Johnlogic

I am John Carlsen. Most of my work has been developing computerized products, including consumer electronics, video and computer games, and industrial systems.

Background

I grew up mostly in Sunnyvale, California—the heart of Silicon Valley, about 4 miles south of Atari and 2 miles north of Apple—and have been exceptionally lucky to work with many of the area's best and brightest.

For more than a decade, I also lived in and around Austin, Texas, where I helped to build the area's second-largest computer game developer, created reference designs for (at one time) most of the world's MP3 players, established a corporation—Syncopated Systems—and taught a course in game development at the local community college.

My Interests and contributions

I'm generally interested in computers, computer history, computer engineering, and video and computer games, though I'm not as interested in games anymore. (I tend to think that most developers tend to focus these days too much on visual impact, to the detriment of the game's design and playability.)

For a complete list of my contributions, see Wikipedia's "my contributions" link.

Computer games, engineering and history

• LaFarr Stuart: a computer music pioneer, and my lifelong friend and mentor
• Homebrew Computer Club: the 1970s Silicon Valley computer club that help spawn personal computers
• Component engineering (I started this page)
• Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California
• RAMAC: the first computer hard disk drive, introduced by IBM in 1956
• Resistor-transistor logic (RTL): a precursor to transistor–transistor logic (TTL)
• Games Computers Play (GCP): one of the first multiplayer online games, around in 1980s
• Lunar Lander (computer game)
• Programmable Array Logic (PAL) semiconductors, among the first programmable logic devices (PLDs)
• phase-locked loop (PLL) circuits: specifically introducing digital PLLs
• universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART): a mechanism in electronic circuits used to convert data to and from serial bit streams, which usually includes at least one PLL

Business and employers

• Atari, syzygy
• Nolan Bushnell: co-founder of Atari, founder of Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater, and, to me, a great mentor; I once gave him a coin-operated Pong game, and he once introduced me to Al Alcorn, who designed it
• Activision (named Mediagenic when I worked there in 1990-1991): the first "third party" video game company, where I helped develop a fifth Sargon (chess) computer game (see also Timeline of chess) and others and witnessed first-hand its hostile takeover. There, I once saw Brodie Lockard, who (though confined to a wheelchair) designed the computer game Mahjong solitaire, a.k.a. Shanghai solitaire, which at the time was being blatantly ripped off by Microsoft in its game collection for Windows. Later in Austin, TX, I met Shanghai's producer, Brad Fregger.
• Media Vision, Inc. (MVI), 1990s PC sound card and CD-ROM multimedia kit maker and the subject of one of Silicon Valley's worst securities fraud litigation cases, Pro AudioSpectrum (a family of PC sound cards I helped design)
• Iguana Entertainment: a video game company I helped start and move to Austin, Texas before it was sold to Acclaim Entertainment, which ran itself into the ground in 2004
• intellectual property: inventions and their protection through patents, trademarks, copyright, etc.; in the United States, regulated by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and internationally by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Language and copy editing

I do lots of copy editing on Wikipedia. My own spelling, diction, grammar and syntax are far from perfect, but I do have some formal training and find that I also get better with practice.

Philosophy

On Wikipedia, I reckon that poor copy quality is the price its users pay for good copy quantity.

Referencing vs. citing Wikipedia

I often use Wikipedia for quick reference, though I consider it wholly unsuitable for scholarly research, mostly due to the relative anonymity of its contributors and the dynamism of its contents. I get a lot out of the articles (and have also enjoyed some of the discussion in "talk" pages), so I'm happy to give a little effort in return.

Inclusionism vs. deletionism

I would describe my philosophy toward the project as "inclusionist": I reckon that it's generally best to include all available information. However, I believe in doing so provided first that each piece is itself truthful and factual, and second that it can be organized in a way (from the general to the specific) that does not does not detract from or hide pieces that might be considered (at least by most) to be more important. Writing concisely is a constant challenge.

My $0.02 on the subject of Deletionism (about which I first read in the Wall Street Journal):

I'm proud to contribute to Wikipedia, though I'm becoming increasingly disheartened by the apparent increase in deletionism. (The topic itself had been a target of deletionists when I first wrote this in late 2007.) At least in my mind, there's no appreciable marginal cost in sticking up an or keeping around an extra few pages, and having a bunch of stubs around just encourages more collaborative contribution. Having had pages deleted makes me less likely to start new pages and contribute to Wikipedia overall. (See more below.)

If we could just limit or end deletionism, Wikipedia could be a great source of first reference for everything. (Granted, it's relative anonymity ensures that it cannot offer the "last word" on anything.)

I'm willing to accept that any work contributed may be revised even viciously, but new articles need to be seeded and given a chance to grow. Allowing them to be deleted just discourages me from contributing effort or funds.

Inevitable disclosure

I also believe in and am somewhat fascinated by the (legal) doctrine of inevitable disclosure, and see the World Wide Web and Wikipedia as potentially wonderful tools for speeding the process along. Metcalf's law states that the value of a communication network (such as Wikipedia) increases exponentially, as a square of the number of connections (or number of users, in this case). However, that law doesn't account for abusers of the network (such as direct marketers or Wikipedia users who vandalize pages, deleting them or posting misinformation); I believe that the presence of each abuser diminishes the value of such a network more (sometimes much more) than the value added by each contributor. (For a discussion of weighting, review game theory.)

Style

I attempt to tailor my writing and editing styles to the contexts of the projects I contribute to. For example, on Wikipedia I attempt to follow its published style guidelines (despite them being relatively hard to find) and attempt to make contributions that increase the consistency of appearance between its pages. On my Web site, I use a style that is quite different than most (especially regarding abbreviations and other jargon) and publish an informal style guide there.

I own and use a number of good books on writing style, and generally follow the writing guidelines published by the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the Associated Press (AP).

I stand corrected

As to be expected, some of my contributions are quickly discarded. I sometimes get useful feedback via Wikipedia's "my talk" page.

Learning the ropes

When I first started editing Wiki pages, I was unfamiliar with many of the guidelines, such as how to submit move requests rather than doing cut-and-paste moves (which destroy a page's edit history). Finding procedural guidelines on Wikipedia is still a mess, perhaps the worst (and certainly most-neglected) part of the project. Any new user should be able to ask, "how do I..." to get the right answer, lest he or she become too discouraged to contribute.

In my haste, I also gaffed by copying and pasting text from another site. The matter was quickly recognized and resolved.

Inconvenient truth?

I enjoyed and would recommend viewing Al Gore's motion picture An Inconvenient Truth (based on his book by the same name), with the caveat that Gore should have disclosed that he sits on the board of directors of Apple Computer before prominently displaying his use of an Apple notebook (a PowerBook?) computer in the film. On the page for the movie, after noting Gore's position on Apple's board, my comment was pulled and I flamed on the talk page by a bunch of fanatics (pro-Gore, pro-Apple, or both) who clearly weren't sensitive to the potential conflicts of interests. So far, that's the ugliest instance of mob rule I've experienced on Wikipedia.

Shameless self-promotion

I'm also guilty of having posted my own biography on Wikipedia. It didn't stick, so I won't try it again. If you're interested, see my biography on my site's "about" page.

How to contact me

If you have questions or comments about my contributions, please feel free to contact me via Wikipedia's "E-mail this user" link (in the left margin) or more directly via my site's "contact" page.