Tony Tebby is a

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

and the designer of Qdos, the

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

used in the

Sinclair QL The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small ...

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 tec ...

, while working as an engineer at

Sinclair Research Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, the ...

in the early 1980s. He left Sinclair Research in 1984 in protest at the premature launch of the QL, and formed QJUMP Ltd., a software house specializing in

system software System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. Examples of system software include operating systems (OS) like macOS, Linux, Android and Microsoft Windows, computational science software, game engines, search engin ...

and

utilities A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...

for the QL, based in

Rampton, Cambridgeshire Rampton is a village in Cambridgeshire, England, situated on the edge of The Fens six miles to the north of Cambridge. History The edge of the Fens were well-populated during Roman times and Rampton was no exception. The settlement apparently va ...

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 ...

. Prior to this he worked at the

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

Research Laboratories in

Redhill, Surrey Redhill () is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead within the county of Surrey, England. The town, which adjoins the town of Reigate to the west, is due south of Croydon in Greater London, and is part of the London commuter belt. The ...

where he worked on realtime image processing, using electronic hardware rather than software. At that time, software would have been either a batch program on the PRL

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

or, within the departmental laboratory, the

Commodore PET The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, an ...

. Among the software developed by QJUMP was SuperToolkit II, a collection of

extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * E ...

s to Qdos and

SuperBASIC SuperBASIC is an advanced variant of the BASIC programming language with many structured programming additions. It was developed at Sinclair Research by Jan Jones during the early 1980s. Originally SuperBASIC was intended as the BASIC interprete ...

; a Qdos

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

driver which became the ''de facto'' standard for the various third-party floppy disk interfaces sold for the QL; and the QJUMP Pointer Environment, which extended the primitive display windowing facility of Qdos into something approaching a full

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

. Tebby also received a commission to write a Qdos-like

for the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

; this was called SMS2. Tebby later moved to

Le Grand-Pressigny Le Grand-Pressigny () is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. There is a Chalcolithic flint mine located in the commune. It produced an unusual caramel-coloured stone which appears to have been highly prized across Euro ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, but continued his involvement in the QL user community. In the early 1990s, he developed SMSQ, a new Qdos-compatible OS, based on SMS2, for the

Miracle Systems Miracle Systems Ltd. were a manufacturer of personal computer peripherals and upgrades, specializing in the Sinclair QL, in the 1980s and early 1990s. The company was incorporated in February 1983. Initially, they produced simple peripherals suc ...

QXL, a QL emulator card for PCs. An enhanced version of SMSQ was ported to the Atari ST and various other QL emulators, being renamed

SMSQ/E SMSQ/E is a computer operating system originally developed in France by Tony Tebby, the designer of the original QDOS operating system for the Sinclair QL personal computer. It began life as SMSQ, a QDOS-compatible version of SMS2 intended for ...

. He has also worked on Stella, an embedded

for 68000-series and

ColdFire The NXP ColdFire is a microprocessor that derives from the Motorola 68000 family architecture, manufactured for embedded systems development by NXP Semiconductors. It was formerly manufactured by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly the semiconductor ...

processors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tebby, Tony Computer programmers Sinclair Research Living people Year of birth missing (living people)