Adam Hill
This article is about the engineer, and tech innovator. For the New Zealand rugby player, see Adam Hill (rugby). For the baseball player, see Adam Hill (baseball). For the Australian artist, see Koori Radio. Not to be confused with Adam Hills or Adam Hills (politician).
| Adam Hill | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 13, 1968 Birmingham, United Kingdom |
| 🏳️ Citizenship | British |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Aston University, Birmingham |
| 💼 Occupation | Electrical Engineer, Computer Programmer, Technological Innovator |
| 📆 Years active | 1989 - Present Day |
Adam Hill (born September 13, 1968) is a British Electrical Engineer, Computer Programmer, and Technology Innovator.
He created the Blitz Floppy Disk Copier for the Atari ST, which was the first of it's kind, wrote code for the popular SNES video game Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run, and contributed to the creation of one of the first UK based Internet Service Providers.
Career
During a gap year in 1989, Hill created the “Blitz Copier”, which was an analogue disk copier for the Atari ST. It could copy a double sided floppy disk in around 20 seconds using a combination of hardware and software. This was the first such system [citation needed] using unmodified off-the-shelf disk drive units, and was subsequently sold to (and retailed by) Power Computing Limited[1] in Bedford. Hill went on to create several floppy drive interfaces for both PC and Amiga; these were sold as the PC720 (Atari) and PC880B (Commodore). The Amiga drives were notable because they prevented an audible “clicking” that was produced when the machine was checking to see if a disk was inserted. Ordinarily, the Commodore Amiga did not support the data rate of a high density 3.5” disk. In response to this limitation, Hill also developed the PowerXL drive which buffered data from the floppy disk and played it out at half speed, allowing the Amiga to read high density disks without any modification to the computer itself.
In 1995, Hill worked for Rare in Twycross (at the time part owned by Nintendo) for around 6 months, during which time he wrote code for Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run in 6502 assembly language. He then left Rare as the game was in the beta testing phase, and so was not allowed his name in the credits.
At the end of 1995, Hill helped create Power Internet Limited, one of the first ISPs in the UK; he was responsible for much of the core network and control software design and contributed to various innovative networking configurations and products, chief among them being “leased DSL". Power Internet Limited pioneered the use of private ADSL networks installed in corporate data centres. They built in custom software which enabled real time monitoring of these systems, and automatically switched to a backup link if any problems were detected. This system was used by various corporations including Travis Perkins. Power Internet was then sold to Timico in June 2011.[2]
To combat problems inherent in Voice over IP protocols, especially transmitted over ADSL networks, such as excessive bandwidth use, quality degradation, and jitter (small intermittent delays during data transfers[3]) , Hill invented a new communications protocol,[4] from which he developed ViBE, a VPN allowing more than 20 simultaneous calls on a 256kbit/s upstream ADSL link, and simultaneous data transfer, whilst maintaining data throughput and quality of audio. It also used fast failure detection, to prevent the loss of calls in progress. ViBE was trialled at a Travis Perkins site in 2006, where a VoIP server installed at Power internet's office in Milton Keynes was connected using a ViBE link to handsets at the trial site. This ViBE link was routed from the trial site over ADSL to Travis Perkins' data centre, then on to Telehouse using a private circuit, and back to Milton Keynes over another private circuit. Despite this sub-optimal network layout, the trial proved very successful.
In 2007, Hill co-founded Voipex Limited[5] in order to further ViBE technology's development. In recent years, Voipex has focussed more on data related applications, and the technology aims to incorporate features that improve the quality, reliability, and performance of networks in unique ways.[6]
Personal life
Hill was born on the 13th of September 1968, in Birmingham, UK.
He graduated at Aston University in 1991, with a first class honours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, winning the Institution Prize from The Institute of Electronic Engineering for best Electronic Engineering student at Aston that year.
Hill is married, with no children, and lives in Birmingham.
References
- ↑ "Power Computing Bedford". www.powerc.com. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
- ↑ "Powernet - Now part of Timico Ltd". www.powernet.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
- ↑ "Jitter Definition". techterms.com. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
- ↑ Intellectual Property Office, Concept House (2013-03-09). "Intellectual Property Office - Patent document and information service (Ipsum)". www.ipo.gov.uk. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
- ↑ "VOIPEX - Home". www.voipex.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
- ↑ "WAN optimisation box - Two approaches to WAN optimisation". www.computerweekly.com. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
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