Experience Vita for Jerry Schneider
(Current through December 1996)


 
SKILLS SYNOPSIS

BEST SKILLS: Excellent at debugging complex hardware/software interactions and problems, at making hardware/software design tradeoffs, and at finding bugs before an end user can. Very fluent in Assembly Language and C. Have over 10 years' embedded hardware/software design experience.

METHODOLOGIES: Booch (w/OMT), OO Design Patterns, JavaBeans, COM/OLE, Direct Manipulation(Visual) Programming.

HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGES: Java (1 yr), C++/MFC (<1 yr), C on DOS, Win16, Win32, Unix, and embedded (11 yrs), HTML/cgi-bin (1+ yr), HP-VEE (3 years), awk/sh/ksh scripts (4 yrs), lex/yacc (6 mo), Lisp & Snobol (6 mo), Intel PL/M (1 yr), Forth (9 mo), Sentry/Factor (2 yrs), Fortran (5 yrs). Educational projects in Prolog and Smalltalk.

OPERATING SYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENTS: Windows NT API & kernel drivers (1+ yr), Windows 95 API & VxDs (2 yrs), Win32 API(C, MFC, threads) (1 yr),MS Windows 3.x API (3 yrs), PC-DOS & internals (7 yrs), UNIX V7, V.4, HP-UX (5 yrs), Dec RT-11/RSX (4 yrs), DG AOS (1 yr), realtime process control and multitasking (6 yrs),

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGES & HARDWARE: Intel 80x86 series (5 yrs), 8035/48/49/50 (1 yr), 8080/Z80 (6 mo), Motorola 6800 (3 yrs), 6805 (3+ yrs), 6809 and 68000 (1 yr), TMS-320 DSP (4 mo), National COP-400 series (2 yrs), DG Nova (2 yrs), DEC PDP-8 (2 yrs) and PDP-11 Macro-11 (4 yrs), Sentry FST-1 & 2 (3 yrs), Modcomp (6 mo), Redcor-70 (4 yrs), CDC 6400/Cyber and PP (5 yrs).

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS: MS Office, including Word, Excel, PowerPnt, Access. MS Project, MSDN knowledgebase, Web browsers & WWW search engines, Visio, MKS (unix commands for Windows), RCS & PVCS Version Control, Visual Basic for Applications/Scriting.


DETAILED EXPERIENCE VITA

Includes situations through 1996. Some of the dates below overlap; this generally results from working as a contract employee or consultant for several firms concurrently. As the owner of ATG Laboratories, I also developed products for my company during the same periods that I contracted services part-time to other firms.


ATG Laboratories Ft. Collins, CO Nov 1993 - Present
Product Development: Ongoing development of a security product for Web publishers with valuable data that will be accessed only from browsers using our WEBLOK plug-in. Uses a parallel-port dongle to decrypt HTTP data encrypted by the WEBLOK cgi-bin server module using public-key algorithms.

Product Development: Ongoing development of a Java-based Framework and Class Library for Kiosk authoring and runtime systems targeted at a vertical market. Framework uses direct-manipulation GUI for authoring presentation, and generates Java code for kiosk-specific class library. Using Booch/OMT for OOA, JavaBeans for object model. Product is under NDA by funding sources who have first right to purchase.

Consultant: (1996) Developed Windows NT prototype of ActiveX wrapper for a client's kiosk runtime package. Used Java and DirectX to demonstrate performance and flexibility. Designed COM wrapper to interface to PepsiCo POS2000 framework written in C++.

Consultant: (1995) Assisted client in debugging their Win95 VxD used to read/write non-standard format floppy disks. Found source of crashes and lockups, cleaned up interfaces with other VxDs, improved timing delay algorithms.

Consultant: (1994) This was an R&D project for adding LZW compression & decompression to the Windows NT QIC117 tape driver stack. Although it was cancelled when Unisys began licensing the LZW patents, we had reverse-engineered most of the QIC drivers and had a working filter layer in place.


