Fred Pfost

Fred Pfost spent ten years at The Ampex Corporation in Redwood City directly after graduating from UC Berkeley in January of 1952. He was instrumental in the development of many of the audio, instrumentation, and video products that Ampex produced during his stay: the 21-channel instrumentation recorder; the 7-channel FM recorder; a semiprofessional portable audio recorder (model 600); a portable amplifier-speaker unit (model 620); an oil well logging recorder; the VR 1000 video recorder, and glass bonded ferrite heads for video recording.

Following his term at Ampex Mr. Pfost did consulting for the next 30 years doing work for 25 different local, national and international companies. He started three companies during that period and developed some breakthrough technologies that set the standards of achievement for the various industries.

• The computer industry’s first hard disc data recorder developed for Data Disc in Mtn. View -1963 (This technology was licensed to IBM and eventually became known as the Winchester Disc.) • Stop action-instant replay hard disc video recorder developed for Mactronics in Mtn. View in 1965 (Ampex came out with their version of this device a year later.) • Video Cartridge Recorder developed for Cartrivision in 1970 • High speed, high tension tape cartridge developed for Newell Research in 1975 • Automated Robotic Work Station (Automatic, Microprocessor Controlled Pipetter) for Infinitek (purchased by Beckman Industries) in 1985 • Automatic, spring loaded, lever cocked pool cue developed for Automatic Ball Driver, Inc. in 1992

Mr.Pfost has 50 U.S. Patents and hundreds of foreign patents.

He was awarded three EMMYs over the years. 1) for the Video Tape Recorder at Ampex in 1957; 2) for the Stop Action—Instant Replay Recorder at Mactronics in 1966; 3) for “Lifetime Achievement” on September 29, 2005. This last one was the first time that the Television Academy had ever given a “Lifetime Achievement” award in the technical EMMY category.