Mr. Christopher Curry

In April 1966, he joined Sinclair Radionics, a company founded by Clive Sinclair in 1961. He was to play an important role in getting Sinclair interested in both calculators and computers. In 1972, Sinclair Radionics launched its first electronic calculator, the Executive, which was considerably smaller than its competitors since it used hearing-aid-sized batteries. In July 1977, Ian Williamson showed him a prototype computer based around a National Semiconductor SC/MP and some parts scavenged from a Sinclair Cambridge calculator. He was impressed and encouraged Sinclair to adopt this as a product. Nat Semi had offered to redesign the project so that it used only their components and they also offered to manufacture the boards. He took Nat Semi up on his offer, and in June 1978 Science of Cambridge launched a microcomputer kit (marketed as the MK14) based around the National SC/MP chip. On 5 December 1978 he and his friend, physics researcher Hermann Hauser set up Cambridge Processor Unit Ltd. (CPU) to sell their own computers. They borrowed a room at Science of Cambridge to provide computer consultancy services in order to raise money to finance the development of their own hardware. Their first customer was Ace Coin Equipment Ltd., who needed controllers for their fruit machines. The Acorn Microcomputer (later to be called the System 1) was launched as the first product of a new company, Acorn Computers Ltd, founded in March 1979. In 1983 he co-founded Redwood Publishing with Michael Potter (former publisher of advertising trade weekly Campaign) and Christopher Ward (former editor of Daily Express newspaper). The company bought the Acorn User title. At the time of the Olivetti takeover of Acorn in 1985 he founded General Information Systems Ltd (GIS), based on Acorn's Communications Group, and he remains a director. GIS specializes in Smart Card technologies for access control and electronic money.