Fernando J. Corbató

Fernando José "Corby" Corbató (July 1, 1926 – July 12, 2019 ) was an American computer scientist, notable as a pioneer in the development of time-sharing operating systems. He won the 1990 ACM Turing Award.

Life and career Fernando José Corbató was born on July 1, 1926, in Oakland, California, to Hermenegildo Corbató, a Spanish literature professor from Villarreal, Spain, and Charlotte Corbató ( Jensen), a Danish American.

In 1943, Corbató enrolled at UCLA, but due to World War II he was recruited by the Navy during his first year. During the war, Corbató "debug[ged] an incredible array of equipment," inspiring his future career.

The first time-sharing system he was associated with was known as the MIT Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), an early version of which was demonstrated in 1961. Corbató is credited with the first use of passwords to secure access to files on a large computer system, though he later claimed that this rudimentary security method had proliferated and became unmanageable.

The experience with developing CTSS led to a second project, Multics, which was adopted by General Electric for its high-end computer systems (later acquired by Honeywell). Multics pioneered many concepts now used in modern operating systems, including a hierarchical file system, ring-oriented security, access-control lists, single-level store, dynamic linking, and extensive on-line reconfiguration for reliable service. Multics, while not particularly commercially successful in itself, directly inspired Ken Thompson to develop Unix, the direct descendants of which are still in extremely wide use; Unix also served as a direct model for many other subsequent operating system designs.

Personal life and death Corbató married programmer Isabel Blandford in 1962, with whom he had two daughters, Carolyn Corbató Stone and Nancy Corbató. Isabel died in 1973.

Legacy Corbató is sometimes known for "Corbató's Law," which states:

Publications F. J. Corbató, M. M. Daggett, R. C. Daley, An Experimental Time-Sharing System (IFIPS 1962) is a good description of CTSS F. J. Corbató (editor), The Compatible Time-Sharing System: A Programmer's Guide (M.I.T. Press, 1963) F. J. Corbató, V. A. Vyssotsky, Introduction and Overview of the Multics System (AFIPS 1965) is a good introduction to Multics

F. J. Corbató, C. T. Clingen, J. H. Saltzer, Multics -- The First Seven Years (AFIPS, 1972) is an excellent review, after a considerable period of use and improvement F. J. Corbató, C. T. Clingen, A Managerial View of the Multics System Development ("Conference on Research Directions in Software Technology", Providence, Rhode Island, 1977) is a fascinating look at what it was like to manage such a large software project F. J. Corbató, On Building Systems That Will Fail (Turing Award Lecture, 1991) F. J. Corbató, A paging experiment with the Multics system. Included in a Festschrift published in honor of Prof. P.M. Morse. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1969.