Oral History of Dave Cutler Part 1

Interviewed by Grant Saviers on 2016-02-25 in Medina, WA X7733.2016
© Computer History Museum

Dave Cutler (Microsoft Senior Technical Fellow) reviews his youth and never having touched a computer even through college. He then joined Dupont as a technical writer and became interested in developing a GPSS application for a Dupont customer. That led to his volunteering to fix bugs in EXEC-II operating system on the Univac 1108 at Dupont Research Station and his first exposure to computer operating systems. Knowing that computer operating systems were what he wanted to do, he then joined Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and developed several versions of the PDP-11 RSX-11 operating system and a PL-1 compiler. He was a key member of the VAX architecture development group and led the development of VMS including doing much of the coding himself.

Frustrations with DEC management indecision about the future of processor architectures and operating systems led to his establishment of the DECwest Research Center in Seattle with support from Gordon Bell. Dave assembled a large team to develop a VAX successor to RISC machine and VMS successor operating system (Mica and Prism).

Subsequent to DEC cancelling those projects and some efforts with his colleges towards starting his own company, Dave joined Microsoft at the urging of Steve Ballmer. There he developed the NT operating system, navigating multiple user interface additions, porting to several processor platforms and producing several releases. NT is currently the kernal of all Microsoft O/S.
Following NT Dave changed his focus and made significant contributions to the Azure cloud computing environment. Dave discusses his management style and philosophy of software development and some analogies to his career of racing high performance cars. He reflects on the state of processor development and the future of major operating systems.

Currently, he is contributing to the X-Box after developing the hypervisor for that product line. Dave is a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, a Fellow of the Computer History Museum and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Many consider Dave Cutler one of the computer industry’s most preeminent and prolific engineers.

Lot number: X7733.2016
Catalog number: 102717162

[boblake]

Every word he says about DEC is the truth. I had the great fortune of being hired by DEC in 1976, until 1989. My first job. It truly was an Engineer's company. It allowed me to learn and grow. It was a unique company.

[RoyAntaw]

Dave Cutler is one of my personal heroes and this series of videos deserves a lot more views. In the 1980s I worked on VAX 11/780, MicroVax II, 3800 and 4000 systems and later in the mid 1990s I worked for Microsoft Australia supporting NT 3.x and later NT 4.0 systems.

[climbeverest]

This man is a genius, he did not do a CS degree nor a phD and yet wrote OSes and compilers, wow!

[sempertard]

I'm glad Dave mentioned VAX-ELN. I didn't know that he was that deeply involved with it. VAX-ELN was what I used to develop VAX Camera in 87 while working at DEC in Santa Clara. I did it as a side project. VAX Camera was productized in 1990.

[JakePomperada]

Simply one of the best software engineer.

[craigbullock]

Great to listen to Dave. I loved reading Show Stopper and it is great to hear him in person.

[jasonevans]

It's fantastic that Dave Cutler agreed to do this interview, since he is well know for keeping out of the limelight. Having read the book "Show-Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" I really wanted to find out more about Dave, but it's really hard to find that much about him. I found little bits here and there, such as ZDNet, but nothing that focused on Cutler specifically. Thus this interview is very welcomed indeed.

[edhalferty]

VMS and NT were such solid well-designed operating systems. It's a shame that everyone in Unix/Linux land has a misconception that Unix is the best way, and never consider studying VMS to see what they might be missing...

[rabidbigdog]

The loss of Digital Equipment is a crime in American business history.

[James_Bowie]

By the mid 1980's DEC was out of control. It was plowing money into 3 different architectures and had ignored the ascendancy of the PC until it was way too late. Ken Olsen should have read 'Only the Paranoid Survive'.

[kanishk]

21:30: “I had to figure out why something didn’t work, which meant I had to figure out how it worked…”

[ibic]

Such low number of views, he is one of the GOD of computer engineering (in the Operating System domain).

[RitaBrowny]

Hello Dave you don’t remember me but back in the 60, you had a beautiful Mustang it was great my cousin told me you were still around I went to SJWillis in Victoria anyways hoping you are doing great and by the looks like you are I was very surprised when Linda told me you were still around my real name is carol take care now we are not getting any younger I now living in Edmonton Alberta I used to watch football but did not know that you were in it I did remember that you did mention that you did like football I am now just about 77 yrs old 
Take care of yourself and your-family bye for now

[ShazzPotz]

Not the best interviewer. Interviewer Grant Saviers should ask Dave Cutler for more key details and dates as Dave relates his life story for 3 hours. Grant just lets Dave ramble on about his memories, which I still found very interesting as Dave is a good natural speaker. But for instance, when Dave is talking about his time at college, I wondered 1) did Dave graduate from college? 2) what subject exactly is Dave's degree? 3) what year did Dave graduate? 4) did Dave get a Batchelor's degree, or a Master's or what? Grant should have pinned Dave down on these historical details, which are usually found in a professional historical documentary. I think I gathered that Dave graduated in 1965 from Olivet College in Michigan with a Batchelor's degree in mathematics. But I can't say for sure because Grant did not ask Dave for those key milestones for the historical record.

Later during his DEC years, Grant should have asked Dave what language Dave used to write RSX-11 and the PL/1 compiler? I'm guessing assembly language - maybe MACRO-11? What language is Windows NT coded in? Is VMS written in C? Programmers would love to know those working details from Dave to bring his work to life.