Iann Barron

Iann Barron

Iann Barron (1936 - 2022) was a British computer engineer and businessman.

Barron began his computing career while studying mathematics and philosophy at the University of Cambridge in the mid-1950s. During his summer breaks he worked for Elliott Brothers after expressing an early interest in computing, and designed the Elliott 803 after being asked to design the architecture of a new computer. The Elliott 803 was one of the most successful British computers of the early 1960s.

After graduating from Cambridge in 1958 Barron was eligible for National Service, but was requisitioned by the War Office and spent the following three years on various assignments related to computing, including as a Scientific Officer on special assignment first to the Army Operational Research Group, and in 1960 to the Air Ministry.

In 1961 he began working at Elliott Automation as a Project Leader. He began by working on designs for a military computer, which was later sold commercially as the Elliott 503. Barron left Elliott Automation in 1965 after the company refused to incorporate some of his ideas, and went on to set up Computer Technology Limited (CTL).

The first CTL computer, Modular One, was released in 1968. It had a pioneering asynchronous symmetrical point-to-point bus interconnecting its components, and enjoyed particular success in the space industry.

Barron left CTL in 1971 after one of the company's major clients collapsed. He went on to found the semiconductor company Inmos in 1978 alongside Richard Petritz and Paul Schroeder. Inmos designed and produced the innovative transputer, which was the first general purpose microprocessor designed specifically to be used in parallel computing systems. The transputer protocol led to IEEE standard 1355, which is the origin of the SpaceWire network protocol used by NASA, ESA, JAXA, and Roscosmos.

Barron was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (DFBCS) in 1986 and was appointed CBE in the 1994 New Year Honours.

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