My husband is not an artist. He is an engineer. But both artists and engineers have some characters in common, which are imaginative and creative. My husband used his imagination created “a machine that reads minds and helps scientists unlock the brain’s secrets” – quoted by the business columnist of Dallas Morning News.
These two boards are my husband’s earliest designs dated 1992. At that time, he won a first ($150,000) and then a second ($500,000) fund from SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) to develop this machine.
Picture 1:
Picture 1 is the board that does analog signal processing. There are 32 channel neuronal signals supposedly come from brain going through this board. After the board made, my husband immediately found his mistake – the design was lack of filtering capability to handle the noisy neuronal signals. So he added on a little RC network filter board (blue colored board with yellow resistors and capacitors) on each channel. There are tens of thousands solder joins in the board. My husband soldered them one by one by hands. Today, the board having the same function and better is only ¼ size of this board, which is most surface-mount components and done by flow-soldering machine.
Picture 2:
Picture 3:
Picture 2 and 3 are the board that does digital signal processing. It uses Motorola DSP, which its speed and capacity are equivalent to Intel 486. Because the slow speed and lack of memory, my husband programmed this chip using highly efficient Assembly language. Today, as PC fast enough, no one uses Assembly language to program DSP.
I carved a horse outline using capacitors on all three boards. My husband was born in the year of horse. No doubt, he is a truly hard working horse. He has been galloping like a horse as the first picture for all his life. Then next, with all these years’ non-stop hard working, I wish him make a high jump as the second picture. After that, I wish him relax and trot as the third picture.
Picture 4:
Picture 4 is a part of the study in our house. According to Feng Shui, this area of the study falls into “Children area” (one of the eight areas in Pa Kua). “Children area” is to stimulate and cultivate ones imagination and creativity. To active this area could put ones childhood toys, etc – according to Feng Shui. Hanging these circuit boards with horse image to the wall is meaningful. The photo can’t see any of 3-D affect. I think the actual piece looks better than the photo. Anyway, neither am I a good engineer nor an artist, although I have earned a master degree in EE.
I joked with my husband, “We both are artists. The difference between us is that you create useful arts, I create useless arts.”
