Early Years
Oberheim was born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas. Beginning in junior high school, he put his interest in electronics to work by building hi-fi components and amplifiers for friends. A fan of jazz music, Oberheim decided to move to Los Angeles after seeing an ad on the back of Downbeat Magazine about free jazz performances at a club there. He arrived in Los Angeles in July 1956 at the age of 20 with $10 in his pocket. He worked as a draftsman trainee at NCR Corporation where he was inspired to become a computer engineer. Oberheim enrolled at UCLA, studying computer engineering and physics while also taking music courses. Over the next nine years he worked toward his physics degree, serving in the Army for a short period of time, harmonizing with the Gregg Smith Singers, and working jobs at computer companies (most notably Abacus, where he first began designing computers).
Read more about this topic: Tom Oberheim
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 14:25.
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)