Software Archives - Archives of IT

Dr. Mike Burrows

After studying for a PhD in electrical engineering, Mike was offered a job at DEC’s Systems Research Centre in Palo Alto. There he worked on the Alta Vista search engine, which became the most popular search engine in the 1990s. After DEC, Mike moved on to jobs at Microsoft and Google, where he developed a distributed lock server, still in use today

29 April 2025

Simone Hume

Simone started work at DEC as a temp, and taking advantage of their DigiTemps programme, got a permanent job in bid support and assisted consultants with proposals for Multi–Vendor Customer Services. She moved on to Base Sales, upselling additional services to existing customers, and then Field Sales around the time of the Compaq takeover. After DEC she moved to IBM as a Partner Account Manager for the public sector.

14 April 2025

Shaheed Haque

Shaheed joined DEC straight from university, and worked as an Engineer, contributing to the development of the 50-way sync connector and other innovative technologies, including inventing a graphic editor for state machines. His ground-breaking work on video servers saw Shaheed and his team move to Oracle where they worked on tech for companies who wanted to start using satellites to do shopping on televisions.

8 April 2025

Richard Briggs

Richard started off working with computers in Air Traffic Control, moving to DEC as an engineer. As his career progressed, he specialised in networks and moved over to telecoms, his work in ADSL laying the groundwork for future broadband infrastructure.

7 April 2025

Peter Campbell Burns

Peter worked as a computer programmer for University College London, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy’s high-profile experiments in collaboration with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). His knowledge of DEC machines and VAX/VMS (Virtual Memory Systems) meant he went on to become a Defence contractor.

7 April 2025

Ken Salmon

Ken was recruited by DEC from Essex University, who trained students using DEC computers. He started in the Computer Special Systems Division working as a Project Engineer in logic design. His first job was to design a tape drive from scratch. As his career progressed he wanted to work in Sales rather than Management, so moved to a computer printing company.

1 April 2025

John Leng

After an apprenticeship at Harwell, John joined DEC as an engineering manager, and went on to open DEC UK in Reading in 1964. He had responsibility for marketing, manufacturing and engineering. He was promoted to European Regional Manager with responsibility of Digital’s efforts throughout Europe.

1 April 2025

Janet Richards

Janet joined DEC as a graduate, working Software Services in pre-sales, then after training in the technical team supporting Barclays Bank handling floppy disks and RLL2 machines. She worked up to account consultant and worked for DEC in Europe and the UK. After DEC she joined Global Knowledge as a business project manager and then moved on to a company providing tech apprenticeships.

24 March 2025

Dr. Ian Severn

Ian started to use computers in research and development for firm Vickers. He next worked for Harwell on a search engine STATUS and Bemrose Information Services as a Systems Analyst on database publishing for motor companies. He joined DEC as publishing applications centre manager and after this job ended, set up his own business supporting ex-DEC customers.