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Richard Adams (born December 8, 1954) is an independent inventor, engineer and pioneer of various electronic devices. As a pioneer, he’s built and invented electronic devices that were often new or exotic to the public when he introduced them, and later became commonplace. Thus far, seven unrelated instances of his work have been noted significantly by various media outlets starting when he was a pre-teen and continuing ever since.

TV camera
His first innovative 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. This TV camera project was done entirely at home without any aid of his school. It was originally publicized in the Miami Herald, a major South Florida newspaper, because he had enlisted the newspaper’s help to find a TV station that would help him tune the camera.

In 1967, a TV camera at home was almost unheard of due to the high price tag. As with any uncommon electronic device that gets publicized, Richard’s project drew attention to a need in the industry that would soon begin to flourish. Though it was not an invention per se, the fact that a kid 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. Richard established cooperation with several adult friends in industry because of this project, and stayed in touch with them for years.

Music
His next pioneering invention was in 1974 when he created an interface to connect an electronic organ to a computer so he could record and playback entire musical scores with full polyphony using the organ keyboard and software he developed. This was published in a newspaper in Brevard County, Florida that was a bedroom community to the rocket scientists and engineers that worked at Cape Kennedy. It was first publicly demonstrated when no one had a home computer that was versatile enough to actually operate the software. So, Richard built the organ interface, wired it into the modified musical instrument and got it working first on a computer where he was in college at the Florida Institute of Technology.

Commercial music sequencer devices began to appear on the market a few years later. These evolved into the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard of 1983 that fully implemented what he demonstrated and was publicized nine years earlier. Scientists that Richard met socially living near Cape Kennedy were anxious to talk with him about this advanced form of a “player piano” that used a digital computer.

Computer
Though only briefly mentioned in newsprint in 1985, the 16 bit home computer Richard started building in 1974, as identified in the article, had a major impact on the home computer industry. This was because Richard’s brother Scott wrote his first home computer game on Richard’s computer. This led to Scott writing more games and founding Adventure International. Many sources show that Scott was a pioneer in the computer game software industry. The start of the process can be traced back to the 16 bit home computer Richard built, as mentioned by the referenced article.

Codec
During his employment in Silicon Valley between 1976 and 1982, Adams gave demonstrations on the testing of IC circuits known as Codecs. He authored at least one paper on the subject. He claims to have been the innovator of the method he was demonstrating. This has not been verified by a neutral source. Employers typically own all Intellectual Property invented by their employees.

Happy Computers
His first independent nationally publicized invention was sold in the products of his own company starting in 1982 that he incorporated to be known as Happy Computers. This invention dramatically improved disk access speeds for Atari computer floppy disk drives as its primary feature. Richard invented all the products Happy Computers sold.

Video testing device
When Atari diminished in 1990, Richard invented a portable video tester that used digital circuitry to measure the quality of analog video signals. This device was called the PVM-1073 and was originally sold by Richard’s Happy Computers Company while operating under the name Plateau Digital.

Video lingo aside, the key part of review that was written when the device was introduced at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show says it was, “the most exciting new product introduced,” and it, “should have the big conglomerates hustling back to their drawing boards.”  The word, “conglomerates,” refers to other large and well established video measuring equipment manufacturers that showed other new products at the same time.

Unknown to the public at large but known to the NAB at that time in 1991, analog video was about to begin a transition to digital video broadcasting and High Definition.

HDTV
Adams was a proponent for the availability of HDTV content to consumers.

He invented and sold a method to use some satellite and over the air HDTV receivers as sources to digitally record HDTV. Prompted by other innovators in the HDTV industry, Adams furthered his invention to allow recording HDTV from subscription satellite TV sources. The company name under which this item is sold is blocked out of the magazine review of it at the excerpted reference here so that this item is not perceived as product advertising, since it is currently for sale. Adams is mentioned in the review.

More information

 * Richard Adams' own biography fact page