Microcomputer Applications Littleton, CO Oct 1994 - present
Contract Engineer: Developed Win 3.x/Win95 VXDs to access shared parallel port device and handle driver contention. Drivers supported simultaneous API calls from DOS, Win3.x, and Win32 Apps/DLLs. Also developed virtual Win3.x/Win95/WinNT drivers to access a parallel port device over a network, including Win95 and WinNT remote device LAN Server programs. Developed using beta Win95 DDK, had to reverse-engineer other VXDs and undocumented OS functionality to produce robust product drivers.

Responsibilities:Provided all of the client's Win95/3.x driver development, including porting legacy assembly language to C, revision of algorithms, regression test design, ongoing modifications, etc.


Careers Ltd. Denver, CO Apr 1994 - Oct 1994
Contract Engineer: Developed Windows NT 3.0 Class driver for client's parallel port device, including VDD to support legacy 16 bit DOS/win app communications with the port device. Worked with WinNT from early beta through release, and found several significant design omissions and bugs for Microsoft. Limited beta documentation required extensive reverse-engineering and investigative tests on OS internals.

Responsibilities: Provided all of client's NT driver development, including porting legacy assembly language to C, revision of algorithms, regression test design, etc.


Info-America, Inc. Ft. Collins, CO Jan 1993 - Dec 1995
Contract Engineer: Device Driver "Mentor" working closely with in-house engineers designing multimedia kiosk hardware and software for fast food industry. Debugged complex hardware/software problems with SoundBlaster DMA and sporadic crashes from touch screen drivers, and resolved several OS internals problems.

Responsibilities: Hosted design review sessions and mentored junior interface designers. Prototyped new technology showcases and provided technical marketing support for major client presentations. Strategic technology planning for I.A.


Hewlett-Packard Loveland, CO Apr 1990 - Oct 1992
Contract Engineer: Performed application solution-space coverage and correctness testing for the direct manipulation visual language HP-VEE. Applied VEE to significant problems in multiple scientific disciplines to verify that the product could meet the needs of experts in those fields. Developed VEE application guides and product examples that illustrated advanced programming techniques, including interface with non-HP hardware and software. Received the "Six Sigma Quality" trophy recognizing consummate skill in locating arcane design and usability bugs.

Responsibilities: Directed several engineers on the VEE Quality Assurance team. Wrote HP-UX shell scripts, awk, and C to implement a Lan-based distributed automatic regression test suite for product QA. Developed many automatic defect tracking and reporting tools, including quality metrics collection. Responsible for project's Unix systems administration.


FuTec, Inc. Ft. Collins, CO Dec 1989-May 1990
Contract Engineer: Developed GUI interface, using Owl toolkit, to PC-based plasma arc welding system. Wrote driver to load, communicate with, and debug a TMS-320 DSP running FFT algorithms. Wrote serial port drivers to control external welder peripherals.

Info-America, Inc. Ft. Collins, CO Apr 1987 - Dec 1989
Contract Engineer: Developed realtime DOS device drivers and systems software, using C and assembler, for peripherals used on an interactive audio-video banking kiosk system (ATM). Drivers included laser videodisk players, touch screens, video keying & switching, and proprietary banking peripherals such as magnetic card readers and receipt statement printers. Used knowledge of DOS internals to provide driver reentrancy, EMS multi-tasking support, and background communications to connect to Nixdorf proprietary realtime OS hosted on DOS. Co-designed the windows-like GUI authoring tool for kiosk presentations. Used Atron and Periscope debuggers to locate intermittent hardware faults and wily software leaks.

Responsibilities: Chaired design reviews, evaluated new hardware platforms, showcased market opportunities for new technologies, and reverse-engineered competitive products. Developed interface standards, real-time multi-tasking strategies and methods, and guidelines for testing to insure software reliability in banking applications. Provided technical management interface with large German and Canadian companies.


