Socially awkward and preferring to work with machines, Raymond Scott sure had the personality of a genius. I think its almost sad though how much of his life he spent creating machines that would have been insignificant to construct with even an early computer. Scott spent time building various contraptions to vary voltage and keep time - both are functions easily provided by computers.
I do think its interesting that Scott, in the early 1900's, was working toward a goal of melding the human mind with a machine. Obviously this is a goal that receives a lot of work today - especially to help subjects who have lost limbs, eyesight, hearing, etc.
I also got the impression that Scott was a bit of an egotist. It seems like every idea he had he ran down to the patent office. Then when he actually built something significant he worked his name in there. Then, at the beginning of the chapter Scott mentions feeling bad about keeping his work on the first "synthesizer" so private....yeah now that its far too late to capitalize commercially and all he can hope for is public recognition, he wishes he had gone public at the onset.
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