Shiraz Shivji (born 1947 in what is now

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

) was the primary designer of the 1985 Atari ST computer, and one of the engineers of the Commodore 64.

Biography

Shiraz Shivji, born 1947 in what is now

, was of

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

Ismaili heritage. He was interested in electronics from an early age in what is now Tanzania. He was educated in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, where he obtained a first-class honours degree at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

. He then moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, where he obtained a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in electrical engineering at Stanford University during 1969–1973.

Commodore

Shivji began work at

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

, and found work at

Commodore International Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mac ...

, where he was one of the engineers that helped build the Commodore 64. By 1984, he had been promoted to being the director of engineering at Commodore. In 1984, Shivji was involved in a scandal related to his work on the Commodore 900. He was one of three systems engineers on the project since its inception in 1983. He was sued by Commodore in mid-July 1984 for disclosing confidential research information connected to this project and

disk drive Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...

design plans as he was beginning to transfer to

Atari Corporation Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communica ...

with

Jack Tramiel Jack Tramiel ( ; born Idek Trzmiel; December 13, 1928 – April 8, 2012) was an American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home comput ...

. He was acquitted of all charges in court alongside several other engineers.

Atari Corporation

When Jack Tramiel took over Atari in 1984, with a number of Commodore engineers, the company was in bad shape, and Shivji's proposed cheap, powerful home computer, codenamed 'Rock Bottom Price,' was seen as a solution to financial woes. While working for the newly founded

, Shivji was the primary designer of the Atari ST computer, among other projects. Shivji became Atari's Vice President of Research and Development, and led a team of six engineers who designed the Atari 520ST computer. This work was completed in five months (July to December 1984). The prototype presentation at the January 1985 Las Vegas CES was successful for Atari, and the product revived the company. Shivji later led the design of the

Atari TT The Atari TT030 is a member of the Atari ST family, released in 1990. It was originally intended to be a high-end Unix workstation, but Atari took two years to release a port of Unix SVR4 for the TT, which prevented the TT from ever being serio ...

before leaving Atari in 1990.

Post-Atari

Kamran Elahian recruited Shivji for his

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend ...

, Momenta. While there Shivji designed the Momenta Pen Computer, the first pentop computer and one of the first full sized

tablet computers A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being compu ...

. Shivji received numerous patents between the years of 2000 and 2007.

References

External links

Father of the ST

A tribute to the STList of patents filed
1947 births 20th-century American engineers 20th-century Indian engineers Alumni of the University of Southampton American electrical engineers Atari people Commodore people Indian Ismailis American Ismailis Tanzanian Ismailis Indian electrical engineers Indian emigrants to the United States Living people Stanford University alumni Tanzanian emigrants to the United States Tanzanian engineers Tanzanian people of Indian descent {{videogame-bio-stub