Douglas Earl Comer is a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

, where he teaches courses on

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s and

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

s. He has written numerous research papers and textbooks, and currently heads several networking research projects. He has been involved in

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

and internetworking since the late 1970s, and is an internationally recognized authority. He designed and implemented X25NET and Cypress networks, and the

Xinu Xinu Is Not Unix (Xinu, a recursive acronym), is an operating system for embedded systems, originally developed by Douglas Comer for educational use at Purdue University in the 1980s. The name is both recursive, and is ''Unix'' spelled backwards ...

operating system. He is director of the Internetworking Research Group at Purdue, editor of Software - Practice and Experience, and a former member of the

Internet Architecture Board The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is "a committee of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and an advisory body of the Internet Society (ISOC). Its responsibilities include architectural oversight of IETF activities, Internet Standards ...

. Comer completed the original version of Xinu (and wrote correspondent book ''The Xinu Approach'') in 1979. Since then, Xinu has been expanded and ported to a wide variety of platforms, including:

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...

VAX VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The V ...

and DECstation 3100,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

Sun-2 The Sun-2 series of UNIX workstations and servers was launched by Sun Microsystems in November 1983. As the name suggests, the Sun-2 represented the second generation of Sun systems, superseding the original Sun-1 series. The Sun-2 series used a 10 ...

Sun-3 Sun-3 is a series of UNIX computer workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched on September 9, 1985. The Sun-3 series are VMEbus-based systems similar to some of the earlier Sun-2 series, but using the Motorola 68020 micropro ...

and

SPARCstation The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines are a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and servers in desktop, desk side (pedestal) and rack-based form factor configurations, that were developed and sold by Sun Microsyst ...

s, and

Intel Pentium Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. The original Pentium processor from which the brand took its name was first released on March 22, 1993. After that, the Pentium II and P ...

. It has been used as the basis for many research projects. Furthermore, Xinu has been used as an embedded system in products by companies such as

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

, and

Lexmark Lexmark International, Inc. is a privately held American company that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. Since 2016 it has been jointly owned by a consortium of three multination ...

Education and career

Comer holds a BS in

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from

Houghton College Houghton University is a private Christian liberal arts college in Houghton, New York. Houghton was founded in 1883 by Willard J. Houghton and is affiliated with the Wesleyan Church.

earned in 1971 and a PhD in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

earned in 1976. He is a

Distinguished Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

of Computer Science and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

and

computer engineering Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...

in the US. Beginning in the late 1970s he started his continuing research into

, which has earned him international fame in the field of

and

computer networking A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ma ...

Achievements

Douglas Comer headed a number of research projects associated with the creation of the Internet, and is the author of a number of books on Operating Systems, the Internet and

networking, and computer architecture. Comer is also the developer of the

operating system. Comer is well known for his series of ground breaking textbooks on computer networks, the Internet, computer operating systems, and computer architecture. His books have been translated into sixteen languages, and are widely used in both industry and academia. Comer's three-volume series ''Internetworking With TCP/IP'' is often cited as an authoritative reference for the Internet protocols. For twenty years, Comer served as editor-in-chief of the research journal Software—Practice And Experience, published by John Wiley & Sons. Comer is a Fellow of the ACM and the recipient of numerous teaching awards.

Research Grants

*Csnet Protocol Development – 1981 *High-Level Network Protocols: Computer Research – 1983 *Feasibility Studies of High-Performance Communication Over Public Packet-Switched Networks – 1984 *Cypress: A Proposed Cost Effective Packet-Switched Interconnection Strategy – 1985 *Shadow Editing – 1986 *Computer Research Equipment – 1987 *Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF): Indiana-Purdue Grid (IP-grid) – 2003 *FIA: Collaborative Research: NEBULA: A Future Internet That Supports Trustworthy Cloud Computing – 2010

Publications

Comer has authored numerous research papers and seventeen popular textbooks that have been translated into sixteen languages.

Networks and Internets (including TCP/IP Protocols)

*Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume III: Client-Server Programming and Applications, BSD Socket Version – 1996 *Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume III: Client-Server Programming and Applications, AT&T TLI Version – 1996 *Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume III: Client-Server Programming and Applications, Windows Sockets Version – 1997 *Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume II: Design, Implementation, and Internals – 1999 *Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume III: Client-Server Programming and Applications, Linux/POSIX Socket Version – 2000 *Hands-on Networking with Internet Applications – 2004 *Network Systems Design Using Network Processors – 2004 *Network Systems Design Using Network Processors, Agere version – 2005 *Automated Network Management Systems – 2006 *Network Systems Design Using Network Processors, Intel 2xxx version – 2006 *The Internet Book: Everything you need to know about computer networking and how the Internet works – 2007 *Computer Networks And Internets Sixth Edition – 2014 *Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume 1: Principles, Protocols, and Architecture, 6th edition – 2013

Computer Architecture And Operating Systems

*Operating System Design Volume 2: Internetworking with XINU – 1987 *Operating System Design Volume 1: The XINU Approach, PC version – 1988 *Operating System Design Volume 1: The XINU Approach, Macintosh version – 1989 *Internetworking With TCP/IP Volume II: Design, Implementation, and Internals – 1994 *Essentials Of Computer Architecture – 2005 *Operating System Design - The XINU Approach, Second edition – 2015

Awards

*Usenix "The Flame" Lifetime Achievement Award (as part of the Software Tools Project) – 1996 *Listed in Purdue University Book of Great Teachers – 1999 *Fellow of the ACM – 2000 *Fellow of the Purdue University Teaching Academy – 2003 *School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Courtesy Appointment – 2003 *Purdue University Distinguished Professor – 2004 *Joel and Ruth Spira Excellence in Teaching Award – 2012 *Internet Hall of Fame - 2019

References

Comer's homepage at Purdue University

Information about all of Comer's books

List of Dougles Comer's books published by Prentice Hall

Comer's description as listed by the Purdue Department of Computer Science
{{DEFAULTSORT:Comer, Douglas American computer scientists Computer systems researchers Computer science educators American technology writers Houghton University alumni Internet pioneers Penn State College of Engineering alumni Purdue University faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people)