The Michael Slater collection on microprocessors contains conference proceedings and other publications focusing on microprocessor technologies and industry trends. The collection spans 1977 to 2000, with most of the material dating from 1987 to 1999 when Slater founded and led the company MicroDesign Resources (MDR). The collection contains conference material, analyst reports, manuals, and specifications documenting microprocessors and microcomputers in the 1980s and 1990s. An expert in microprocessor equipment, Slater founded the well-known newsletter Microprocessor Report used by engineers and industry professionals. In 1999, Slater left MDR and it was acquired by Cahners, becoming part of the analyst group In-Stat.

Michael Slater was born in 1955 in Los Angeles. He attended UC Berkeley, earning his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1977. While at UC Berkeley, Slater developed an interest in microprocessors, and after graduating, he went to work at Hewlett-Packard, where he developed circuit designs for microprocessor-based systems and wrote training manuals. In 1980, Slater left HP to teach at various institutions, including University of Santa Clara, and started working on freelance electronic design projects under his company Gryphon Engineering. In 1987, Slater wrote Microprocessor-Based Design: A Comprehensive Guide to Effective Hardware Design, and founded his next company, MicroDesign Resources (MDR). That same year, Slater began editing and publishing the Microprocessor Report newsletter, which provided current microprocessor information and analysis, and in 1988 he founded the MDR conferences Microprocessor Forum and Embedded Processor Forum. MDR was acquired by Ziff-Davis in 1992 and Slater left the company in 1999, the same year it was acquired by Cahners. In 2010, the Linley Group purchased Microprocessor Report, which it still publishes as of March 2017. After leaving MDR, Slater continued his freelance work, now under the business name Topaz Web Solutions, and he founded Fotiva in 2000. After Fotiva was bought by Adobe, Slater worked as Adobe’s director of digital imaging research until 2006. In 2007, Slater founded Webvanta, a website development company, and ran it until his death on June 19, 2016.

10.42 Linear feet, 8 record cartons and 1 manuscript box

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The collection is open for research.