About Me.

When I was in elementary school I discovered electronics. I was five years old with my fathers help I assembled a vacuum tube tester. By about the fifth or sixth grade I built a DC power supply. In junior high school I built a short wave radio and a three inch portable oscilloscope. During my junior high school years I made with a device that would sequence slides from a tape recorder.

In my 8th grade drafting class we were asked to design an imaginary  product and write a document to describe its function. It had to be something that did not exist. At the time I was interested in television. I knew about video tape. The stuff that was available was huge and used three inch wide tape. I though that movies could be burned on a disk. My system used two inch disk that were inserted into a portable television. My disk were in a holder with a tab sticking out of the slot. I envisioned that the movies could be put on a key chain. My teacher liked the idea but everyone including the teacher though that using a laser was too expensive and bulky to be ever practical. I guess the in 1967 the DVD was a far fetched idea.

When I was in high school my dad had a friend that was a Ham Radio Operator. He had a model 28 teletype machine connected to his shortwave radio. I soon go my first teletype and began developing teletype, TTY, decoders boxes. For years I tuned into other HAMS and enjoyed getting printed output. Soon I discovered computer time sharing. In those days just prior to personal computers people dialed up to central mainframe computers. They allowed the user to write and run programs in Basic. The problem was that I had very limited access during certain restricted hours and during only part of the year.

By 1974 microprocessor based single board computers were coming available. I bought Motorola's first MC6800 development board. With a model 33 teletype machine I was able to begin learning computer controls. Shortly Motorola made their second development board. This time they added a keyboard and

LED display as well as a built in cassette interface. I did a lot of development on this machine. I wrote my

first programmable logic controller on this machine. One of the companies that I had worked for spent years with specialized equipment to do what this little board could do.

                                      

While at each of these companies I learned more about electronics. You should never work for any company that does not teach you more that you already knew. Recently I have redeveloped interest in music, photography and drawing.

I took music from 4th to 12th grade. I played the cornet. I never really was any good at it and had difficulty playing my instrument. Within the past couple of years I looked up my horn on the internet. I found out that it had been made in 1913 and was not made in the key that we all thought it was. I remember that my music teacher in junior high school, Gary Perkins, always had a difficult time time with me and that horn. One Christmas concert he had us tune up in the band room. I needed to pull my tuning slide out as far as it would go. During the concert my tuning slide fell off and landed under the chair of the person in front of me. As discreetly as I could I scrunched low in my seat and using my horn as a stick I tried to retrieve my tuning slide. Mr. Perkins stood up on his toes and looked at me with a funny look. I pointed to the space where the missing slide should go and pointed to where it was on the floor. He never said any thing to me about this. I think that the horn was actually not a B flat but an A.

I spent most of my summers going to summer music classes and learned as much or more there then in the regular classes. I developed a taste for electronic music while in school. I could not afford a synthesizer so I dabbled a bit with organ keyboards and oscillators. In the 1980s I got a Casio CZ-101 keyboard synthesizer. Next I got a Yamaha keyboard synthesizer. Both were limited. They had very few voices and no expansion. A few years ago I began got a Roland JV-1010 sound box and have filled two CDs and am working on more. I am presently working on some original music for my animations.

About a year ago I began taking art classes. I began with graphite pencil drawing. I moved on to color pencils. I am now moving through pen & ink and into watercolors. I am in the process of designing watercolor landscapes and backgrounds for my animations. They provide a more organic background. I have been studying what professional animation studios do. The ones with the most impact have hand drawn backgrounds.

I got my Bachelor of Applied science degree a few years ago. I graduated with a real grad point average of 4.102. Most of the classes that I took in college were in psychology. My degree is in Electronic Engineering. I have been thinking about going back and finishing my master's degree in psychology and getting my LPC.

I also like to build robots and robotic devices. I have a new design for an explorer BOT. I have been gathering materials to build the base. I am also designing the computer and control logic. This robot will have a six wheel drive from two motors. I am going to incorporate at least one camera and a front mounted robot arm with a single gripper. Because of all the classes that I have been taking I have not had the time lately. I am doing a new design that is much simpler than I had originally envisioned. The bottom has dropped out of the high performance controller market allowing people to experiment with more powerful devices.

I have a really great dog named Nikki. She is an American Eskimo. I named her after a friend of mine. I have had many dogs in my life, but this one is different. She can open her pen door and can even unlatch her leash clip. She is now five years old and is just now beginning to act more like a dog and less like a puppy.

I have constructed this web to have a place to show some of my hobby work. It is extremely fluid and changes from time to time. Please book mark my home page and visit often.