Publications

In my early days I had 3 different items published - one in Science, and 2 in Electronics magazine. In addition, I was the joint recipient of a patent in the US and Europe as well.

The article in Science (not yet available here) was done while I was in graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill. It gave instructions on how to build a low cost spectroscope capable of observing the Fraunhofer lines in the sun's spectrum. Construction was of 1/8" birch plywood available from hobby stores. A pair of razor blades created the slit and a low cost diffraction grating created the spectrum. I never received a copy of the magazine - just a photo copy of the article, which is in a file some where!

In ~1975 I developed a new type of telescope controller using the recently released NE555 timer. It worked like a charm, but I felt it was too simple and I needed to add more functionality. So several months later after adding a frequency readout I was about to send a manuscript in to Sky & Telescope, when they published an article from another person with just the basics I had done sometime earlier. This design went on to be a commercial hit.

I later submitted a article to Sky & Telescope of a controller that produced a true sine wave - other controllers, including my previous design, produced a square wave. By this time, the Gleanings for ATMs had moved out of publishing electronic articles, so the manuscript was declined.

In 1989, while working for Roche Biomedical Reference Labs, I was designing equipment to collect data from medical testing devices. In all of these designs I was using the RCA 1800 series microprocessor. The development system was missing a couple of functions I wanted, so I wrote these in assembly language. One of these I submitted to Ideas for Design in Electronics magazine. It was accepted and published on my birthday in 1989. Later that year I submitted a second article that allowed the same 1800 series microprocessor to use a new type of memory, an EEROM (electrically erasable read only memory). Sometime shortly after the second article I was assigned the RAAS to design and build. I guess I did not feel like there was anything special in the individual section designs of the RAAS to try to publish them.

While working on the RAAS (Roche Automated Aliquot System), one of the primary concerns was for cross contamination of blood samples. During a trip to Tokyo, Japan with two of my supervisors (E. Knesel & D. Shoemaker) we started developing an idea for a filter that would also remove any chance of cross contamination. In that the initial concept was conceived in Tokyo over the course of 1 Half Hour, we dubbed the device the THH for Tokyo Half Hour. Over the next few weeks I refined the idea and built some prototypes by epoxing bits of tubing and filters together. A mold was commissioned and actual units were produced. The idea was strong enough that patents were applied for and granted both in the US and in Europe. Here is a copy of the US Patent.

Since those days, I have been involved in the world wide web and my personal website. Many of my ideas - that would not have seen publication - have been presented here, and with much acceptance. I often receive email from people who have found information here they have found useful - and that gives me great satisfaction. To me, that is what the web should be about.

Please address general comments to web@dv-fansler.com