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17 Jan 2024
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Here's a list of my ventures, hobbies, and various other things.
It's a tad bit embarrassing the number of hobbies I have. Some I do regularly and some I only revisit every once in a while. Several of them turned into careers.
Drumming has been a life-long hobby beginning with coffee cans around age 10 and continuing to this day. When my friends joined band in 7th grade I applied to be a drummer but was rejected because there were too many. In spite of that I hung out at the band hall during school. It's funny because now I'm the only one of them who still plays an instrument. I have no formal training and never learned basic rudiments, instead going straight to playing with songs using headphones. I like to drum to complicated stuff like prog rock and jazz fusion. Odd time signatures and polyrhythms are my favorite. Now that my chops are pretty good my biggest challenge is remembering it all. Like many things in life I do backwards and am now spending more time learning the basics. I don't know if I'm capable of drumming with other musicians. Drumming somehow makes me feel better. If I haven't drummed in a while I get drumgry like people who haven't eaten get hangry. See my drum lab for a glimpse into this obsession.
In the '70s hobby computers became a thing and I got really into that. I built a home-brew 8080 computer running CP/M on 8" floppy disk drives and used it to drive my homebrew synthesizer several years before MIDI.
During that time I also tinkered with discrete CPU designs using TTL chips. The programming languages of the day were assembly and various forms of BASIC. Over the years I've written software projects in 15+ languages including C, VB, Prolog, databases, PHP, PERL, Python, etc.
Computers became the first era of my career but it became almost impossible for an American manufacturer to survive in that market so I abandoned it for a brighter future in robotics in the late '80s.
I learned electronics by taking things apart and repairing them, and by reading Forrest M. Mims III's notebooks from Radio Shack. When I was 12 people would bring me their TVs and radios to repair.
When computer products became so commoditized I restarted my career in robotics. This had been a hobby for years but I had to learn a lot to design and manufacture products for this market. For more than 20 years I designed, built and programmed PC-based motor control and automation equipment under the name Arrick Robotics. The reason I like the robotics field so much is because it is a healthy combination of electronics, computers, mechanics, power electronics and software.
During those years of focusing on robotics I became the President of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group (DPRG) and wrote the Wiley book 'Robot Building for Dummies'.
When my brother brought home the Switched-On Bach album in 1969 I got hooked on electronic music and the instruments used to make it. Ultimately this lead to a 20 plus year section of my career designing and building giant modular synthesizers at Synthesizers.com. For this era I had to move from digital and learn analog signal generation, filtering and processing circuitry.
I've always been a car enthusiast, especially classic cars of the 60's and 70's because that was the era I grew up in. My first car was a 1968 Mustang which I absolutely loved but it had to be sold in 1981 for more reasonable transportation. Through the years I've been interested in other types of cars including classic Mercedes and newer ones including Hummers.
With a bizarre stroke of luck and some fancy digging I found my 1968 Mustang after 30 years. It had been stored in a shipping container on a farm in Oklahoma. It took 2 years and lots of scars to bring it back to life. It's my fair-weather driver to this day and even makes it to a car show now-and-then. See my vehicles page for details on it and my other rides.
I got interested in telescopes and astronomy in the late '80s. I built a 10" Dobsonian reflector telescope using PVC and conduit. It worked well and I had many years of fun with it. We even got to see Omega Centauri at the Texas star party. During this era I built motor control systems called SkyProbe to automate telescope positioning using software by Ron McDaniel of Soft-Tec Systems in Fort Worth. I'll eventually make a webpage describing the telescope.
This hobby didn't start till later in life around 2006. The ARRICK branch of my family had never been untangled. Wow this became an addiction that really surprised me. It took 20 hours a week for 2 years to conclude Arrick is a spelling variation of Orrick which traces back to O'Rourke. Who knew?!! This lead to use of ground penetrating radar to find the old Orrick cemetery in middle Tennessee where 4 generations of my ancestors were plowed under. During this process I was an early-adopter of DNA studies and resolved some long-standing mysteries in the Orrick trees. This hobby has continued and I created and manage more than 100 genealogy groups on Facebook.
These interests are almost exclusively reading although they help me in other areas where I actually produce something. They're a nice combination of 'how' and 'why'. I allocate at least an hour at the end of each day for reading on these subjects.
I have 100% positive feedback on Ebay for 20+ years :)
Seriously, this is a big accomplishment.
One of my robots was on the front cover of the Edmund Scientifics catalog.
My custom computer chair got on SlashDot and got so much traffic it shut down the T1 line to my web service provider.
I used ground penetrating radar to prove 4 generations of my ancestors are buried in a cemetery in Warren county TN that was plowed under.
Once at a DPRG robot contest my DBot headed towards the crowd but I was able to stop it in time. This resulted in a cherished award.
I interviewed Pat Metheny in 2010 after a concert for Robots.net.
I built modular synthesizers for Jordan Rudess, Joe Walsh, Duran-Duran, David Crowder band, Steve Roach and many others.
I graduated in the top 80% of my high school class with exactly enough credits after making up a sophomore english class.
In my senior year it was suggested I go to the honors assembly. This is something I never did before. When I saw my parents there I knew something was up. I was completely surprised when they called my name and gave me the newly-created computer science award. To my knowledge this is the only award of any type I received in 12 years of school.
Besides one failed semester at a community college to appease my parents that turned me sour on my favorite subject of math, that's it.
This space intentionally left blank :)
I never applied for patents because of the initial expense and the ongoing expense of defending them. Still the patent system cost me a lot of money and headaches. In a few instances my designs were used to invalidate patents.
Here's a list of my self-started ventures in reverse order...
I designed and manufactured a line of analog modular synthesizers that became popular for music and sound creation. This was an amazing journey. The 20-year history of Synthesizers.com is documented here...
