ASCOM Hall of Fame

Many people have participated significantly by writing drivers and tools, providing useful information, and helping with interface agreements, etc. The following people have made particularly significant contributions to the ASCOM Initiative.

Core Developers

• Peter Simpson - Our lead developer and engineer. For almost all of Platform 5.5 onward, his clear-headed engineering approach to strategic Platform issues, the absolutely vital driver conformance checker, and for doing most of the work on Platform 6. In addition, Peter is the creator of ASCOM Remote, a "happy accident" which formed the genesis of the ASCOM Alpaca revolution. His contributions are just too numerous to list here, suffice it to say that Peter is our lead developer and deserves all of our undying gratitude!
• Daniel Van Noord - For his early adoption of ASCOM Alpaca within his astronomy device company, for his keen instincts in interface and package designs, deep knowledge of .NET technolocy as well as embedded code for tiny processors, and for designing the lightweight discovery protocol for ASCOM Alpaca as well as the .NET cross platform toolset for developers. Daniel is a powerhouse!
• Rick Burke - For being incredibly helpful on the ASCOM Talk forum. Rick's clear thinking, communication skills, and knowledge of ASCOM has helped lots of people through problems. In addition, rick is the author of the DeviceHub tool which allows sharing of DLL drivers, a handbox for device testing, and provides an ASCOM tracing tool as well.
• Tim Long - For all of his work, pushing forward with .NET, writing drivers and tools, helping with .NET issues, prividing incisive feedback and ideas, and being a moderator for the ASCOM Talk group. Tim has helped bring software development discipline to the team, and supplied tools with which we maintain same.

Others (in no particular order)

• Tom Andersen and Ted Leckie - For seeing the logic in ASCOM and the driver/client architecture back in 1998, and providing a grant to develop the first set of drivers and simulators.
• Doug George - For "getting it" back in 1999 and adding a non-trivial scripting interface to MaxIm DL immediately thereafter. He also authored the Camera, Focuser, and FilterWheel driver standard interfaces, basing them on real-world experience with MaxIm.
• Jared Wellman and Ken Pendlebury of Main Sequence Software (Sequence Generator Pro) for placing their faith in the universal interfaces provided by ASCOM and focusing on their sofgtware's mission instead of wrigint one-off control code. They are strongly insistent that astronomy device companies provide universal ASCOM interfaces.
• Patrick Chevalley - For adding Alpaca compatibility to his Cartes duCiel planetarium software early in Alpaca's life. Patrick is also a frequent contributor to the ASCOM Talk and ASCOM Developer forums, usually bringing clear and concise explanations to discussions there.
• Larry Weber and Steve Brady - for their fabulous FocusMax autofocus software, evangelizing ASCOM as being absolutely necessary for FocusMax's success, and for driving the Focuser standard.
• Chris Peterson - For being a very knowledgeable curmudgeon, keeping us honest, and helping people with concise and correct information. Chris' participation in (and inputs to) our weekly meetings have been invaluable.
• Rob Morgan - For work on the .NET Client Toolkit, the .NET driver templates for Visual Studio, lots of research and prototyping on the .NET interfaces and now they map to other languages outside of .NET, and a fair bit of documentation for the Platform.
• Jonathan Fay - For the Worldwide Telescope which puts Microsoft behind ASCOM and for the original .NET Client Toolkit that provides .NET client software with automatic easy access to late-bound drivers. Jonathan has been a strong supporter of ASCOM since its early days.
• Chris Rowland - For developing the incredibly complex Celestron unified driver, Apogee camera drivers, the Camera V2 simulator, Camera test tools, the final scheme for supporting multiple-instance devices, and always providing clear and unwavering advice and counsel.
• Chris Norman - A recent addition, Chris is a Microsoft employee whose "day job" involves quality control, testing and certification. His expertise has already helped us to bring out a better product in Platform 6.
• Jordan Schaenzle - Software Engineeer, Optec, Inc. For diving into .NET based driver and tool development head first, providing valuable real-time feedback from a "learning mode" driver developer, contributing to the local server evolution, and much more.
• Jeff Dickerman, president of Optec, Inc. - For having the vision and commitment to provide factory-developed drivers for all of their equipment.
• Evan Warkentine, ShrimpBox Astronomy - For the original TheSky X ASCOM compatibility X2 drivers for Camera, Dome, FilterWheel and Rotator.
• Mark Crossley - For the FilterWheel Simulator and his helpful inputs during shakeout of the FilterWheel spec.
• David Challis - For believing in ASCOM strongly and making Quantum Scientific cameras ship with factory-supplied drivers.
• Jon Brewster - For developing several drivers and simulators, the Meade drivers, POTH, Pipe/Hub, and generally being a guiding light. He even went to Meade one time to get the "low down" for the Meade drivers. His crystal-clear headed approach to engineering was a great help on many occasions.
• John Oliver - For his work on the dome geometry code used in POTH and by several other programs, and for his role in the Dome interface agreement.
• Tim Cann - President of Chronos, Inc. For believing in ASCOM and shipping his harmonic drive mounts with a factory ASCOM driver.
• Dan Azari - For authoring the original Rotator interface, and for RCOS shipping factory-supplied drivers for their Focuser and Rotator.
• Joe Shuster - For quietly doing the lion's share of moderating the ASCOM-Talk forum, and being a clear-headed engineer with a great head for interface negotiation and design.
• Jim Moronski - For having Finger Lakes Instruments cameras ship with factory-supplied drivers
• Ray Gralak - For the excellent ASCOM drivers and tools that ship with Astro-Physics products, and for his other programs that use ASCOM drivers.
• Chris Houghton - For shipping Astrometric Instruments telescope control systems with factory-supplied drivers
• Ajai Sehgal - For putting a ton of work into the early Astro-Physics and Gemini drivers, and supporting them in the face of firmware changes beyond his control. He was a pioneer with arrows in his back.
• Stef Cancelli - For the graphical and logic design of this ASCOM web site. It might not seem that way, but it took a lot of his time to do it.
• Peter Eschman - For the original Driver Checker tool. This started the discipline of rigorous testing of drivers.
• Bob Denny - For many things...