Tamás Legendi

He began his research career at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Computer Science and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI), then continued at the Computer Science Application Company (Számalk). He primarily worked on programming languages (Change), mathematical logic and its computer science applications, automata theory, and lambda calculus.

From 1979, he was a scientific associate of the Departmental Research Group of Mathematical Logic and Automata Theory (later Automata Theory Research Group) led by Ferenc Gécseg at the József Attila University of Szeged (JATE). Here, he worked in the field of research on cellular automata, which largely ensures the parallel operation (multiprocessing) of computers, and published with the involvement of his colleagues. In 1983, he also won a National Scientific Research Basic Programs (OTKA) grant on the topics of cellular automata investigation, organization of cellular processors, and architecture research.
He achieved results in the theory of cell and multiprocessors, which can be considered a new trend, which, in addition to domestic applications, also attracted international recognition.

He was an active member of the management of the Programming Systems Department of the National Institute of Computer Science; in 1977, the Parallel Computing Systems group was founded under his leadership.

From 1985 to 1990, he collaborated on significant research with Professor Roland Vollmar, an internationally recognized researcher in the field of parallel processors at the Technical University of Braunschweig (Germany).

After 1990, CELLWARE Ltd. was established under his leadership within the framework of the Számalk Group, with the research and development goal of which was to implement cell processor hardware in cooperation with Densitron Ltd. (England) on a Sun workstation from LSI-Logic (England). The development was successful, generating significant international attention, but its launch on the market failed for financial reasons.

He was a featured speaker at the 1979 NJSZT congress and one of the co-authors of the book and collection of studies titled “The Life and Work of János Neumann”, also published on that occasion.

In 1986, he was the initiator and main organizer of the CONPAR'86 International Conference on Parallel Computing Systems in Budapest.

Award: Kalmár Prize (NJSZT, 1985).