Richard Francis Altwasser is a British

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

and inventor, responsible for the

hardware design Processor design is a subfield of computer engineering and electronics engineering (fabrication) that deals with creating a processor, a key component of computer hardware. The design process involves choosing an instruction set and a certain exec ...

of the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

Biography

Altwasser graduated at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, with a degree in

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

in June 1978. He was hired by

Sinclair Research Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, then ...

in September 1980. His first assigned job was to write some programs to demonstrate the capabilities of the new 8 kB

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

and 16 kB RAM expansion for the

ZX80 The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. (later to be better known as Sinclair Research). It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a ...

. After that, he worked on the printed circuit board of the

ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cos ...

. After the launch of the ZX81, Altwasser was promoted to the computers development team and worked on the development of the

, from the early technical discussions at the end of July 1981. His main contribution was the design of the

graphics mode Computer display standards are a combination of aspect ratio, display size, display resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. They are associated with specific expansion cards, video connectors and monitors. History Various computer displ ...

using less than 7

kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix '' kilo'' as 1000 (103); per this definition, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes.International Standard IEC 80000-13 Quant ...

s of memory. He also participated in the preliminary stages of the development of the

ZX Microdrive ZX Microdrive unit The ZX Microdrive is a magnetic-tape data storage system launched in July 1983 by Sinclair Research for its ZX Spectrum home computer. It was proposed as a faster-loading alternative to the cassette and cheaper than a flo ...

. Altwasser left Sinclair at the beginning of May 1982 to establish his own company, along with Steve Vickers, author of the Spectrum's

firmware and manual. Provisionally called ''Rainbow Computing Co.'', the company later became Jupiter Cantab Limited. Jupiter Cantab launched only one major product, a home computer called ''

Jupiter Ace The Jupiter Ace by Jupiter Cantab was a British home computer of the early 1980s. The Ace differed from other microcomputers of the time in that its programming environment used Forth instead of the more popular BASIC. After Jupiter Cantab c ...

''. The ''Ace'' was a failure both in the UK and in the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

markets. In 1983 "Buyers Guide Home Computing Weekly" was advertising the ZX81 for £39.95, and the Jupiter Ace for £89.95. The company went bankrupt in November 1983. In 1986 Altwasser became the engineering director at

Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstra ...

. The same year Amstrad, already itself a successful home computer manufacturer, bought Sinclair Research's computer business. Altwasser left Amstrad in 1992, taking on a number of director and executive jobs in other companies, such as Network Development Manager at RM plc from September 2000 to May 2003. As of 2011 he gives his occupation as a reader at Portishead

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

References

External links

«Display for a computer» (Richard Altwasser's patent for the Spectrum's graphics mode)

ZX Spectrum's chief designers reunited 30 years on
{{DEFAULTSORT:Altwasser, Richard English engineers Sinclair Research 1957 births Living people