Mike Read    (Updated March 2002)

mailto:mread@rr.swfla.com
https://members.tripod.com/~MikeRead/allnews.htm

Education:
1973-77    North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC
           Graduated BS Computer Science, with Electrical Engineering
Licenses:  FCC: General Radiotelephone Operator License (GROL)
               (Formerly known as First Class
           FCC: Marine Radiotelephone Operator License (MROL)
           FCC: Amateur Extra Class - AE4AG
Languages: C/C++   PL/1   Pascal   Fortran   APL   FORTH   Basic
           MANY assembler languages from IBM mainframe to PC 80x86, TI990
           4 and 8 bit microcontrollers/microprocessors, bit-slice and
           microcoding, watches, and calculators, embedded processing
           Spanish
Hobbies:   Computers, electronics, Ham Radio, teletext, music, kids

Employment history:
77-78  Data General Corp., Research Triangle Park, NC (18 mo)
       Implemented Basic interpreter/compiler, improved performance of Word
       Processing application.
78-79  Business Applications Systems, Cary, NC (18 mo)
       Ported existing Basic applications and interpreter from HP2100A to
       TI990/12 for Response of Hawaii, Honolulu.  Included terminal
       communications Device Service Routines.
80-84  Texas Instruments, Lubbock, TX (4.5 yr)
       Wrote algorithms for watches, calculators, intelligent peripherals.
       Wrote assemblers and disassemblers for several processors.  Wrote bar
       code scan and activities code for Magic Wand Speaking Reader.
       Interfaced the Magic Wand Speaking Reader to the TI99/4.  Implemented
       a program that allowed simulation of watches and calculators on the
       TI99/4 with a keyboard/display interface I designed, speeding up the
       development cycle.
84     Sunware Ltd., Lubbock TX (6 mo)
       VP of R&D and production for startup manufacturing software cartridges
       for the TI99/4.  Designed and built electronic hardware and software
       including the device programmer, and made cartridges, software
       development kits, linking loader.
85-87  Coulter Electronics, Hialeah, FL (2.5 yr)
       Responsible for the programming of the two embedded processors (TI9900)
       that accumulated data and controlled the machine, and communications
       processing DSRs on the mini (TI990/4/10/12) of the DACOS Blood serum
       analyzer.
87     BMP Computer Services, Orlando, FL (6 mo)
       Provided system software and backup hardware support to service bureau
       covering Florida area.  Primary client was Orange County Sheriff's
       Office.  Wrote a modem communications package that supported X/YMODEM.
88     American Manufacturing Systems, Maitland, FL (1 yr)
       Programmed embedded 80186 and 80386 in a distributed processing
       real-time process-control program for factory automation, called
       Orchestrator and Podium
89-now Fischer International Systems Corp., Naples FL (8 yrs++
       Overhauled X/Y Modem and Added Y-Modem-G and Kermit protocols to
       existing modem product.  Helped port mainframe EMail client/server
       product from Assembler to C and run on 6 platforms.  Converted to multi-
       lingual, multi-codepage for international market.  Integrating efforts
       of 6 programmers on different platforms and managed source control.
       Implemented APIs and database transactions to support appointment
       scheduling for new GUI clients.  Designed and implemented Archiving
       facility, for migrating data out of EMail database.  Implemented POP3,
       IMAP-4, SMTP, FTP, and HTTP interfaces to proprietary email database,
       and next generation db, operating in Windows NT, MVS/TSO and USS.
       Added SSL/TLS support to various TCP/IP interfaces.

