Jack McCauley is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

engineer, hardware designer, inventor,

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developer and philanthropist. As an engineer at

RedOctane RedOctane, Inc. was an American electronic entertainment company best known for producing the ''Guitar Hero'' series, beginning in November 2005. RedOctane became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision in 2006. In February 2010, Activision clos ...

, he designed guitars and drums for the

Guitar Hero ''Guitar Hero'' is a series of music rhythm game video games first released in November 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs. Player ...

video game series. He later worked at

Oculus VR Reality Labs is a business of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon W ...

, which was eventually acquired by

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

for $2 billion.

Early life and education

The son of a

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

officer, McCauley’s early life began in

De Bilt De Bilt () is a municipality and town in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. It had a population of in . De Bilt houses the headquarters of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). It is the ancestral home and namesake for the pro ...

, Netherlands. From an early age, McCauley loved taking things apart, building them into something new, exploring everything from basic spatial relationships to electronics. When he was 9,

Tinkertoy The Tinkertoy Construction Set is a toy construction set for children. It was designed in 1914—six years after the Frank Hornby's Meccano sets—by Charles H. Pajeau, who formed the Toy Tinker Company in Evanston, Illinois to manufactu ...

named him a "Junior Tinkertoy Engineer". In 1980, McCauley was accepted into the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School. He later attended University of California, Berkeley, College of Engineering, where he specialized in electronics and

circuit theory Circuit may refer to: Science and technology Electrical engineering * Electrical circuit, a complete electrical network with a closed-loop giving a return path for current ** Analog circuit, uses continuous signal levels ** Balanced circui ...

and earned a BSc. in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) in 1986. McCauley credits U.C. Berkeley with moving him into his career as an engineer.

Career

McCauley began his professional career at the U.S. Department of Defense. Upon graduating from Berkeley, he worked at various technology and gaming companies including RedOctane and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. He helped develop USB drivers, kernel mode drivers, arcade machines and video game related peripherals."More Guitar Hero World tidbits," by Gieson Cacho, A+E Interactive, October 16, 2008
retrieved March 22, 2015. McCauley designed many of the guitar and drum peripherals for the

video game series.

Guitar Hero

In 2005 McCauley joined

, where he served as an engineer on the Guitar Hero team. He stayed on after RedOctane became a wholly owned subsidiary of

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

, eventually departing in 2009. McCauley created the hardware for early Guitar Hero guitars by

reverse-engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

the guitars used in the

Konami , is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...

game

Guitar Freaks is a music video game series produced by Konami. It is a rhythm game where the player uses a controller to simulate the playing of an electric guitar. The game consists of music predominantly from the rock music, rock and roll and J-pop genres. ...

. He also designed hardware peripherals for

Silent Scope ''Silent Scope'' is a series of rail shooter video games that are developed and published by Konami. Games Silent Scope (1999) Silent Scope 2 (2000) Silent Scope EX (2001) ''Silent Scope EX'' was released in the arcades in 2001. It was ...

and EA Sports Active 2.

Oculus VR

McCauley joined

as vice president of engineering in August 2012, shortly after the company raised millions of dollars on Kickstarter for their first development kit. He served as VP Engineering at Oculus until March 2014 when the company was acquired by

for $2 billion. He left Oculus immediately after the acquisition was completed. He claims to have donated all the money he received from the Facebook buyout to charity. While at Oculus, he designed test equipment and managed

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

-based manufacturing of the Oculus DK1 and DK2, the company's development hardware that was shipped to game developers years before the 2016 release of their consumer product, the

Oculus Rift Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a division of Meta Platforms, released on March 28, 2016. In 2012 Oculus initiated a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Rift's development, af ...

Lucid VR

In 2017, McCauley joined Lucid VR as Chief Engineer to lead worldwide manufacturing of their flagship virtual and augmented reality camera, the VR180 LucidCam.

Inventions, credits, and accomplishments

McCauley worked on creating audio effects; computer peripherals; game controllers; light gun technology; composite HID USB device for gaming; and guitar and drum controllers for the Guitar Hero franchise.

Philanthropy

In 2015 he, Paul Jacobs and others funded the

Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation The Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation is a building on the campus of UC Berkeley, part of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. Construction began in August 2014 with a $20 million gift from the Paul and Stacy Jacobs Foundation. The ribbon-c ...

at the UC Berkeley College of Engineering;Kirsten Mickelwait
"Designer of scrolling mouse and Oculus Rift funds design innovation"
''Berkeley Engineer Magazine'', June 16, 2015; retrieved June 29, 2015. , he is an Innovator in Residence there.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCauley, Jack American computer scientists American inventors 21st-century American engineers People from Battle Creek, Michigan Video game developers UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Living people 1959 births