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Robert E. Weatherford’s Résumé

Robert's Project History

Miscellaneous

2003 — Health Study Database

HealthTronics Surgical Services, Inc. Given the task to modify an existing Microsoft Access database application, which allowed the user to enter data from forms gathered from a clinical study. The application needed to be modified to reflect the new forms of the upcoming study, and required changes to the forms, and the underlying VBA code. The project was canceled about half-way through the implementation, due to an overall business decision by the client.

1997 — QPSK Modulator

Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. Designed and implemented front panel, power/timing calibration, and other functions in a digital cable TV system that implemented the DAVIC specification for the broadband division. Code was written in C++ for an embedded PowerPC (‘603) processor.

1994 — UltraFAX

ZSoft Corporation. Fixed several bugs in the UltraFAX Windows product.

1993 — Setup Script

Floyd Design. Created a setup script for an MS-DOS CDROM-based application.

1993 — (Unix C Application, C-Kermit Script)

Medical Data Processing, Inc. Designed and wrote a communications script in C-Kermit to conduct batch electronic forms transfers to and from a host system. This script was designed to be “crash proof” in that it will recover from any conceivable error condition. Also designed and wrote a program in Unix C that compressed the data files using compress, called the C-Kermit script to transfer the files, and uncompressed the files that came back from the host system.

1992 — (Hayes Smartcom Exec SCOPE Scripts)

Designed, implemented, and documented four large scripts written in the Hayes Smartcom SCOPE programming language as entries in the Hayes international SCOPE programming contest. The scripts won the overall grand prize -- a trip for four to Disney World, and three of the four top category prizes -- totaling $8,000 cash.

1992 — Driver Development System

ZSoft Corporation. Created an environment for the development of ZSoft scanner drivers using Microsoft C. Previously, these drivers were written in Microsoft MASM. The trick was to use #pragmas and compiler options to link all the pieces together and still have the initialization code discarded after the driver loaded. Included an extensive WinHelp online reference modeled after the Windows 3.1 SDK Help. Microsoft C/C++ 7.0, Masm 6.0b, Link, and Lib were used.

1992 — Crosstalk Session Converter

Digital Communication Associates, Inc. Working as a subcontractor, wrote a DLL that allowed the user to open a Procomm dialing directory from the Crosstalk for Windows 2.0 Open dialog. Required reverse engineering the three versions of the Procomm dialing directory. Wrote a standalone Microsoft Windows application in Microsoft C for converting Procomm dialing directory entries to Crosstalk for Windows 2.0 session files.

1992 — Scanner Subsystem

ZSoft Corporation. Wrote ZSCAN.DLL that provides the entire scanning subsystem to a Windows application. A second DLL was designed to provide a user interface for the custom scanner features. ZSCAN.DLL was featured in the ZSoft UltraFAX product.

1991 — Order Processing Application

Weatherford Enterprises (A Robert E. Weatherford D/B/A). Using Microsoft Excel for Windows, wrote an order entry application for associates of a well known network marketing corporation. Designed the order forms, summary forms, as well as over 1500 lines of macros and dialogs to glue it together.

1988 — OrCAD Printer Driver

Created two OrCAD printer driver programs for the “generic” Okidata Microline 92 printer, with 72 DPI and 144 DPI resolution respectively. Written in Microsoft MASM.

1987 — BBS Subsystem

An extension to the Fido BBS software, this application effectively replaced the File section with an identical look and feel but enhanced with more file transfer protocols and options. Written in Microsoft C.

1986 — Printer Setup Program

For the Okidata Microline 92 printer, allowed the user to set up all parameters of the printer, while observing the resulting parameters such as lines per page, characters per line, etc. Written in Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS.

1986 — 16 Color CGA Graphics Driver

Wrote a MS-DOS TSR program that added support for 16 color, 160x100 pixel resolution graphics on the IBM CGA display adapter. Driver written in Microsoft MASM, demo program written in Turbo Pascal.

1986 — 132 Column Display

Proved that a 132x24 display was possible on a IBM CGA display, by designing the VT100 font and a simple TTY program. Written in Turbo Pascal.

1986 — Drawing Program

Defined a graphics object definition language for defining drawings in text form, wrote a compiler in Microsoft BASIC-80, and the dot matrix driver in 8080 assembler.

1985 — CP/M-86 Video Driver

Ported the VIO driver for CP/M 3.0 to CP/M-86. Written in DRI 8086 assembler.

1984 — UTL.UTL

A supplemental utility for SID (Symbolic Instruction Debugger) that added I/O, block search, output redirection and directory maintenance capability. Written in 8080 RMAC.

