The PC Pioneers Paperback - 2011

Bob Denton has spent much of his life selling and promoting various technologies and is himself an early-adopter of all the latest boys' toys: * heavily involved in the design and development of cash registers as these moved from electro-mechanical to electronic, working at machine code level with the very earliest microprocessor development systems and on the committee that defined the universal bar code; * pioneered industrial applications for coherent fibreoptic scopes, developed originally as medical endoscopes, Bob expanded their use into the inspection of airframe, turbines, weapons, castings...; * as telecommunications privatized, Bob distributed early telephone answerers and cordless phones, much later was involved in an initiative to unify fixed and mobile phone services; * appointed Sales Director at Dixons Stores Group's distribution operation he launched a number of the early games consoles and other electronics products as this market proliferated; as Retail Controller at Granada TV Rentals, Bob was charged with investigating and managing the test of its move from a pure rental base into the retailing of TVs, VCRs and other brown-goods; * developed a viewdata-based forerunner of the Internet, called Micronet 800, and developed single-chip modem network adaptors for the leading PCs of the time; * involved in the launches of a number of the early home computers including the TI 99/4, the Oric 32, and the Mettoy Dragon 32 before being appointed as Sinclair's exclusive distributor for the ZX81, Spectrum and QL for the UK, later expanded to France and the People's Republic of China; * with partners, Bob launched the British-built Wren luggable computer * operated as event director of exhibitions, most recently for Apple Mac and iPod products, peripherals, software and solutions in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands and ran roadshows and events all over Europe for Adobe, Nikon and Quark. Bob is married, with two children, four grandchildren, enjoying 'retirement' between the UK and Spain.