Fernando J. Corbató

Fernando José "Corby" Corbató (born July 1, 1926) is a prominent American computer scientist, notable as a pioneer in the development of time-sharing operating systems.

Born in Oakland, California, Corbató received a bachelor's degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1950, and then a PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956. He joined MIT's Computation Center immediately upon graduation, became a professor in 1965, and stayed at MIT until he retired.

The first timesharing 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 now says that this rudimentary security method has proliferated and become 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.

Among many awards, Corbató received the Turing Award in 1990, "for his pioneering work in organizing the concepts and leading the development of the general-purpose, large-scale, time-sharing and resource-sharing computer systems".

In 2012, he was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his pioneering work on timesharing and the Multics operating system".

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

The number of lines of code a programmer can write in a fixed period of time is the same, independent of the language used.

Corbató is recognized as helping to create the first computer password.

Corbató has a wife, Emily. He has two daughters, Carolyn and Nancy Corbató (by his late wife Isabel), and two step-sons, David and Jason Gish.

• F. J. Corbató, M. M. Daggett, R. C. Daley, An Experimental Time-Sharing System (IFIPS 1962) in 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, PL/I As a Tool for System Programming at the Wayback Machine (archived February 6, 2008) (Datamation, May 6, 1969)
• 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)