Bob Doyle

Bob Doyle (born June 19 1936 in Fall River Massachusetts) is a scientist, inventor, and philosopher.

Biography

Doyle studied physics at Brown University (Sc.B, 1958) and astrophysics at Harvard University (Ph.D., 1968).

cience

Doyle's Ph.D. thesis was on the continuous spectrum of the hydrogen quasi-molecule. He was the secretary of the NASA Astronomy Missions Board from 1969 to 1972. He edited the Long-Range Program in Space Astronomy for NASA in 1970 A Long-Range Program in Space Astronomy, US GPO, July 1969] , which led to the HEAO Program, including the Einstein Observatory. He was ground-based coordinator for the Skylab Joint Observing Program, supporting a network of 250 ground-based observatories around the world synchronizing their cameras with space telescopes in the Skylab Apollo Telescope Mount.

Inventions

Doyle's first patent was a method of synchronizing low-cost Super8 movie cameras with a sprocketed magnetic film recorder called the Super8 Sound Recorder. Doyle became a member of the SMPTE sound engineering committee and helped define a digital sync pulse signal for use with compact cassette tape recorders.

He founded Super8 Sound, Inc. in 1973, now a part of Pro8mm, which sold complete production and editing systems around the world. Jean-Luc Godard bought a system. Super8 Sound Systems gradually replaced the MIT/Leacock System, which had been developed by documentary filmmaker Richard Leacock with a grant from Polaroid founder Edwin Land.

With his wife, Holly Thomis Doyle, and brother in law Wendl Thomis, Doyle constructed 25 electronic game prototypes beginning in 1974 and eventually published 6 of them through Parker Brothers. The first handheld electronic games were introduced in 1977, including Doyle's [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2584 Code Name Sector] , a submarine pursuit game, Mattel Electronic Football, and Milton Bradley .

Integrated circuit chip suppliers like Texas Instruments could not make enough game computers to satisfy market deman in 1977. The following year Newsweek magazine featured Doyle's game Merlin and Milton Bradley Simon on a December cover and electronic games sales soared to hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 1979 Doyle produced Wildfire, a handheld pinball game, and Stop Thief, an electronic detective board game.

In 1980 the [http://www.toy-tma.org Toy Manufacturers of America] named Merlin as the best selling game (2.2 million units sold) of the year.

In 1981 Doyle invented the Telecomputer, a handheld computer terminal with a built-in 300 baud modem that powered itself from the telephone line.BYTE magazine, April, 1982] With Jeff Rochlis, the former President of Mattel Electronics, Doyle raised $13 million in venture capital to found iXO Corporation.

In 1984 Doyle, his wife Holly, and son Rob, developed MacPublisher. the first Desktop Publishing software, for the newly introduced Apple Macintosh computer.

References

External links

* [http://www.bobdoyleblog.com Bob Doyle Blog]
* [http://www.skybuilders.com/Users/Bob/Bios/BioPics.html Bob Doyle Bio]