At the world headquarters of Antakamatics Inc., the decor is equal parts dorm room and thrift store.

Bill Wade, Post-Gazette Now and then Jim Antaki, CEO of Antakamatics Inc., will pull the guitar off the rack in his Oakland office and just play. Click photo for larger image.

Christmas lights hang from the ceiling, and toy cars sit on the window sill. There are shrines to everything from the railroad industry's glory days to Mister Rogers.

Chief Executive Officer Jim Antaki makes no apologies for it, noting that the hammock hanging from his office walls is useful for all-nighters. Inspiration comes from the collection of "o-matic" merchandise scattered about, including a food service device called the "Chip-o-Matic" and a lingerie ad for the "Bra-o-Matic."

"I really loved Ray Bradbury as a kid, and they always started his TV show from his office -- it was kind of like a TGI Fridays, but 18-times more dense with stuff," Antaki says. "He would start the show and say, 'People ask me where I get my ideas. I tell them: Right here. These things inspire me.' I guess I might be the same way."

Antaki is an engineer whose business consists of commercializing an eccentric mix of innovations, from heart pumps to harmonicas. He's also a biomedical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has a more spartan office.

	Bill Wade, Post-Gazette Jim Antaki holds a working model of a heart pump for a baby or very young child. Click photo for larger image.

Here in his work zone above Hieber's Pharmacy in Oakland, the creative juices flow freely. He sits at a desk that he built in his garage after weeks of planning. Antaki agonized over the schematic drawings, and engaged himself in lengthy debates over paint (he first tried a color called Tin Lizzie, but ultimately chose a purple shade dubbed Cabernet).

Antique radios above the desk are part of a collection that Antaki started while growing up in the New York City suburbs. That hobby gave rise to his interest in engineering, as he figured out how to repair the machines. He made a few bucks selling radio designs to other collectors, and a sixth grade friend suggested he call his business Antakamatics.

The business has changed, but he kept the name and even the logo drawn by a childhood friend.

Antaki and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh designed in the 1990s an artificial heart that he called the Streamliner. Streamlining blood flow described how the device functioned, he said, but it also invoked the railroading history of Pittsburgh and the old Streamliner trains.

Antaki's work these days focuses on developing an artificial heart that works in kids. That activity has picked up in recent years, so his work on innovative harmonica designs is on the back burner.

Even so, he still sells a few thousand of his Turbo Harp harmonicas each year.

His patent for the harmonica is one of seven inventions memorialized with plaques on his office wall.

"There are people with big egos who will spend anything to commemorate their patents," Antaki said, explaining the cottage industry that manufactures the plaques. "I've stopped doing it."