Steve Vickers is the author of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...

 home computer

Home computer

Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...

 ROM

Read-only memory

Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...

 firmware

Firmware

In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

, UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

Education

Vickers graduated from King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

 with a degree in mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, he then read a PhD at Leeds University also in mathematics.

Sinclair Research

In 1980 he started working for Nine Tiles which had previously written the Sinclair BASIC

Sinclair BASIC

Sinclair BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language used in the 8-bit home computers from Sinclair Research and Timex Sinclair...

 for the ZX80. He was responsible for the adaptation of the 4K ZX80 ROM into the 8K ROM used in the ZX81 and also wrote the ZX81 manual. He then wrote most of the ZX Spectrum ROM, and assisted with the user documentation.

Vickers left in 1982 to form "Rainbow Computing Co." with Richard Altwasser

Richard Altwasser

Richard Francis Altwasser is a British engineer and inventor, responsible for the hardware design of the ZX Spectrum.- Biography :Altwasser graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, with a degree in engineering in June 1978. He was hired by Sinclair Research in September 1980...

. The company became Jupiter Cantab

Jupiter Cantab

Jupiter Cantab Limited was a Cambridge based home computer company. Its main product was the 1983 Forth based Jupiter Ace.The company was founded in 1982 by two ex-Sinclair Research staffers, Richard Altwasser and Steven Vickers. Their machine was, externally, remarkably similar to the ZX Spectrum,...

 and they were together responsible for the development of the commercially unsuccessful Jupiter ACE

Jupiter ACE

The Jupiter Ace was a British home computer of the early 1980s, produced by a company, set up for the purpose, named Jupiter Cantab. The Ace differed from other microcomputers of the time in that it used FORTH instead of the more common BASIC.- Introduction :...

, a competitor to the similar Sinclair ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...

.

Academia

Originally at the Department of Computing at Imperial College London

Imperial College London

Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...

, Steve Vickers later joined the Department of Pure Mathematics at the Open University

Open University

The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...

 before finally moving to the School of Computer Science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and the Research Student Tutor of the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham.

Research

Vickers' main interest lies within geometric logic. He has written over 30 papers in scholarly journals on mathematical aspects of computer science, and a book, Topology via Logic (Cambridge University Press, 1996, ISBN 0521576512).

External links

• Steve Vickers' homepage at the University of Birmingham
• An interview with Richard Altwasser and Steven Vickers