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PAST PROJECTS
| 06/72-07/78 |
Started building various electronic kits at age 7. At 12 years I spent the summer repairing consumer audio and installing car stereos, and at age 13 became the youngest person to ever complete the electronics course from the International Correspondence School.
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| 07/79-11/83 |
Freer Associates: Wrote BASIC and z80 assembler software and provided customer technical support for HVAC industry applications.
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| 04/83-01/84 |
Richard Teitelbaum: Designed and wrote software and designed peripheral hardware for an avant-garde electronic musician.
The musician plays a piano with switches under the keys. An Apple II with a 68000-based coprocessor manipulates the notes and with input from a touch-panel, slide pots, and foot switches, and then plays two other acoustic pianos via electromechanical solenoids. Later upgraded the system to include MIDI input and output.
The software is similar to the present-day MAX software for the Macintosh computer. Called the Patch Control Language, it uses a modular approach to programming musical transformations. The operator hooks together various note delay, transposer, counter and 20 other modules into a "patch." For a performance, the musician "executes" the software patch and interacts with it via various input devices to achieve the desired artistic results.
I traveled to Europe twice to be on hand as a technician for performances, once at Berlin Jazzfest '83 and again at Festival Inventionen '84.
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| 11/83-01/86 |
Freer Associates: Wrote more programs for the sheet metal industry in the 'C' language on a Unix system. The software is a bid estimation expert system that consists of interpreter engines for user interface, calculation and report modules.
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| 04/84-12/84 |
Personal Project: Designed hardware and software for a computer-based stage lighting system.
This is a 68000-based computer and custom dimmer hardware to control stage lighting in real-time, optimized for artistic, expressive lighting of up-tempo musical performances. Using a touch-panel and joystick, the system allows controlling up to 256 lights in both prearranged and improvisational patterns.
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| 01/86-05/87 |
Woodstock Percussion: Designed an embedded controller for an acoustic door chime.
An 8048 MPU plays preprogrammed and user tunes, engaging solenoids to strike 6 aluminum tubes. A seven button front-door keypad is used for all operator controls. Features include a user ROM cartridge slot for preset song expansion, an innovative keyboard interface circuit where all power and data flows through a single wire pair, and a stuck solenoid protection circuit for power-related MPU crashes. Designed circuitry, PC boards, programmed CPU, and acted as liaison between industrial designer and plastics molder.
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| 01/86-01/87 |
Woodstock Percussion: Designed software and electrical/computer hardware system for tuning aluminum tubes.
 An IBM PC compatible computer controls mechanical hardware through pneumatic cylinders and stepper motors. A roughly-cut tube is loaded, trimmed to a precise length, frequency analyzed with a custom DSP-based FFT subsystem, and then drilled and trimmed to a final length to bring the tube into tune.
Among the tasks involved in building these machines was writing code for a Motorola 56000 DSP FFT subsystem, designing circuitry for and laying out four PC boards, and designing and machining numerous evolving mechanical modifications.
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| 06/86-08/86 |
Design Science Toys: Designed programmable controller hardware and software to automate a wooden dowel drilling and slotting machine controlled via pneumatics.
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| 05/87-10/88 |
 Woodstock Percussion: Designed software, electrical hardware and pneumatic system for tuning, labeling and scribing aluminum tubes.
This is a machine similar to the first (01/86), except three tubes are processed at once. One tube is trimmed to a known length while another is labeled, scribed and frequency tested, while yet a third is trimmed to achieve final tuning.
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| 03/89-04/92 |
Woodstock Percussion: Installed, programmed custom FoxPro code, and maintained a 30 station Novell network for business and technical use.
Converted accounting and sales data from an older, proprietary system to the FoxPro files used on the new system. Installed network cabling in 20,000 square foot plant, programmed custom internal E-mail system, customized accounting system, created numerous small applications, and maintained hardware and software of system.
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| 09/89-10/89 |
Woodstock Percussion: Wrote an application for manipulating pitches and acoustic instrument lengths.
 The Tuning Assistant provides a user-friendly interface for a multitude of acoustic-tuning services. The user can input and receive output for pitches in equal-temperament, just-intonation and Hertz notation, and determine absolute and cutoff instrument lengths for given pitches. The system also smoothly interfaces to a testing jig with a 9 foot linear scale and a DSP-based FFT acoustic analysis system, both custom designed. The system performs all technical tasks for the tuning of prototype and short-run production products, invaluable to research experts and minimally skilled workers alike.
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| 10/89-02/90 |
Primo Piatto: Designed software for a real-time restaurant delivery dispatch.
This system connects a central FoxPro-based order-entry computer network with 5 distribution restaurants in New York City. Orders are entered on the central system, then transmitted to the distribution restaurant nearest the customer, where the orders are printed for delivery to customers. Modems communicating via standard dial-up lines use error correction and line failure redial strategies to achieve high reliability.
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| 05/89-09/90 |
Woodstock Percussion: Designed and machined upgraded subassemblies for existing tuning machines and oversaw the building of a third tuning machine much like the first.
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| 11/90-09/92 |
 Woodstock Percussion: Designed software and much of the mechanical hardware for a machine to rough-cut aluminum tubes.
The machine employs a hopper of tubes up to thirteen feet in length and cuts them into 6 to 13 smaller tubes in one operation. The software required a complex multitasking scheme to concurrently handle three separate, but sometimes interdependent, tube handling subsystems.
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| 03/91 |
EQ Magazine: Wrote an article on the repair and maintenance of studio mixing boards for the May '91 issue.
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| 05/91-07/91 |
Daniel Van Der Beek: Designed software and integrated control systems of a computer-controlled pastry-making machine.