This is a company I started to build affordable automation products after computer products became so commoditized. Initial funding was $1000 that I had saved. Products included PC-based stepper motor systems, linear and rotary positioning tables, and mobile robots used in education. Maximum employee count was somewhere around 20. The company used the ROBOTICS.COM domain name for many years where I also published various resources for robot researchers. Arrick Robotics is documented here...
With Maketeck I designed and manufactured a line of industrial computer enclosures for harsh environments. This is the only company I used investors for. Maketeck is documented here...
Robots.net was a domain name I purchased in the 90s for a potential future project. Steve and I came up with an idea to create a news site just for robotics. He wrote software to manage the postings and built the website to host it. I donated the domain name, handled sales and did some posts. I also contributed the robot menu which had been at Arrick Robotics Robotics.com for years. In 2010 we got to interview Pat Metheny for his Orchestrion project in Dallas. At one point the site received 200,000+ hits a month. We sold Robots.net in 2019 and it remains a news site as of this writing. The history of Robots.net is documented here...
Many of my internet publishing projects went under the name Arrick Publishing. This included PC104.com and Controlled.com which were websites providing technical information for embedded systems. Within this venture I wrote the PC/104 FAQ, the STD Bus FAQ and several others. Robots.net is also a venture that I include in this group. Arrick Publishing is documented here...
I didn't create DPRG but I think of it as a startup because I took over when membership got down to 3 people and grew it to 40+ people within a year by having robot contests. These were the years in the Infomart, after the Heathkit store and before the Dallas Makerspace.
Microsync was not my venture but I'm putting it here because it eventually merged into Arrick Computer Products. Microsync was a small tech company run by Larry Taugher in Carrollton Texas in the mid-80s. Microsync produced several PC products including the popular dClock which automatically entered the time and date at boot-up. Arrick Computer Products was the manufacturer of these products. See the history of Microsync...
Arrick Computer Products was my first serious attempt at making a living outside of a real job. I was 21 and initial funding was $400. I designed and manufactured a modular switch box to switch peripherals on desktop computer, and the cabling that went along with it. There were a few other products including AC power boxes but I didn't have access funding which limited what I could do. This market was very difficult and manufacturing became almost impossible in the US as foreign players dumped products onto the market below cost. We also acted as a contract circuit board manufacturer for several companies in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and I offered electronic design services. Maximum employee count was around 10. Microsync was eventually merged into the company. Arrick Computer Products is documented here...
Cybertech was a small tech venture started by Dave Morris and me in 1980. Dave developed software products and I developed hardware. We were young and it was our first attempt at making a living outside our normal jobs. Cybertech's short story is documented here...
Most of my adult life I've been self-unemployed but before all that I had a few real jobs. Here they are in reverse order...
Percom was a small technology company in Garland Texas that designed and built disk drive systems for small computers in the '70s and '80s. I started as a technician there in 1981 fixing circuit boards and disk drives. In less than a year I advanced to managing the repair department with 5 people. Later I went on to writing software for order processing. Even though my tenure there was only 2 years (1981,1982) it seemed like much longer due to the fast pace of events. Percom was a fun and growing company with an amazing history that I've documented here...
In 1977 my girlfriend suggested I interview with the company her dad works for because they built computers and I did that as a hobby. They hired me in spite of only being 16 years old. Starting pay was $3/hr but I moved up to $7 quickly which was enough to afford my own apartment. This was Noakes Data Communications in Irving Texas run by Gil Noakes. Noakes built an 8080-based industrial computer and distributed modems and terminals. I was able to do both hardware and software work there and it was a great start for my tech career. I wrote the BIOS to get CP/M running on their hardware and I wire-wrapped the first floppy disk controller board. I've documented the history of Noakes Data Communications here...
In 1977 I got my first car and started looking for a real job. I found a stereo repair shop in Bedford Texas named Sonic Sounds and applied - they hired me on the spot. I believe the owner's name was Dwight Hicks. They fixed all sorts of appliances including radios and TVs and vacuum cleaners - anything. The pay was $2.50 an hour but this was back when gasoline was 60 cents a gallon and my car payment was $75/mo. All of the repairs that came in went through me first and I could fix about 80% of them. The harder things went to the more expensive real technician.
Everyone has a first job and this was mine. Summers working for uncle Mauldin in his machine shop named Progressive Manufacturing in Fort Worth. Age 14,15. Sweeping and sometimes running a drill press. This was a very difficult job physically because of standing all day and the heat of the summer. Some days I'd come home and go straight to bed. The pay was $2/hr and I worked there 2 summers. I saved my money and bought a nice $200 electric typewriter which I still have. We just celebrated Mauldin's 100th birthday in fall of 2023.
After I got my first car I decided to look for a new job. I'd been working for Mauldin 2 summers in a row and needed to advance. I pulled out the classified ads and started looking for jobs at machine shops. Then I said to myself "Roger you idiot, what are you doing?? That's not where you want to work! You want to work with computers or something technical!"
Coming...
Coming...
I was born in Alaska in 1961 and my family went through the 9.2 earthquake in 1964. It is the largest ever recorded in North American history. Nobody in my family was hurt. Since it was Good Friday my brothers were out of school and the school was destroyed. Because of this we relocated to Fort Worth while my dad stayed behind and flew supply missions. Apparently I screamed the whole airplane trip from Alaska to Texas because we left dad behind.
My dad was an amazing guy. He flew helicopters, including one through a nuclear blast. I'm planning to build a page for him.
James Robert Davis is a first cousin who was killed in Vietnam. His mother is Dorothy Germany Heldt and his grandparents are Robert Lee Germany and Johnnie Lee Young Germany Lobban. Here is some information about him.
Here is my genealogy site.
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