Richard Adams (inventor)

Richard Adams (born December 8, 1954) is an independent inventor and engineer. Since building and demonstrating a video camera as a child, his work has often garnered media interest.

Richard Adams
Adams in 2008
Born (1954-12-08) December 8, 1954
Miami Beach, Florida, United States
OccupationInventor, engineer
Spouse(s)Cathi Adams

TV camera

His first project was the construction of a video camera that he started building when he was ten years old and got working at age 12 in 1967. He worked entirely at home without the aid of his school. It originally gained coverage in the Miami Herald when he had enlisted the newspaper's help to find a TV station that would help him tune the camera.[1]

Although he did not invent, the fact that a child could build one cheaply drove home a point that made others desirous of this technology. It continued to be publicized by the Herald and other newspapers each time the camera made a public appearance.

Music

In 1974, whilst attending Florida Institute of Technology, Adams created an interface and software to connect an electronic organ to a computer so he could record and play back entire musical scores with full polyphony.[2]

Computer

Adams built an early 16 bit computer in his home which his brother, Scott Adams, used to program his first computer game (while attending Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne Florida) before going on to found Adventure International, which became notable for its text adventure games (also known as Interactive Fiction).[3]

Codec testing

Whilst employed in Silicon Valley between 1976 and 1982, Adams gave demonstrations on the testing of codecs and authored a paper on the subject.[4][5]

Happy Computers

In 1982, Adams founded Happy Computers to market and sell add-in boards that he had invented for Atari computer disk drives. These boards greatly increased the speed at which disks could be read and written to and remained popular for many years.

References
  1. Flynn, George, "Boy's TV Camera Shows the Experts" The Miami Herald Thursday February 16 1967,B1
  2. Richmond, Leigh, "Computer hums its own music" Evening Times Melbourne FL Monday 11 November 1974, A1
  3. Mackey, Betty, "Adventure fills wizard's world" Orlando Business Journal - 8 October 1985, 1
  4. IEEE symposium contents
  5. Test Systems Group, "International Scene" Fairchild Interface Vol.6 / No.2 1980,8

More information
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