An IBM-PC controls two stepper motors moving heated presses and one stepper motor rotating an oven table. Each cooking press takes precisely-timed multiple descents and retractions into dough. All timing and cycling is controlled with a user-friendly operator interface. Parameters for the next cycle can be programmed while the current cycle is still running, allowing rapid tuning of the system to different dough recipes.
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| 02/92-05/93 |
Applehead Sound: Wired a 24 track sound recording studio and served as the technical engineer for maintenance and new equipment installations. Also installed a burglar and fire alarm system in the studio.
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| 06/92-09/93 |
Bard College: Installed a new patch bay and wiring system to an 8 track electronic music studio. Also acting as consultant to new building construction and retained as technical engineer for maintenance and new equipment.
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| 11/92-present |
Woodstock Artists Association:
Wrote and presently maintain a FoxPro member tracking program for an artists cooperative. The program also tracks works of art and exhibitions, and prints reports, and mailing lists. Also, exhibition wall cards are printed on card stock.
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| 12/92-01/93 |
 Design Science Toys: Developed a program to convert a NASA world satellite image into an 180 piece globe puzzle. A flat Mercador digital image of the earth was digitally projected onto 180 triangles to be assembled into a three frequency icosahedron globe. The original full color 8640 by 4320 pixel image was converted to 225 DPI triangular images, which were in turn printed in a jig-saw puzzle book and assembled by customers into a spherical globe.
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| 01/93-02/93 |
CyberGear, now Tectrix: Developed a digital music playing system for a virtual reality exercise bike.
 Given mood parameters from the VR environment generator, the system plays songs that reflect the changing VR situations while keeping musical continuity. Musical composers use a MIDI sequencer capable of writing standard MIDI files and compose modular song fragments. Besides the musical information, the composer also inserts special controller information to specify how the music will loop and context switch, and how it will do so in relation to the changing situations of the VR environment. At run time, these special MIDI files are played on a multimedia sound card and follow the VR action, while still maintaining artistic fluidity.
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| 10/93-11/93 |
Anyone Can Whistle, sister company of Woodstock Percussion: Developed a point-of-purchase multimedia presentation system for a retail music store.
 The customer is presented with a very simple interface from which to select amongst 40 different musical products. Products can be chosen from a list of gift idea categories, instrument type groupings, or a full alphabetical list. After selecting the desired product, a view screen is presented that includes a photograph, historical copy and other textual information, all while a stereo recording of the product is played.
Included in the software is an attraction screen with a whistling, animated bird logo. This is to entice customers to come over and try the system.
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| 12/93-01/94 |
Woodstock Percussion: Developed a multimedia presentation system for attracting and informing customers at a gift industry trade show.
This system is similar to the Anyone Can Whistle system, except that it is intended for use by wholesale windchime customers in a trade show environment. The presentation used 24 bit photographic stills with textual descriptions and stereo chime samples mixed with environmental sounds for a realistic effect. Also included was a musical scale, scored on-the-fly, for the tunings of each chime.
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| 05/94 |
Ben Rubin: Designed and built a conditioning amplifier for FSK sensors. This is part of a performance art system that reads various input sensors and feeds a computer sound and light controller.
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| 12/95-06/96 |
 Design Science Toys: Revised the program that converts a NASA world satellite image into an 180 piece globe puzzle. This was a new version of the original program created in 1993. A higher resolution source image of 20040 by 10020 pixels was used to create final triangle images at 300 DPI. There were also other assorted improvements.
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| 02/95-present |
Miller/Howard Investments: Created an expert system to evaluate stock market technical activity, suggest buy and sell rules, and maintain a portfolio of stocks.
Due to the sensitive nature of the trading business, I am not able to elaborate further on the details of this project.
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| 10/96-present |
Miller/Howard Investments: Installed and maintain a Novell Network for investment management and accounting functions.
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| 03/96-present |
The Print Project: Developed a database and word processing template for an annual wines reference book, with automated reference, index and appendix chapter generation.
A Microsoft Access database was created to store wine and winery information. The reference chapters of the book were then created automatically in Microsoft Word, complete with embedded codes for three separate indices.
I was also involved in some of the graphic design, layout, and editorial proofing.
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| 05/97-present |
Markertek: Designed and implemented a custom database driven online ordering system.
System is a full online catalog and ordering store of 16,000 professional video and audio products. Site features include extremely fast access, a search engine, two indices, product cross-referencing, product photos, secure online ordering and customer list maintenance. Purchased and configured a Windows NT Server with Cold Fusion.
Store web site is at http://www.markertek.com
Also presently consult for client's in-house computer needs, including database programming and Netware maintenance.
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| 01/98-present |
Teletrade: Designed and implemented a custom web auction catalog and bidding system for an internet auction house.
Up for auction are about 1000 lots offered 6 days a week in the categories of coins, sports cards and collectibles, and diamonds. Site features include extremely fast access, a search engine, approximately 100 hi-resolution lot images per auction (with thumbnails), user preferences tracking, over 30 months of searchable past auction results, and secure login and bidding. Purchased and configured a Windows NT Server, using Active Server Pages and SQL Server database.
Worked with in-house marketing and IS departments. Located, interviewed, and hired two programmers.
Web site is at http://www.teletrade.com
Also developed for and maintained Teletrade's previous Unix/Apache/Perl web site.
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| 04/99- present |
Eureka Trading Systems: Technology consultant for innovative commodities trading platform. Developed community bulletin boards, calendar, discussion forums sites, and consult to existing development of trading site. Web site at http://www.eurekatrading.com.
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