Jay Glenn Miner (May 31, 1932 – June 20, 1994) was an American

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

designer, known primarily for developing graphics and audio chips for the

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...

and

Atari 8-bit computers The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 650 ...

and as the "father of the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

Early life

Jay Miner received his first formal electronics education after joining the U.S. Coast Guard out of high school. Following his service he became a radio operator for the North Atlantic Weather Patrol who serviced meteorological duties on distant islands for three years. He returned to school to enroll in the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

, for which he received a BS in EECS in 1958, focusing on electronics design.

Career

Miner first became a chip designer when he joined

General Microelectronics General Micro-electronics (GMe) was an American semiconductor company in the 1960s. It was formed by three former members of Fairchild Semiconductor, and is thus one of the "Fairchildren". It was acquired in 1966 by Philco-Ford and became their Mi ...

in 1964, playing a role in the design of the first calculator to use the MOS ICs, the

Victor 3900 The Victor 3900 is the first electronic calculator to have been built entirely of integrated circuits (ICs). For its era, the 3900 is extremely advanced; it has a cathode ray tube screen to produce a 5-line display, has separate memory for storin ...

. He then worked at the companies Standard MicroSystems and American Micro Systems, at the latter of which he contributed to the design of the MP944 microprocessor. Subsequently he co-founded

Synertek Synertek, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1973. The initial staff consisted of Bob Schreiner (the CEO), Dan Floyd, Jack Balletto, and Gunnar Wetlesen and Zvi Grinfas. Schreiner, Floyd, Balletto and Wetlesen were all forme ...

in 1973, where he served as the company's primary chip designer. One of the company's earliest contracts would be creating

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...

chips for the

Bulova Watch Company Bulova is an American luxury timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 in New York City. Formally the Bulova Watch Company, it makes watches, clocks and accessories. History Founding Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J ...

, but they quickly became a second source manufacturer for chips designed by other firms such as Intel, Rockwell, and MOS Technology.

Atari

Due to its manufacturing of the MOS Technology 65xx series of chips, Synertek was recommended as a partner to Atari, Inc. after it had been decided to use the MOS 6507 for their upcoming

Atari VCS The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...

home video game console. One of Atari's engineers, Harold Lee, had worked with Miner at Standard MicroSystems and suggested him as the designer for a custom chip which would power Atari's new console. Through an arrangement with Synertek, Atari hired Miner in late 1975 to lead the chip design for the Atari VCS, primarily that of the display hardware, the TIA. Miner was also the designer on the follow-up technology intended for a successor console to the Atari VCS. The

ANTIC Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC) is an LSI ASIC dedicated to generating 2D computer graphics to be shown on a television screen or computer display. Under the direction of Jay Miner, the chip was designed in 1977–1978 b ...

and CTIA were created with enhanced capabilities compared to the TIA but the project was altered from a video game console into what would become the

. Due to clashes with management over this and other decisions, Miner left Atari before the release of the computers and found his way into the medical world. He worked for a company called Zymos Corporation and received two patents for a microprocessor-driven pacemaker made into a product by the company Intermedics Inc. called Cosmos.

Amiga

In 1979, Miner was approached by David Morse, vice president from Tonka Toys, about starting a new company to create video game hardware without the oversight of a large corporation. Jay Miner agreed to take control of engineering on two conditions: that the design be a computer, and that it be a 16/32-bit system built around the Motorola 68000 CPU. They would become two of the co-founders of the company Hi-Toro. In 1979 the soon-to-be-called Amiga was called the Lorraine. In 1980 with the hardware in hand suddenly became the sole focus of Hi-Toro which was eventually renamed Amiga Corporation. Soon, the company suffered financial difficulties which led it first into a temporary deal with Atari, Inc. and then acquisition by

Commodore International Commodore International Corporation was a home computer and electronics manufacturer with its head office in The Bahamas and its executive office in the United States founded in 1976 by Jack Tramiel and Irving Gould. It was the successor compan ...

. Miner continued to work for Amiga Corporation as a subsidiary of Commodore. Jay still owned Amiga, because of the patents/IP, but once again grew frustrated with the management style of the company. His frustrations largely revolved around what he said was Commodore marketing executives' failure to penetrate the Amiga into the low-cost computer market. He still owned the majority of Amiga. Miner's last electronics job was at the company Ventritex, operating medical instrumentation and designing chips which controlled a cardiac defibrillator.

Personal life

Miner married his wife Carolina (née Poplowski) in 1951 while attending an electronics school in Groton, Connecticut. His dog Mitchy, a cockapoo, accompanied him everywhere. While he worked at Atari, Mitchy even had her own employee ID badge with number 000, and an embossing of her paw print is inside the Amiga 1000 top cover, alongside staff signatures. Miner's personal hobbies included cultivating

bonsai Bonsai (; , ) is the Japanese art of Horticulture, growing and shaping miniature trees in containers, with a long documented history of influences and native Japanese development over a thousand years, and with unique aesthetics, cultural hist ...

trees, square dancing, and camping. He was a particular fan of flight simulators on computers, having been significantly inspired to design Amiga as an excellent flight simulator. He said at one time his favorite Amiga program was the game '' F/A-18 Interceptor'' published by Electronic Arts in 1988. He endured

kidney In humans, the kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped blood-filtering organ (anatomy), organs that are a multilobar, multipapillary form of mammalian kidneys, usually without signs of external lobulation. They are located on the left and rig ...

problems for most of his life, according to his wife, and relied on dialysis. His sister, Joyce Beers, donated a kidney to him in 1990. He died due to complications from kidney failure at the age of 62.

References

External links

Jay Miner Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miner, Jay 1932 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American engineers American computer businesspeople American electrical engineers Amiga people Deaths from kidney failure in California University of California, Berkeley alumni