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Ray Dolby, founder of Dolby Laboratories, dies


Rich_Guy

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CBC Radio One had an interview last week with Thomas Dolby, the singer. His real name is Thomas Morgan Robertson. He was a big fan of Ray Dolby, and got his nickname "Dolby" for carrying a large cassette player/boombox in high school. He was an early adopter, so he was the first guy in his group to have a player with a Dolby button, and he described explaining it to his friends.

When Thomas Dolby's song She Blinded Me With Science became a big hit, Ray Dolby (or his lawyers, at least) contacted Thomas about his use of Ray's last name, since they felt he was profiting on the fame of Ray Dolby's name.

Ray and Thomas met for the first time in a lawyer's office, but as Thomas tells it, once Ray met him and found him to be an okay guy, they got along. Ray liked some of Thomas's music, and he decided to stop any legal action. That made for a nice story, respectful to everyone involved, but according to Wiki, it wasn't quite so simple, and there actually was a lengthy legal battle. In the end, the court decided that Dolby Labs had no right to restrict the musician from using the name. It was agreed that the musician would not release any electronic equipment using the name.

Coincidentally, Ray Dolby had a son named Thomas, who was born in 1975. Thomas the entertainer said that if Roy's son Thomas also became an entertainer, things could have got confusing, but instead he became a writer.

He writes under the name Tom Dolby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Dolby

As for Ray Dolby, he had an impressive list of awards, and was a multi-billionaire. If you like tinkering with electronics, keep it up. You never know where it could take you!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dolby

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Dolby SR made recording on analog tape pretty much the equal of digital recording dynamics and sn ratio, but you still had to contend with the real problems of using tape, i.e., alignment and transport/electronics to maintain.

Bruce

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