Artifact Details

Date

2014-06-20

Participants

Hauser, Hermann, Interviewee

Hendrie, Gardner, Interviewer; Videographer

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Duration

02:59:31

Format

MOV

Copyright Holder

Computer History Museum

Description

Hermann Hauser was born in Austria, but received a PhD in physics from Kings College, Cambridge University. As he was finishing his degree, through social contacts he met some one interested in starting a company, and with that Hermann’s entrepreneurial career was launched. They started by building slot machines (for gambling) and eventually personal computers. The company was Acorn Computers.

Acorn later grew quite large after it won the contract to build the BBC Computer. This was based on the 6502 microprocessor. When it came time to upgrade to processor in this machine, they couldn’t find anything which fit the bill, so they designed their own microprocessor—the ARM. After its spinout from Acorn, this processor became the largest selling processor in the world.

Acorn was eventually taken over by Olivetti, and Mr. Hauser became the vice president of Olivetti’s worldwide research organization in 1986. In 1990, he returned to his entrepreneurial roots and helped start several companies in both electronics and biotech, most of which were quite successful.

Category

Oral history

Subject

semiconductor history; Acorn; ARM; RISC; Tesler, Larry; Wilson, Sophie; Furber, Steve; Virata; Active Book Company; EO; FirePath; DSLAM; ATML; Harlequin; Apple; Newton; eTrade; Bluetooth; CSR; Sanger; Solexa

Collection Title

Oral history collection

Credit

Computer History Museum

Lot Number

X7214.2014

Related Records

102739951

Hauser, Hermann oral history