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13: Steve Furber on Cambridge, Acorn Computers and the University of Manchester
12/19/2023
13: Steve Furber on Cambridge, Acorn Computers and the University of Manchester
Meet Steve Furber. Steve graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 1974, followed by a PhD in aerodynamics in 1980 and a Master of Mathematics (MMath) belatedly awarded in 2010. After ten years working at Acorn Computers on the BBC Micro and its successor the ARM1, he was appointed Professor at the University of Manchester in 1990, where he led a variety of research projects over 33 years culminating in the arm-powered SpiNNaker project. As of 2023, there are more than 250 billion arm designed chips on the planet, 30 for every person currently alive. Each of these chips uses the same basic Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) architecture pioneed in the ARM1. After a long and distinguished career, Steve retired in September 2023, when this episode was recorded.
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