Swampy remembers his dad while fixing a computer
Jun 18, 2008 06:59PM
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One of Swampy's great memories of his dad is being bothered for computer help. How do I make this or that work? Do I move to Linux? What is this java thing anyway?
It always amazed Swampy when he asked for help. Swampy's dad, you see, was a professor of computer science. His entire life was spent engineering useful solutions for people. He started by repairing radios for the poor folks who lived around him (he grew up near Alexandria LA), then went on to the military. He just knew circuits -- he could visualize the current moving through them, but he also knew all the math to analyse them.
In the mid 1970s, Swampy's dad became interested in medical devices. He wanted to construct inexpensive products to help people.
One of the first devices he worked on was a wearable fetal heartbeat monitor. Swampy's dad developed techniques of filtering the mother's heartbeat from the incoming electrical signals. At the time, no computer you could wear had the storage required to store the heartbeat, so his device would detect specific events and store them in a log that could be downloaded by the doctor.
Another device he worked on was automatic sleep scoring. Going into a sleep center for a study is a time consuming task, you have to make an appointment, and you aren't in your own room in your own bed. Swampy's dad developed a method you could, in theory, use to self-sleep-study, right in your own bedroom. Put your computer by your bed, hook up the probes, and sleep for a night.
Swampy's dad even had a preliminary design worked out for a "probeless" sleep tracking system. This would use sensors in your mattress to detect your body's signals.
So as Swampy fixed his computer today, he remembers how he used to get the email from his dad.
It always amazed Swampy when he asked for help. Swampy's dad, you see, was a professor of computer science. His entire life was spent engineering useful solutions for people. He started by repairing radios for the poor folks who lived around him (he grew up near Alexandria LA), then went on to the military. He just knew circuits -- he could visualize the current moving through them, but he also knew all the math to analyse them.
In the mid 1970s, Swampy's dad became interested in medical devices. He wanted to construct inexpensive products to help people.
One of the first devices he worked on was a wearable fetal heartbeat monitor. Swampy's dad developed techniques of filtering the mother's heartbeat from the incoming electrical signals. At the time, no computer you could wear had the storage required to store the heartbeat, so his device would detect specific events and store them in a log that could be downloaded by the doctor.
Another device he worked on was automatic sleep scoring. Going into a sleep center for a study is a time consuming task, you have to make an appointment, and you aren't in your own room in your own bed. Swampy's dad developed a method you could, in theory, use to self-sleep-study, right in your own bedroom. Put your computer by your bed, hook up the probes, and sleep for a night.
Swampy's dad even had a preliminary design worked out for a "probeless" sleep tracking system. This would use sensors in your mattress to detect your body's signals.
So as Swampy fixed his computer today, he remembers how he used to get the email from his dad.