking, multiprocessing virtual memory operating system. Current implementations run on Itanium 2 systems from HP, and other vendors.
In March 1975, a small aggressive development task force was formed to propose a 32-bit PDP-11 architecture. The team included representation from marketing, systems architecture, software, and hardware. The company formed a group that became known as “The Blue Ribbon Committee” that included three hardware engineers: Bill Strecker, Richie Lary, and Steve Rothman, and three software engineers: Dick Hustvedt, Dave Cutler, and Peter Lippman.
Quotes
“In the early 1980s, we were designing computers so complex, our engineering processes couldn’t keep up with them. We discovered we had to use the latest VAX to simulate the new one we were building. Building VAXes on VAXes—our first computers became tools for building the next generation of VAXes.”—Bill Strecker
Chief Technical Officer, VP, CST
“Roger Gourd passed around the book The Mythical Man-Month
The Mythical Man-Month
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks, whose central theme is that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later"...
by Fred Brooks
Fred Brooks
Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. is a software engineer and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month...
and almost all the team members read it. Most of us already had one operating system under our belt, so Brooks’ discussion of the ‘second system effect’ struck home. The ‘second system effect’ results from each engineer wanting to fix all the mistakes and shortcomings of their first system. Left unchecked, the second system effect can cause runaway complexity that can be disastrous for software quality and schedule. A new term entered the programmers’ lexicon—‘Creeping elegance’ — a process in which a design is successively refined to be increasingly complete, eventually yielding a result that collapses because of its size and complexity. The entire software team was very conscious of maintaining the balance between producing a functional, high quality product and staying on schedule.”
—Andy Goldstein VMS Engineer on original development team
“People worked a lot of overtime during the creation of VMS. At one point, we hired an engineer from California, Ralph Weber. For the first week he had a rental car and was living in a hotel. He got there so early that he parked in exactly the same spot every morning, and he stayed late. After a week, a security guard thought the car had been abandoned and called the car rental place to come and collect it. That night Ralph went to leave, and his car was gone. So he ran into the security room shouting, ‘My rental car’s been stolen!’ They started to call the police and then, luckily, another security guard came in and said, ‘No, no, we had that one towed today because it’s been there a week and we thought it had been abandoned.’”
—Kathy Morse, VMS Engineer
“Today, OpenVMS is the most flexible and adaptable operating system on the planet. What started out as the concept of ‘Starlet’ in 1975 is moving into Galaxy for the 21st century. And like the universe, there is no end in sight.”
—Jesse Lipcon, Senior VP, UNIX and OpenVMS Systems Business Unit
“(Open)VMS remains King of the Clusters. DIGITAL’s technology is still the high bar against which other clustering schemes are measured.”
—Datamation, August 15, 1995