This is the home page of David Schmenk. Here you will find projects and interests I have been involved with over the years.
My Brief Biography:
Born and raised in the MidWest. Pretty uneventful except for a few highlights. My folks bought me an Apple ][ in 1980 which cost $1200. That is $3,130 in 2010 dollars. Can you image spending that kind of money on a 14 year-old for something that nobody was familiar with? Luckily their investment paid off. In 1985, my dad bought for me a five year-old RX-7. My first sports car. I still can’t image what prompted him to do such a crazy thing. But he ruined me for life. Between the two of us, we’ve owned or own six RX-7s from all three generations.
I have worked in the computer industry for most of my life, starting at Von’s Computer Shop near Purdue University (quite the hacker hangout back in the day), then as programmer in the Psychology Dept, then as IT support in Lilly Hall. After graduating Purdue in C/EE I went to work for Compaq Computer in Houston. Having got my (over)fill of Texas after four years, I headed to California and a start up. Pellucid was it’s name, crazy ideas was it’s game. A long year and a half of manic product non-development, I was called up by some guy named Jensen Wong. A Nordic Chinese guy? Nope, Jen-Hsun Huang was really his name and I became lucky employee #13 of NVIDIA. By 2000, I was toasted and needed to find out who I was. Off to Tahoe I went, and haven’t left. Still don’t really know who I am (as it seems to change daily), but having fun finding out.
Solipsistic Software (and Hardware):
Software (and hardware) should be designed for the user. If the user is the designer, so much the better. I have the benefit of writing software for myself, doing what I want, how I want. In this regard, there are others in the past that have broken from the ranks of traditional design and thought, truly doing things differently with themselves in mind. Here are a few I’ve taken inspiration from:
Project Pages:
Project Videos:
Apple ][ 30th Birthday Project
Tracking the 1972 BMW 2002
Tracking the 1993 Mazda RX-7
Having fun in the snow
Feel free to browse around and drop me a note if you wish.