Advanced Energy, Inc. Ft. Collins, CO Nov 1983 - Jan 1987
Contract Engineer: Developed three core products: 1) The system control hardware and software for a 10KW Magnetron sputtering power supply, featuring plasma stabilization, arc detection and quenching, and analog controls simulation using dual 68705 single-chip microprocessors. 2) A Process Controller for RF and LF plasma etching, incorporating a generic control/interface unit with a 68705 processor, A/D and D/A, and digital I/O, and featuring an Interpreter Language to easily personalize each OEM version using imbedded EEPROM in the controller and PC-based software tools written in C. 3) A LAN based, distributed processing version of the controller. Used Motorola Exorset and HP 6400 for software development. Used C and Pascal for IBM PC based design, simulation, and cross-development tools. Produced multiple-OEM sales and technical manuals from a troff-like document publication system.

Responsibilities: Directed corporate instrumentation development and established product family interface standards. Project management included team integration, PCB CAD supervision, and hiring of technical and support staff for the LAN controller group.


Horizon Technology Ft. Collins, CO Feb 1980 - Nov 1983
Product Engineer: Developed hardware and software for a residential Energy Demand Controller requiring operation in extreme environments, high volume manufacturability, and high reliability with minimum field service costs. Met severe cost constraints while using some leading edge technologies, including early EEPROM devices and mask-rom COP-400 microprocessor. Performed very tight shoehorning of software for minimum cost, using National's PDS development station. Designed an integrated UL-approved Class 2 switched mode Power Supply, including magnetics.

Responsibilities: Directed a junior software engineer in producing correct first-time-out ROM code. As sales engineer, had extensive customer contact while developing commercial and industrial versions of the Demand Controller.


MicroTalk Pocatello, ID & San Jose, CA Jan 1979 - Feb 1980
Consultant: Developed libraries for Z80 CP/M based IC parametric test system and a Z80 FORTH-based system. Provided test system applications assistance to OEMs. Developed rule-based expert software for MOS-device Parametric Test systems. Designed real-time multi-tasking OS library (using MACRO-11 on PDP-11) to control complex analog and digital parametric test system.

American Microsystems Inc. San Jose, CA June 1976 - Jan 1979
Instrumentation Engineer: Developed hardware and software for diagnostics, calibration, and QC testing on SENTRY and other proprietary Semiconductor IC test equipments. Designed production instruments for corporate staff scientists to generate and measure pico-units (V & I) for MOS-device parametric characterization.

Responsibilities: Led group of 12 technicians and 2 junior engineers in minimizing IC test system down time in the MOS wafer fab and the ATE units.


Selected Historical Situations Sep 1967 - May 1976
Consultant (California Bay area 1975 - 1976) Wrote a Motorola 6800 Macro cross-Assembler using assembly on a PDP-11 minicomputer. Developed real-time control system (12kb code) for 6800-based data logging system.

CSU Computer Managed Learning Lab (Jan 1974 - May 1975): Developed ECL/TTL hardware and software interface to CDC 6400 Mainframe Data Channel. Designed CSU's first digital (memory mapped) raster graphics system with NTSC output and hardwired vector algorithm. Appointed to Faculty Staff at CML lab; conducted graduate seminars in combined EE/CS topics.

CSU Atmospheric Science Dept. (May 1973 - July 1973): Designed Interface for digital 128 channel PCM telemetry system decoder to Redcor RC-70 computerized data collection system, including real-time data collection software.

University Computer Center System Programmer (Sept 1971 - Aug 1972): Developed simulation models for adding a telecommunications front-end to CDC computer. Designed a real-time resource allocation PP program for CDC SCOPE OS to optimize process swapping. Converted graphics PLOT software to CDC-6400 assembly language, adding 3-D extensions.

Atmospheric Science Dept (Sept 1967 - Sept 1971): Member of programming pool responsible for data analysis and computer modeling using CDC FORTRAN and advanced mathematics. Used PDP-8 w/FOCAL for real-time radar data analysis. Promoted to the Hail Project to implement an airborne data gathering system (T-33 and F101 aircraft). Used FORTRAN and Assembler for data reduction, analysis, and Fast Fourier Transform. Developed graphics output from dynamic thunderstorm models, with boundary conditions derived from empirical data. Contributed to several published papers with Dr. Pete Sinclair.



© 1997 ATG Labs
Most recent revision was: March 10, 1997