Speck&Tech Talk with Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Where have we been and where are we going?

The world of computers has moved at an incredible pace during the past 40 years. In 1983, the computer world was dominated by the IBM System/370 mainframes, the smallest model of which (the 135) had 96 KB of RAM and cost $475,000. But if you didn’t have that kind of money, you could get a VAX 11/780 minicomputer with 1 MB for a mere $120,000.
That year also marked the introduction of the IBM PC/XT, which ran MS-DOS from a revolutionary 10-MB hard disk. A high-speed Hayes modem ran at 1200 bps but it cost $1199. That didn’t matter so much, however, because the first graphical browser, Mosaic, wouldn’t be released for another decade. By way of comparison, an iPad is about 500 times faster than the System 370/135, has 10,000 times more RAM, and costs about 1000x less.
But this talk isn’t only about the past 40 years. It is also about the next 40 years.

How to participate

Mandatory registration for attendance in person. Fill out the online registration form.
It is also possible to follow the seminar on streaming at https://www.youtube.com/c/speckandtech
Relive the event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xloQRA3ttIs

About the speaker

Andrew S. Tanenbaum was born in New York City and raised in White Plains, NY. He has an S.B. from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
Prof. Tanenbaum is the principal designer of MINIX, which served as the inspiration and platform on which Linus Torvalds created Linux.
In addition, Tanenbaum is the author or coauthor of five books, which together have been translated in more than 20 languages. All in all, there are over 175 editions, as shown on http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/book_covers/index.html. Many of his Ph.D. students have gone on to greater glory in Academia and industry. He is very proud of them. In this respect he resembles a mother hen.
Tanenbaum has lectured on a variety of topics all over the world. He has been keynote speaker at 40 conferences and has given talks at over 100 universities and companies in 15 countries all over North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
In 2004, Tanenbaum became an Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2008, he received a prestigious European Research Council Advanced Grant of 2.5 million euro to do research on reliable operating systems.Tanenbaum is a Fellow of the ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1994 he was the recipient of the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. In 1997 he won the ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science. In 2007 he won the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr., Education Medal. In 2008 he won the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2015 he won the inaugural Eurosys Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also won numerous other awards, some of which are on his Wikipedia page. He has two honorary doctorates. His home page is at http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast.

Speck&Tech…what?

Speck&Tech is the digital community of Trentino. A community of entrepreneurs, developers, designers, professionals united by a passion for technology and innovation, having the purpose of learning and sharing new ideas regarding development, design, entrepreneurship, and startups.
Speck & Tech organizes science dissemination events every month, always followed by convivial moments where the participants discuss together with the speakers and other Speckers, eating speck and drinking beer.
All information on: https://speckand.tech/