Computer History Museum | Oral History of Bill Saperstein @ComputerHistory | Uploaded August 2023 | Updated October 2024, 23 minutes ago.
Interviewed by Douglas Fairbairn on 2022-12-14 in Mountain View, CA
© Computer History Museum
Bill Saperstein has had an exceptional career, making major contributions to a wide range of companies from Hewlett Packard to Apple to Barnes and Noble to Google, and many others. His eclectic range of interests showed up early in life as he grew up in Florida and later Washington DC. He enjoyed surfing, music, writing, literature, and in high school developed a great interest in physics. He also tinkered with projects, building a telescope, a GPS system, etc.
He went to Georgia Tech for college where he signed up for aerospace engineering, which served as an entré to a coop program at Cape Kennedy, where he worked on many of the Apollo programs. He eventually graduated with an applied physics degree, having also taken a number of engineering courses. Bill found his way to Stanford, and through a circuitous path began doing research in solid state devices.
After bouncing from one research project to another, he eventually was connected with HP Labs in the neighboring industrial park. While at HP he moved from research in solid state devices to the design RISC microprocessors. He loved the HP culture and the ability to work on a variety of projects. From that experience he decided he loved designing chips and was an early adopter of Verilog and logic synthesis technology.
This interest led him to a company called Force Computers where he used these tools to design three chips – all of which worked the first time. He followed this up with a long stay at Apple Computer, where he made major contributions to their microprocessor development programs with partners IBM and Motorola. He designed the Macintosh DOS Compatible product which was named “System of the Year” at Comdex. This was one of three products he designed with three different companies which won this honor.
His several years at Apple was followed by successful ventures with multiple companies. Products included imaging products, video games, and the Palm personal assistant (which yielded another CES award). After a first pass at retirement, he was hired by Barnes and Noble to develop the Nook family of digital reading devices. He recruited the team, defined and developed a full family of products, lined up Far East manufacturing suppliers – a complete turn key product for B&N. The Nook generated his third CES product award. He then moved to Nest and then some independent engineering.
Bill continues to design and innovate and bring great products to market.
* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102792802
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.
Catalog Number: 102792803
Acquisition Number: 2022.0175
Interviewed by Douglas Fairbairn on 2022-12-14 in Mountain View, CA
© Computer History Museum
Bill Saperstein has had an exceptional career, making major contributions to a wide range of companies from Hewlett Packard to Apple to Barnes and Noble to Google, and many others. His eclectic range of interests showed up early in life as he grew up in Florida and later Washington DC. He enjoyed surfing, music, writing, literature, and in high school developed a great interest in physics. He also tinkered with projects, building a telescope, a GPS system, etc.
He went to Georgia Tech for college where he signed up for aerospace engineering, which served as an entré to a coop program at Cape Kennedy, where he worked on many of the Apollo programs. He eventually graduated with an applied physics degree, having also taken a number of engineering courses. Bill found his way to Stanford, and through a circuitous path began doing research in solid state devices.
After bouncing from one research project to another, he eventually was connected with HP Labs in the neighboring industrial park. While at HP he moved from research in solid state devices to the design RISC microprocessors. He loved the HP culture and the ability to work on a variety of projects. From that experience he decided he loved designing chips and was an early adopter of Verilog and logic synthesis technology.
This interest led him to a company called Force Computers where he used these tools to design three chips – all of which worked the first time. He followed this up with a long stay at Apple Computer, where he made major contributions to their microprocessor development programs with partners IBM and Motorola. He designed the Macintosh DOS Compatible product which was named “System of the Year” at Comdex. This was one of three products he designed with three different companies which won this honor.
His several years at Apple was followed by successful ventures with multiple companies. Products included imaging products, video games, and the Palm personal assistant (which yielded another CES award). After a first pass at retirement, he was hired by Barnes and Noble to develop the Nook family of digital reading devices. He recruited the team, defined and developed a full family of products, lined up Far East manufacturing suppliers – a complete turn key product for B&N. The Nook generated his third CES product award. He then moved to Nest and then some independent engineering.
Bill continues to design and innovate and bring great products to market.
* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102792802
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.
Catalog Number: 102792803
Acquisition Number: 2022.0175
