The T series guitars and basses were originally designed by Chip Todd in 1977, and debuted at the 1978 NAMM show. The three prototypes shown were T-60 and T-30 guitars, and a T-40 bass. Chip Todd was primarily an engineer who repaired guitars on the side. Todd was hired out of his Houston guitar repair shop, and initially handled the drafting and design by himself. Hartley Peavey had a great deal of input on the initial designs, and the tone circuit was invented by noted steel guitarist Orville Red Rhodes. Todd was eventually assisted by Gerald Pew, Bobby Low, and Charley Gressett. According to researcher Michael Wright, Chip Todd left Peavey in 1981 and currently works in the TV satellite electronics -- although he does have a new patent on guitar design that he is considering applying for. Peavey´s initial concept was to use machinery to control efficiency and quality control. Borrowing an idea from gun manufacturing, Peavey bought a controlled carving machine to maintain strict tolerances in design. In a seeming parallel to the Fender debut of plank guitars and other derisive comments in 1951 leading to the other manufacturers then building solid body electrics in 1952, the guitar industry first insisted that you can't build guitars on a computer! A year later, everybody was investigating numerical controllers (and later the CAD/CAM devices - now CNC machines). If Leo Fender is the father of the mass produced solid body guitar (among other honors), then Hartley Peavey is the father of the modern solid body production technique. Source courtesy Michael Wright, Guitar Stories, Volume One.