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Fritz-Rudolf Güntsch (* 27 September 1925inBerlin; † 8 January 2012inBrandenburg an der Havel) was a German computer pioneer, inventorofvirtual memory, industry and science manager.
After military service and captivity, Fritz-Rudolf Güntsch began studying physics at the Technical University of Karlsruhein1947, graduating in 1954 as a graduate engineer specializing in theoretical physics at the Technical University of Berlin. Güntsch became assistant and senior assistant at the TU Berlin. His fields of work included:
The Berlin period also includes guest stays with Alwin Walther (TH Darmstadt) and Eduard Stiefel and Heinz Rutishauser (ETH Zurich). At the TU Berlin Güntsch gave lectures on hardware and software of program-controlled computer systems. In 1957, he received his doctorate under Wolfgang Haack (TU Berlin) and Stiefel (ETH Zurich) with a dissertation on the logical design of a digital computing device with several asynchronously running drums and automatic fast memory operation. The most important invention in the course of this work was virtual memory. In 1958, Güntsch moved into industry at AEG Telefunken, in the newly founded "Information Technology" division in Constance, where he subsequently became head of the "Electronic Computers" and "Mainframes" divisions. During this time, he built up efficient company units with hundreds of employees from small beginnings. The most important projects of the departments managed by Güntsch were:
In 1969 Güntsch moved to the Federal Ministry of Defense and took over the department "Defense Research", with the following fields of activity:
In 1971 (until the end of his service in 1990) Güntsch took over the promotion of data processing, technical communication and electronics in the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology, and - over longer periods of time in each case - aerospace, specialist information systems, physical technologies, chemical technologies, humanization of working life, production and process engineering, innovative company foundations, medical research, biological research and technology, environmental research and technology, materials research, microsystems.
During this time, the various IT programs of the federal government, the Technical Communication Program and the Computer Science Program for the establishment of 14 computer science focal points at German universities, from which today's faculties, departments and institutes for computer science developed. The German Research Network provided German science with a modern communications infrastructure.
Güntsch was married three times and had six children (two sons, four daughters). In 1992 he moved to Brandenburg an der Havel, the town he had known since childhood as the birthplace of his mother and home to numerous ancestors until the 17th century, and built a house with his third wife in the old town.
Güntsch's most important achievement was certainly the invention of virtual memory. Virtual means a memory that is realized by a small but fast memory that provides the desired access time and a large but slower memory that provides the desired capacity. Data is exchanged between the two in such a way that as many accesses as possible are accommodated by the fast memory, whereby the application does not have to worry about these processes. Güntsch developed this concept in 1956 as part of a computer with ten asynchronously running drums as "large" memory.
The processor of this machine does not directly access the drum memories, but a fast memory with a total capacity of 600 words (in six blocks). An important motive for this structure was the synchronization of the processor with ten (among themselves) asynchronously rotating drums. From today's point of view, however, it is much more significant that this is the first time that a virtual memory has been realized by the interaction of the rapid memory and the drum memories. Each access of the processor into the address space of 100,000 words has as its destination either one of the registers or the input/output, or it leads to the fast memory. Two blocks of the address space are permanently mapped to two blocks of the fast memory, while the mapping of the remaining blocks of the address space follows the access process. Two double blocks are available in the fast memory for this purpose. Whenever a command is not found in the quick memory, it is loaded from the drum into the first double block of the quick memory with the surrounding double block. Similarly, accessing a data word not found in the quick memory leads to the replacement of the contents of the next two quick memory blocks. In this way, it is possible to separate the command access process and the data access process from each other and to take advantage of the fact that each has a better location than the overall process. In the double block of the address space, which is permanently assigned to the third double block of the fast memory, the programmer can accommodate frequently used command sequences and data. In order to prevent rarely accessed command sequences or data from leading to a damaging replacement in the quick memory, the machine is equipped with some commands that bypass the quick memory and allow the processor to access the drum directly. This was the birth of virtual memory, and Güntsch wrote in his dissertation of 1957: "The programmer does not need to consider the existence of quick memory - he does not even need to know that such memory exists, because there is only one kind of address that can be used to program as if there were only one memory."
The TR 440 mainframe computer (1970), developed under the direction of Güntsch, was the fastest computer built in Europe at that time and, with 45 machines installed, represented an important business success for the German computer industry. The machine had groundbreaking compilers and a very innovative operating system that allowed batch and subscriber jobs to be run via the same user interface.
Güntsch's far-reaching achievements include the supra-regional research program in computer science, in which the federal and state governments enabled the establishment of 14 computer science focal points at German universities, from which the later faculties and departments of computer science developed. Without this program, it would not have been possible to build up the necessary capacities in the 1970s to meet the rapidly growing demands of the German economy in research.
