On the 27th November 1990, ARM split out f Acorn and Apple computers collaboration to create a new microprocessor standard. On the 30th of November is the date of the first RISC processor was labelled ARM.

So, on the 30th of November 2010, ARM had its 20th birthday celebrations. And what was the first order of the day?

iPad for me!

Yea. All employees got an iPad as a birthday gift from management. We can use them personally or for work. Mine is currently a glorified e-reader.  Can’t complain.

It wasn’t a usual day in the office by any means. There was a 5-a-side football competition, which some of my work mates entered. It was damn cold out! The ground was pretty slippery.

Playing Soccer Good One Goalie!

The guys came 4th overall. Well done lads!

SDD Soccer Team

There was also a robot racing competition. They’re little mbed robots which you can program in C++. It was essentially a line following algorith, but it required hackery to get top times.

PEG Robot Racing Team

Robot Racing Fast Times in Racing

In the afternoon, everyone in the Cambridge office (about 700 of us) went up to the atrium in ARM1 for beers and wine for the rest of the day.

ARM1 Atrium

Warren East, the CEO, gave out a few awards including a prize to the winner of the ARM best Mo for Movember. It was a stunner.

Warren East, CEO The Winning Mo

After all the formalities and more drinks (they had a few kegs of beer you see), there was a fantastic fireworks display out in the carpark. The display was bigger than Cambridge city’s ones at Guy Fawkes! They were pretty wonderful. A full 15 minute display with the big boppers and everything!

Fireworks display Blam pow!

It was a pretty memorable day. I think I like this company. I have no plans to go anywhere anytime soon.

ARM 20 fireworks

For the more information about ARM’s 20 years, here’s a couple of links from their website.

And while I’m going through the arm.com website, these are the software products that I work on: RVDS, DS-5 and Keil MDK-ARM. They’re the software tools that my division are responsible for.

We’re off on Christmas holidays now, so I get to have a break from my licensing work for a couple of weeks. I’ve got a super busy year next year from a licensing perspective. But for now, I get to think about having a break and what my next drink will be. 🙂

Bring on the holiday season!

– Liz

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