Shiraz Shivji
Encyclopedia
Shiraz Shivji was the primary designer of the Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...

 computer, and one of the engineers behind the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

.

Biography

Shiraz Shivji studied electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 in 1969-1973.

Atari ST design

When Jack Tramiel
Jack Tramiel
Jack Tramiel is an American businessman, best known for founding Commodore International - manufacturer of the Commodore PET, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga, and other Commodore models of home computers.-Biography:...

 took over Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...

 in 1984 with a number of Commodore
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...

 engineers, the company was in bad shape. Shiraz 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 a remarkably short five months (July to December 1984). The prototype presentation at the January 1985 Las Vegas CES
CES
CES may stand for:*Closed ecological system, an ecosystem that does not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system*Constant elasticity of substitution, an economics production function*The ISO 639 code for the Czech language...

 was a great coup for Atari, and the product revived the company. He later led the design of the Atari TT before leaving Atari.

When he joined Atari from Commodore, he was one of four ex-Commodore engineers charged, but acquitted, of theft in relation to disc drive
Disk storage
Disk storage or disc storage is a general category of storage mechanisms, in which data are digitally recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical methods on a surface layer deposited of one or more planar, round and rotating disks...

design plans.U.S. judge clears four in trial

Momenta design

After leaving Atari, Shivji designed the Momenta Pen Computer in 1991. This was one of the first full-sized tablet computers with a sophisticated hardware for that time. However, its operating system was based on DOS and did not deliver sufficient applications for its graphical user interface.

External links

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