About Takarus Research Company

Company History

Takarus Research began life as a concept in 1987. The initial focus was producing tools for developing and implementing new computer programming languages. This evolved into tools for producing tools for compiling meta-languages or languages that could be extended by the programmer.

In 1996, when the languages market began to sour, the developed techniques were reapplied to the area of robotics. The search began for a way to evolve educational robotics from kits used by highly skilled individuals to learning platforms that could be used by individuals who were science students or part of the scientifically interested general public. There were two principal problems to be solved: How to entice the non-technical public into learning enough technology to be able to control the robot and how to teach the basic science understanding required to successfully operate a non-trivial robot. 

The initial efforts of Takarus focused on solving the language problem. A language representation understandable by the general public was explored and exploration of a sophisticated control system capable of automating much of the routine control tasks began. We also began a rough design of the robot's hardware platform and settled on multiple inexpensive processors from Microchip Technology. A hardware "ICE" for the target processors was acquired.

During the height of the tech boom, the company founder, Rusty Biesele, took a leave of absence, to devote maximum effort to the frenzied efforts of various companies. Takarus Research went into a state of hibernation.

In 1998 and again in 1999 money became available to greatly increase Takarus Research's  network/server  infrastructure. A dedicated internet link, modern 100baseT network, and Dell server were acquired.

In 2000, a large chunk of money was made available to Takarus in the form of an investment grant. Plans were made to build 1000 sq. ft. of space to support the company's efforts. And the internet link was upgraded to a modern T1 link. 

But as we all know, at the end of 2000/ beginning of 2001 the stock market crashed and Takarus's investment grant shrank to 10 percent of its former value. The founder, Rusty Biesele, took control of remaining capital and began trading as a securities trader. The losses were eventually arrested and the profitable Takarus Research Portfolio was born.

 Today Takarus Research and its founder focus development of technology related to interactive collaboration and content delivery, and educational games showcasing the developed technology. Rusty Biesele is still an active securities trader and supplements the business with his earnings.

Founder's History

Rusty Biesele (Rusty@takarus.com) left Apple Computer at the end of 1999 to devote full time efforts to Takarus Research. Prior to that, Rusty worked at Apple Computer as a Senior Scientist working on compilers, compiler tools, and language runtime libraries for MacOS X. Before that, Rusty spent an intense 3 years working on the Trimedia Tiger Team at Philips Semiconductors. This team was responsible for producing the first commercial VLIW microprocessor. While there, Rusty developed an automated rules based  compiler test system capable of writing real life C code more challenging to compilers than real human code. The system contained over 100 rules, was capable of simulating C source level semantics, and gave the Trimedia C Compiler over 6 man years of testing using one man year of effort. While working on the Trimedia team, Rusty also helped evolve the infrastructure from that of a research team to one suitable for a production organization.  Prior to Trimedia, Rusty worked at Hewlett Packard on the debugging optimized code team. Rusty and three other team members co-patented a process which forms the foundation of being able to debug optimized code compiled from higher level programming languages. Prior to Hewlett Packard Rusty worked at various other companies including Data General, Wang Laboratories, and another block of time at Apple during the MacOS 7 effort. Rusty graduated in 1986 from Texas Tech University with a Masters Degree  in Computer Science and a Batchelor's Degree  in Engineering Physics.