Book excerpt: The Kyoto Summer Institute 1980 (KSI '80), devoted to "Fundamental Physics of Amorphous Semiconductors", was held at Research Institute for Fundamental Physics (RIFP), Kyoto University, from 8-11 September, 1980. The KSI '80 was the successor of the preceding Institutes which were held in July 1978 on "Particle Physics and Accelerator Projects" and in September 1979 on "Physics of Low-Dimensional Systems". The KSI '80 was attended by 200 participants, of which 36 were from abroad: Canada, France, Korea, Poland, U.K., U.S.A, U.S.S.R., and the Federal Republic of Germany. The KSI '80 was organized by RIFP and directed by the Amorphous Semicon ductor group in Japan. A few years ago, we started to organize an interna tional meeting on amorphous semiconductors' as a satell ite meeting of the International Conference on "Physics of Semiconductors" held on September 1-5, 1980 in Kyoto. We later decided to hold the meeting in the form of the Kyoto Summer Institute. The Kyoto Summer Institute is aimed to be something between a school and a conference. Accordingly, the object of the KSI '80 was to provide a series of invited lectures and informal seminars on fundamental physics of amorphous semiconductors. No contributed paper was accepted, but seminars were open.