View source for Jerry Saltzer

{{Short description|American computer scientist (born 1939)}}
{{BLP sources|date=February 2013}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Jerome H. Saltzer
| image             = <!--(filename only)-->
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| birth_date        = {{Birth date and age|1939|10|09}}
| birth_place       = [[Nampa, Idaho]], United States
| death_date        = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|1939|10|09}} (death date then birth date) -->
| death_place       = 
| residence         = 
| citizenship       = 
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| fields            = 
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| alma_mater        = [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Fernando J. Corbató]]
| academic_advisors = 
| doctoral_students = {{plainlist|
*[[David P. Reed]]
*[[David D. Clark]]
*[[Deborah Estrin]]
*[[Roger R. Schell]]
*[[Michael Schroeder]]
}}
| thesis_url        = http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/16316
| thesis_year       = 1966
| thesis_title      = Traffic control in a multiplexed computer system
| notable_students  = 
| known_for         = [[Multics]], [[Project Athena]], [[MIT License]]
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| influences        = 
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| awards            = 2010 Computer System Security Award of the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] (NIST)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2010/nist-award.html |title=Computer System Security Award of the National Institute of Standards and Technology }}</ref>
| signature         = <!--(filename only)-->
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| website           = {{URL|http://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/}}
}}

'''Jerome Howard "Jerry" Saltzer''' (born October 9, 1939) is an American [[computer scientist]].<ref name="JHS-CV-MIT"/>

==Career==
Jerry Saltzer received an ScD in [[Electrical Engineering]] from [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] in 1966.  His dissertation '<nowiki/>''Traffic Control in a Multiplexed System''' was advised by [[Fernando J. Corbató]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=104301|title=Jerome Saltzer|website=Mathematics Genealogy Project|publisher=Department of Mathematics, North Dakota State University|access-date=28 November 2019}}</ref> 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]] 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 (computer programmer)|Ken Thompson]] to develop [[Unix]]. 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.<ref>Jerome H. Saltzer, [[Michael D. Schroeder]], ''[http://cap-lore.com/CapTheory/ProtInf/ The Protection of Information in Computer Systems]'' (Proceedings of the [[IEEE]], September 1975).</ref>

Saltzer led the Computer Systems Research group of MIT's [[Laboratory for Computer Science]]. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Computer Systems Research group was one of the key players in the development of the [[Internet]] and [[ring network]] technology for [[local area network]]s.  During this time, Saltzer patented the Proteon ProNet [[ring network]]. He is the co-author of ''[[The Protection of Information in Computer Systems]].''

From 1984 to 1988 Saltzer served as Technical Director of MIT's [[Project Athena]]. "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.<ref name="JHS-CV-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).<ref>Caroline Grossman (granddaughter)</ref>

==Other interests==
Saltzer is also very interested in 19th century landscape art of the western United States; he has prepared the [[catalogue raisonné]] of the paintings of the painter [[Frederick Ferdinand Schafer]] ([[:de:Friedrich_Sch%C3%A4fer|de]]).<ref>[[Hallie Ford Museum of Art]]</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Saltzer |first1=Jerome H. |title=Frederick Ferdinand Schafer Catalog, Home Page |url=http://ffscat.csail.mit.edu/ |website=ffscat.csail.mit.edu |access-date=19 September 2020 |date=August 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Ferdinand Schafer {{!}} artnet |url=http://www.artnet.com/artists/frederick-ferdinand-schafer/ |website=artnet.com |access-date=19 September 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Old Roscoe on the Truckee River |url=https://www.artsbma.org/collection/old-roscoe-on-the-truckee-river/ |website=Birmingham Museum of Art|date=24 September 2021 }}</ref>

==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]], a very early text-formatting program which was the basis for [[roff (computer program)|roff]] and [[nroff]]<ref name="JHS-CV-MIT">{{cite web |last1=Saltzer |first1=Jerome H. |title=Curriculum Vitae |url=http://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/vita.html |website=[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]]}}</ref>
* [[TYPSET]], the "[[Project MAC]] editor", was the first interactive text editor, developed to write documentation<ref name="misdocumentos">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070516130245/http://misdocumentos.net/wiki/mainframes/univac/ed/historia History of UNIVAC's ED processor (ED-1100)]</ref> 
* PCIP,<ref name="S-C-R-G-PCIP">{{cite journal |last1=SALTZER |first1=JEROME H. |last2=CLARK |first2=DAVID D. |last3=ROMKEY |first3=JOHN L. |last4=GRAMLICH |first4=WAYNE C. |author-link1=Jerry Saltzer |author-link2=David D. Clark |author-link3=John Romkey |title=The Desktop Computer as a Network Participant |journal=  IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications|date=May 1985 |volume=SAC-3 |issue=3 |pages=468–478 |url=http://www.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/museum/tcp-ip-digest/tcp-ip-digest.v2n17.1 |publisher=IEEE |doi=10.1109/JSAC.1985.1146219 |bibcode=1985IJSAC...3..468S |quote=The desktop computer was the IBM Personal Computer attached to one of several local area networks: Ethernet, PRONET, and an RS-232 asynchronous serial line network. The collection of programs is known as PCIP.|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Aboba-PCIP-Romkey">{{cite web |last1=Aboba |first1=Bernard Aboba |title=How PC-IP Came to Be, as told by, John Romkey |url=http://aboba.drizzlehosting.com/internaut/pc-ip.html |website=Internaut: an online supplement to "The Online User's Encyclopedia'" |access-date=19 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807173518/http://aboba.drizzlehosting.com/internaut/pc-ip.html |archive-date=7 August 2011 |date=1993-12-18 |quote=My involvement with PC-IP began when I was a freshman at MIT in 1981, and I needed a job to pay my tuition. I had used the ARPNET a little bit, and there was an advertisement for a job with Dave Clark and Jerry Saltzer at the Lab for Computer Science (LCS). I interviewed for the job and got it. They were working on a research project to see if TCP/IP could run on something as small as an IBM PC.... While I was at Epilogue, we created an Internet Toaster for Interop in 1990.}}</ref> the first TCP/IP stack for the IBM PC, which became the basis for a company called [[FTP Software]]<ref name="JHS-CV-MIT" />
* [[Kerberos (protocol)|Kerberos]], an authentication protocol, part of [[Project Athena]], still widely used today

As Technical Director of Project Athena, he supported development of the [[X Window System]], an [[open-source software|open-source]] windowing system, still used and developed on [[Unix-like]] systems.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{US patent reference
 | number     = 4438520
 | issue-date = December, 1981
 | inventor   = Jerome H. Saltzer
 | title      = System for regenerating a data word on a communications ring. LCS/TM-202.
}} {{US patent|4438520}} {{US patent|src=uspto|4438520}} 
* {{cite web |title=Multics History Project: Jerry Saltzer File Drawers |url=https://people.csail.mit.edu/saltzer/Multics/MHP-Saltzer-060508/filedrawers/ |access-date=22 December 2024 }}
* [http://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/home.html home page] - Jerome H. Saltzer
* [http://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pubs.html Publications] - Jerome H. Saltzer
** {{Cite Q | Q56503280 | access-date = 2022-04-05}} <!-- Saltzer 1984 -->

{{Multics}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saltzer, Jerome H}}
[[Category:1939 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American computer scientists|Saltzer, Jerome H.]]
[[Category:21st-century American engineers|Saltzer, Jerome H.]]
[[Category:People from Nampa, Idaho]]
[[Category:Fellows of the IEEE]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering]]
[[Category:MIT School of Engineering alumni]]
[[Category:MIT School of Engineering faculty]]
[[Category:Multics people]]