Mark Colton (17 March 1961 – 5 August 1995) was a British

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

driver and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

author. He was killed in practice for

Craigantlet Hillclimb Craigantlet Hillclimb, a speed event organised by the Ulster Automobile Club, was first held in 1913. It is the only such venue in Northern Ireland to host a round (latterly two rounds) of the British Hill Climb Championship, which started in 1 ...

speed event in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...

after his Pilbeam's front wing failed and he hit a telegraph pole. Colton's best year was 1994, when he was runner-up to

David Grace David Grace (born 1949 in Rugby, Warwickshire, England) is a British racing driver and businessman. He was the CEO at Rockingham Motor Speedway between 2000 and 2002, and oversaw the opening of the track and the return, after many years, of CART ...

. Outside motorsport, Colton was an influential figure in the development of software for

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

s, particularly those made by

Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the United Kingdom, UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archi ...

, being the author of the

Acornsoft Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and u ...

''View'' range and ''View Professional'' for the

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an empha ...

while working at Protechnic in the early 1980s. View Professional was the predecessor of the ''PipeDream'' integrated suite for the

Cambridge Z88 The Cambridge Computer Z88 is a Zilog Z80-based portable computer released in 1987 by Cambridge Computer, the company formed for such purpose by Clive Sinclair. It was approximately A4 paper sized and lightweight at , running on four AA batter ...

portable computer,

Acorn Archimedes Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems are based on Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and the proprietary operating systems Arthur and RISC OS. The first models ...

and

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a tea ...

compatibles. Having founded Colton Software to market PipeDream, the company followed up with a range of applications - ''Wordz'', ''Resultz'' and ''Recordz'' - comprising the ''Fireworkz'' suite, this being released for

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archi ...

and Microsoft Windows. In a tribute to Colton, Charles Moir, founder of Computer Concepts - the "chief rival" to Colton Software - called him "one of only a handful of people in this country who could and did develop decent, competitive, mainstream applications".

Notes

1961 births 1995 deaths British hillclimb drivers Racing drivers who died while racing Sport deaths in Northern Ireland {{UK-autoracingbio-stub