John Simonton, founder/owner of Paia Electonics has passed

[brianroth]

In Thursday's newspaper, I noted with shock and deep dismay the death of one of my mentors, John
Simonton, who founded Paia Electronics, a pioneering DIY electronics kit supplier based here in my
city.

I was in Junior High in the late 1960's, and I had spotted one of John's articles in Popular
Electronics magazine, with a "complete kit of parts available from...." listed. I don't recall
what that kit was, but it looked interesting, and I noted an Oklahoma City address.

At that time, Jonn was working at Tinker AFB, while running Paia out of his garage. I "finagled" a
visit to see his then-tiny operation to buy the kit of parts. I wasn't old enough to drive, so my
Mom took me to John and Linda Kay's house for that original meeting.

I know I was a "thorn in his butt" as I went through High School, but John hired me as his
'customer support person' soon after I graduated from HS. By that time, I had built many Paia kits
(most worked...and when they didn't, I'd haul my crappily soldered <g> units to John's new shoppe,
and he would cuss me out about my soldering...which IMPROVED..and he would sort out the problems).
Hence, I had quite a bit of "hands-on" experience with the kits before I landed that gig at Paia.

Somewhere in the time frame before John hired me, I concocted a guitar effects unit I called a
"Ping Pong". My original unit used incandescent lamps and photoresistors, and John revised the
concept using reversed-biased diodes for the gain control cells. He published an article in Guitar
Player magazine (along with "complete kit of parts available from..."), and for every kit sold, I
collected a small amount of money for the concept.

http://www.brianroth.com/projects/ping-pong.pdf

I could go on and on about my time working with John, the growth of Paia, continuing contact after
I went to work elsewhere, visits to the "Simonton Manor" on the shores of Lake Hiawasee, and our
long-running friendship.

At one point, John sold a MIDI device design to Peavey, and he semi-retired to his lake home at a
relatively early age. However, he was always "in motion", and cranked out new products when
retirement became boring to him.

It was perhaps 2-3 years ago when I last saw John...alive and well...when I had his "metal monger"
build the chassis for this custom rack-up I completed for list-member David Gardner:

http://www.brianroth.com/audix.jpg

I am SO sad to learn of the passing of one of my true mentors, John Simonton. I will TRULY miss
him, just as I miss Grandad Roth who introduced me to the "basics of electricity" when I was still
too young to be in grade school.

http://www.paia.com/obituary.html

Bri