Latest - Organisation: Acorn computers

Interview with Sir Andrew Hopper

Andy Hopper studied computer science at Swansea under Professor David Aspinall then did his PhD in Cambridge where he worked on the Cambridge Ring.  His LAN company came to the attention of Acorn Computers and was taken into Acorn in 1979.   Hopper was appointed managing director of the Olivetti Cambridge Research lab in 1986.  As MD he helped more than 10 venture operations become independent companies under the benign eye of Olivetti.  On the closure of the lab Hopper focused on his professorship at Cambridge where he developed a strategy to get over 200 ventures from Cambridge University into the market.

Dr Steve Furber CBE

Steve Furber was working at Acorn Computers having helped develop the BBC Micro and was searching for the follow-on product. He found that the microprocessors then on the market had a deep design flaws: they were too complex. Acorn decided to design its own microprocessor using a novel approach. Furber led the small design team. They called it the Acorn Risc Machine (ARM), later changed to the Advanced Risc Machine and it is now found in over a billion mobile devices worldwide