Interview with Andrew Tanenbaum

Although I had certainly encountered Andrew Tanenbaum at other conferences, the first time I remember talking to him was in a “terminal” room at USENIX Annual Tech in 2004. By that time, a terminal room was a place where you could have a hardwired connection to the Internet, and Andy showed me www.electoral-vote.com, a political Web site which he was working on that analyzes polling data. For someone who focuses on working with PhD students, and writing books and operating systems, building such a useful political site seemed a bit far afield to me. But the more you know about Andy, the more you learn just how broad his interests are...