1984 — 8085.UTL

A supplemental utility for SID (Symbolic Instruction Debugger) that added support for the undocumented Intel 8085 instructions. Written in 8085 RMAC.

1984 — WordStar Print Formatter

Prints WordStar 3.3 documents on an Okidata microline 92 printer. All dot commands were supported, including microspace justification, variable line height and character spacing, superscript and subscript. Written in compiled Microsoft BASIC-80.

1984 — CP/M 3.0 Bank Switched BIOS

Fully supported CP/M 3.0, including 1Mbyte address space, disk caching, real time clock, multiple format 8” floppy disk drives, video driver with TTY, VT100, VT52, ADM-3A, and IBM-PC ANSI.SYS emulation. Ran on IMSAI 8085 machine, modified to run at 5MHz. Written in 8085 RMAC.

1984 — CP/M 3.0 Utility Set

OS level programs to support the CP/M 3.0 system: FORMAT multiple format 8” diskette format/verify, COPYSYS copies the CP/M 3.0 system image to/from boot diskettes, PATH a RSX program that allows definition of a search path even for data files, and SWAP that swaps two logical drive letter assignments. All written in 8080 RMAC.

1984 — RAM Card Upgrade/Retrofit

A modification to the IMSAI RAM III card that increased the memory capacity from 65,536 bytes to 1,048,576 bytes using 256k DRAM chips. Supported the new S-100 bus definition (IEEE 696) for extended addressing.

1982 — Point Of Sale Terminal

For MEPCOM International, Inc. Designed the 8085 firmware for a small point of sale terminal, including the 128 character font. Display based on the Intel 8275.

1982 — Menu Driven Firmware Generator

MEPCOM International, Inc. An application written to simplify the task of generating custom printer firmwares by selecting features and options from a series of menus. After all menu selections were completed, the firmware generator wrote the configuration file and ran the firmware generation procedure. Written in Microsoft BASIC-80 for CP/M.

1982-1983 — EZ-Print

MEPCOM International, Inc. Using the existing hardware of a 2.5MHz Z80, CTC and PIO, implemented a firmware for the 40 column dot matrix printer that could receive data at 9600bps without an SIO, manage a 32k receive buffer, and print simultaneously. Written in Z80 Microsoft M80 macro assembler. The firmware was of modular design, and allowed for easy customization. Options included bitmapped graphics, parallel interface, custom fonts, protocols, printer emulation, and logos.

1981 — Major Hardware Bug Fix

VMX, Inc. ECS Telecommunications, as they were called then, sold the first voice mail systems, and had about a dozen units in the field. They were all plagued with semi weekly crashes, and ECS’s inability to solve the design problem had reached a critical point with existing and prospective customers. Acting on instinct, I formed the hypothesis that it was a synchronization problem between asynchronous subsystems, producing a lethal metastable condition. It took only 30 minutes with the schematics to find the suspect 7474 flip flop. I set up a logic analyzer and actually got photos of the metastable glitches. I then came up with a fix that required only one part change and no wiring changes. After a few plane trips by a technician to the installation sites, the plague was eradicated.

1981 — RAM Card Tester

VMX, Inc. Designed a special test rig for the Intel Multibus® 64k and 128k RAM cards, using bank switching to allow the test system access to more than 32k. Wrote an acceptance test suite that ran a 64k card in under 2 minutes using highly optimized 8085 assembler.

1979 — PDS-II Test Rig

IMSAI Manufacturing Corporation. A system built around the IMSAI PIO dual parallel I/O card designed to test and align the PDS-II, an analog floppy disk data separator. The accompanying software program displayed instructions for the test technician, ran the tests, and provided interactive troubleshooting hints in cases of test failure.

1976 — 8080 Development System

Written in HP-2000E BASIC, provided an Intel MDS-style line editor and 8080 assembler with Intel hex object output and list output with symbol table. Used to develop the FM-1 firmware.

1976 — Multiplication Table Teacher

Prototype for a handheld unit that teaches multiplication tables. Hardware was designed with LSI fabrication in mind, and prototyped in 7400 series TTL.

1975 — TV Typewriter Enhancements

Added a 300 baud capability, UART, TTY emulator hardware, and a modem, all of my design, to the original Don Lancaster’s TV Typewriter. Turned it into a terminal used to dial-up access a remote computer system.

 

Copyright © 2002-2011 Robert E. Weatherford, Johns Creek, GA (A suburb North of Atlanta). All Rights Reserved.
Last modified: April 25, 2011.