XPost: sci.lang, alt.usage.english   
   From: see@sig.instead   
      
   John Holmes wrote:   
   > Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:   
   >> Jonathan de Boyne Pollard    
   >> writes:   
   >>   
   >>>> Auto-Tune.  [...] Interestingly, the Wikipedia article says that   
   >>>> the underlying technology was develloped at Exxon for use in   
   >>>> interpreting seismic data.   
   >>>   
   >>> That's suspiciously close to a plot element of _The Hunt for Red   
   >>> October_.   
   >>   
   >> _The Hunt for Red October_ was published in 1984.  Andy Hildebrand,   
   >> who later developed Auto-Tune, worked at Exxon in the '70s.  I   
   >> haven't read the book, but it's quite possible that the plot element   
   >> was based on things that were already possible.   
   >   
   > It's a small world. Andy started developing it in about March 1984   
   > when he was with a startup company called Landmark Graphics in   
   > Houston. I was evaluating a product they were developing at the time   
   > for interpreting seismic data. They had a couple of very crude   
   > maximum picking algorthms, and I found a way of using them   
   > iteratively using the output of one as a seed for the next to get a   
   > much better result. Andy generalised and rewrote the algorithm to   
   > incorporate the iterations in a one-step process. That was the   
   > beginning of what eventually became Auto-Tune.   
      
   Actually, I think I should have said "became _part_ of autotune". Because it   
   would have also used what was by then fairly established technology in   
   geophysical data processing, and some of that would have gone back to the   
   70's or earlier. I'm not sure that all of that would have been exclusive to   
   Exxon because the research divisions of most of the major companies had very   
   similar technology.   
      
   --   
   Regards   
   John   
   for mail: my initials plus a u e   
   at tpg dot com dot au   
      
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