Digital Audio Tape for SGI

DAT digital audio tapes are widely used in music as well as film, television, and commercial soundtrack production and in engineering. We worked with Silicon Graphics (SGI) to continue their tradition of media integration and allow 4mm DDS data tape drives to also support the audio DAT format. We created specification, testing and qualification procedures, and performed testing and qualification activities for SGI. We assisted SGI's drive suppliers in the development and test of these new drive capabilities. We also worked with some suppliers to develop new generations of these drives.

Greater Realism for Video Games

Working with Atari Games and later Time-Warner Interactive, we developed sample and parameter-based techniques for more realistic and responsive synthesis of automobile engine sounds, ultimately used in the very popular arcade game San Francisco Rush. We also provided consulting on similar techniques for a company developing location-based Indy racing simulator games.

Early Digital Synthesizer Design

Architecture and design of MSI and nMOS VLSI prototypes for a programmable, pipe-lined, real-time signal processor for music synthesis. This system design predated the first commercial digital synthesizers, and advanced one of the earliest serious proposals of the need for sampling rates higher than 48KHz and resolution greater than 16 bits. The VLSI design was done in the colored pencil days, immediately following the release of Conway and Mead's seminal VLSI design book. ('79-80)

Digital Signal Processors

First Motorola 96000 disassembler, for twin processor 100MFLOP signal processing card for IBM-PC. ('90)

Mach kernel server (driver) for 60MIP signal processing card for NeXT computer, with five Motorola 56000 DSPs. ('90)

Each of these products was one of the earliest commercial products utilizing its processor and each provided extrordinary processing power for the era.

Computer Audio Research Laboratory

Participant in early meetings planning the creation of CARL - the Computer Audio Research Laboratory at the Center for Music Experiment, University of California, San Diego. Occasional informal projects thru 1990.