John Ellenby (9 January 1941 – 17 August 2016) was a British businessman. He was the founder of Grid Systems Corporation, maker of the Grid Compass, one of the first commercially successful

laptop computer A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

s. He also co-founded

GeoVector GeoVector Corporation (originally named Criticom Corporation) began conducting research into augmented reality in early 1990s. The company, co-founded by John Ellenby, who also founded laptop pioneer GRiD Systems Corporation, devised a metho ...

, an early augmented reality company.

Biography

Ellenby was born in

Corbridge Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, west of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle and east of Hexham. Villages nearby include Halton, Northumberland, Halton, Acomb, Northumberland, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe. Etymology Corbridge was kno ...

, in

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. His father Conrad Ellenby was a nematologist. He studied geography and economics at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, and first encountered mainframe computers for the first time in the early 1960s, when he spent a year at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

. He worked for the British firm

Ferranti Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was known ...

, where he worked on minicomputers. Ellenby moved to California in the 1970s, where he worked for

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

, and became involved in the management of the development of the Alto and Alto II desktop computers. In 1978, Ellenby and Tim Mott proposed an idea to commercialise the Alto computer, but this idea was later abandoned due to financial constraints. Ellenby said that they "had to sandbag the Alto because with it we couldn't make their numbers and therefore wouldn't get any bonuses". In 1979, he cofounded Grid Systems Corporation with colleagues from

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

; the business started with $13 million of funding from Wall Street

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

s. In 1982, Grid built the Grid Compass, which was one of the first laptop computers to feature the now-popular clamshell design, and was used on the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' in 1986. In 1988, Grid was sold to the

Tandy Corporation Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, ...

. The design for The Compass computer was allegedly based on the shape of Ellenby's briefcase. In 1987, Ellenby founded Agilis; he acted as the President of the company until 1990, and in 1989 the company produced hand-held computers with built-in Ethernet ports. Ellenby also founded Geovector, a company based on applications of augmented reality. Ellenby died on 17 August 2016 in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

References

External links

* In memory of John Ellenb

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellenby, John 1941 births 2016 deaths Alumni of University College London Computer engineers Scientists at PARC (company)