Steve Marchant

From his e-mail to Andy Key and his" Linked in" biography

Steve Marchant (Designer of the SM1)

SM> Geoff [Boyd] & Robert [Branton] first got in touch in the late 70s following the publication of an article in Practical Electronics detailing the design of a character-based video display unit. At the time I was working on a PhD at Nottingham Uni. On the strength of the article they commissioned me to design a Z80 based computer platform for Memotech [the SM1], which I did.

I subsequently also designed a silicon disc board which they later used in their system and worked on the CP/M port and peripheral driver software.

AK> I do know a bit about the hardware and software, but I know a lot less about how Memotech came to be using SM1s and end up selling hardware and software clearly derived from it.

SM> I think they just wanted to broaden their product range to cover business machines as well as gaming machines, unfortunately their timing wasn't ideal and although they later briefly employed me and my colleague Chris Marvell to design a 32-bit workstation [based on a NS32000 CPU] this never came to anything as the IBM PC had by then completely asserted its dominance.

Memotech folded soon after and I went back to Nottingham Uni to work in the Cripps computing centre. (Incidentally the same place Robert Branton had worked for a while previously) Chris and I started a consultancy company at this time which ended up as RX Technology - to cash in on the emerging market for photo souvenirs of thrill riders at theme parks, with technology based on Chris's amazing HRX graphics system. The company, now known as Picsolve but no longer run by us, is the world No. 1 in its field. Sadly not so long ago I chucked out all my old Z80 junk otherwise I could have provided you with some more photos etc. It's possible that Chris still has some junk left?

Micro Lab Manager, University of Nottingham, 1981-1999

Technical Director, Picsolve International Limited, 1990 - 2006

Technical Director, Marvell consultants Ltd, 1985 - Present

Although far removed from the world of computers, Steve and his wife, Angela, featured in the Grand Designs TV programme in 2010 for their conversion of the Old Cragg Hall Barn in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, into luxury rental accommodation.