Sophie Wilson
| Sophie Wilson | |
|---|---|
 Sophie Wilson giving a presentation on ARM development |
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| Born | Roger Wilson |
| Residence | Lode, Cambridgeshire [1] |
| Nationality | British[2] |
| Alma mater | Cambridge University[2] |
| Occupation | Chief Architect |
| Employer | Broadcom, DSL Business Unit |
| Known for | Work with Acorn Computers, particularly the BBC Micro and on the ARM processor[2] |
| Website | |
| www.sophie.org.uk | |
Sophie Wilson is a British computer scientist. She is known for designing the Acorn Micro-Computer, the first of a long line of computers sold by Acorn Computers Ltd,[3] as well as the instruction set of the highly successful ARM processor.
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[edit] Life and career
Wilson was educated at Cambridge University. In 1978, she designed the Acorn Micro-Computer, the first of a long line of computers sold by Acorn Computers Ltd.[3]
In 1981, Wilson extended the Acorn Atom's BASIC programming language dialect into an improved version for the Acorn Proton, a microcomputer that enabled Acorn to win the contract with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for their ambitious computer education project, whereupon the Proton became the BBC Micro and its BASIC was developed into BBC BASIC. In 1983, she designed the instruction set for one of the first RISC processors, the Acorn RISC Machine (ARM), later to become one of the most successful IP-cores (i.e., a licenced CPU core) of the 1990s and 2000s.
Wilson designed Acorn Replay, the video architecture for Acorn machines. This included the operating system extensions for video access as well as the codecs themselves, optimised to run high frame rate video on ARM CPUs from the ARM 2 onwards.
Wilson was a member of the board of the technology and games company Eidos plc, which bought and created Eidos Interactive, for the years following its flotation in 1990, and was a consultant to ARM Ltd when it was split off from Acorn in 1990.
Since the demise of Acorn Computers, Wilson has made a small number of public appearances to talk about her time there.[4]
Wilson is now the Chief Architect of Broadcom's Firepath chip architecture in Broadcom's DSL Business Unit.[citation needed] Firepath has its history in Acorn Computers, which, after being renamed to Element 14, was bought by Broadcom in 2000.
She was awarded the Fellow Award by the Computer History Museum in California in 2012.[5][6]
Wilson is transsexual and was born Roger Wilson.[7][8] In the BBC television drama Micro Men a young Roger Wilson is played by Stefan Butler and Wilson herself makes a cameo appearance as a pub landlady.[8]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Wilson's Website". http://www.sophie.org.uk/. Retrieved 2010-01-01.
- ^ a b c "Sophie Wilson@Everything2.com". http://www.webcitation.org/5mSehumJc. Retrieved 2010-01-01.
- ^ a b Russell, R. T.. "A History of BBC BASIC". http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcbasic/history.html. Retrieved 2007-06-10.
- ^ "CU Computer Preservation Society 1998-1999". Cambridge University Computer Preservation Society. 2002-08-29. http://www.srcf.ucam.org/cucps/19981999/. Retrieved 2011-06-28. "On 20th October 1998, Sophie Wilson spoke to an audience of 22 about Acorn from the BBC to the ARM."
- ^ Sweet, Carina (January 19, 2012). "The Computer History Museum Announces Its 2012 Fellow Award Honorees". MarketWatch. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-computer-history-museum-announces-its-2012-fellow-award-honorees-2012-01-19. Retrieved January 30, 2012. "today announced its 2012 Fellow Award honorees: [...] Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson, chief architects of the ARM processor architecture [...]"
- ^ "Fellow Awards". Computer History Museum. http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/Sophie,Wilson/. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
- ^ "sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering". Need To Know. 2002-01-25. http://www.ntk.net/2002/01/25/. Retrieved 2010-06-20.
- ^ a b Williams, Chris (08). "BBC4's Micro Men: an interview and review". Drobe. http://www.drobe.co.uk/features/artifact2546,2. Retrieved 2010-06-20.
[edit] External links
- An interview with Sophie Wilson
- Sophie Wilson's home page
- BBC Micro News: Acorn Archimedes technology (part 1 of 2), featuring Roger Wilson
- BBC Micro News: Acorn Archimedes technology (part 2 of 2), featuring Roger Wilson
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