-------------------------( Home Projects )----------------------------------

*      Stock Ticker/Big Board decoder implemented in TI99/4 assembler,
       decoding FM SCA broadcast to 300 baud modem, then decoding and routing
       packets to display/printer.
*      Designed, breadboarded, programmed, and debugged a single-board
       computer based on the TI TMS9900 that read UPC bar codes to select a
       phrase that was then sent to the speech chip.  I wrote a bar-code
       generator program for the line printer.  This project was the pilot
       for the Texas Instruments Magic Wand Speaking Reader.
*      Made an adaptor for the TI99/4 that alowed direct printing of strings
       and plotting commands from BASIC onto a Houston Instruments DMP-2
       incremental plotter.  Used for plotting commodities history.
*      Designed and built a programmer for 27xx (12v) and 25xx (5v) EPROMs as
       a peripheral for the TI99/4.  Programmed control program into a TI99/4
       plug-in cartridge.  Later interfaced programmer to the TI 990 mini.
*      Made an adaptor that allowed an EPROM programmer to read Atari 2600
       videogame cartridges, and another adaptor that allowed the EPROM copies
       to play in another Atari 2600.
*      Designed, laid out the PC board, and made a limited production run of
       TV Stereo Decoders, which decoded the MTS TV stereo signal from Channel
       3 input, with output to the speaker.  Also decoded Secondary Access
       Program (SAP).
*      Interfaced a QIC-02 tape cartridge drive to the IBM-PC, and wrote the
       backup and restore software.
*      Interfaced a Cipher Streaming 9-track tape drive to the IBM-PC through
       the DMA interface.  Wrote the backup, restore, scan software, and
       software to convert between PC/IBM 370/TI990/and other formats.
*      Designed and implemented a bit-slice video decoder based on the
       AMD 2900 family.  Implemented a custom clock circuit with skewed clock
       cycle to allow use of 450ns EPROMs, "Wait for video SYNC" instruction,
       and hardware debugging.  Wrote the bit-slice compiler.  Wrote the
       hardware debugger, and interfaced it through the IBM-PC, with program
       up/download to EPROM emulator, single-step, breakpoints, etc.
*      Wrote an interpreter for Houston Instruments DMPL that mapped CAD
       plots onto the DMP-2 incremental plotter.
*      Converted TI Professional computer monitors to run on IBM PC.
*      Wrote a C compiler for the IBM-PC, based on Small C.  Brought the
       implementation up to full K&R Chapter 4.  Wrote a companion symbolic
       debugger that ran on the IBM-PC.
*      Designed and implemented a Video Test Pattern Generator for the Harris
       RTX2000 RISC (FORTH) Processor design contest.  This device read a
       keyboard and produced a video display using the Motorola RGB-NTSC
       converter chipset.  The keyboard was used to walk menus, selecting
       convergence and alignment patterns, and audio output.
*      Wrote a IBM-PC DOS device driver that extended the type-ahead buffer
       from 16 chars to 256.
*      Wrote a IBM-PC DOS keyboard TSR that allowed extensive command line
       editing, access to environment variables, text assignment to function
       keys.  Similar to (and written before) DOSKEY.
*      Designed and implemented the only _true_ IBM PC teletext decoder board.
       Using the Plessy teletext chipset to extract teletext from a composite
       video input, the packets were fed into the DMA interface of the PC, and
       decoded in software.  Designed and made a small run of the PC boards.
       One objective was low-cost extraction of the commodities information.
*      Acquired Amateur Radio License Extra Class, and Commercial GROL
       (formerly known as First Class).
*      Built an audio-RS232 interface, and used HamComm and various FAX
       programs for decoding WEatherFAX and morse code transmissions.
*      Built a 2-meter FM transciever Ramsey kit, and constructed an amateur
       radio packet-modem station, using BayCom software and a homemade
       J-pole antenna.
*      Wrote a Win31 application that reads the dynamic IP address after
       dialup and writes it and the current time and date to a website using
       FTP to a password-protected account.
*      Wrote finger and Ping clients.
*      Wrote the only _TRUE_ multi-server usenet newsreader, AllNews, which
       is touted at the URL at the top of this resume.  This Windows 3.1
       MSVC++ (MFC) application allows the user to specify several news
       servers (instead of the traditional single server), combines the
       contents of these servers into a single user display, and distributes
       the download requests to maximize the modem throughput.  Used in
       combination with a companion application, DCD, carrier loss is
       detected, the modem is redialled, and downloads are restarted.