Sole proprietor of Blonde Guy, Santa Cruz, CA, http://www.blondeguy.com
Blonde Guy is an IBM OS/2 consulting business, working mainly for large corporations with legacy systems in need of support. I have serviced and upgraded Ford assembly lines for a supplier of automation equipment, maintained the fare card system for the New York City Subway system and done a variety of tasks for smaller systems.
Suntan Special is a complex OS/2 software package that does system maintenance, installation and configuration management. Suntan Special has been offered for sale since April, 2003. Suntan Special is used internally at Blonde Guy to encapsulate the knowledge of how to install sets of applications on OS/2, ArcaOS and eComStation.
Blonde Guy maintains a web site to sell computers preloaded with ArcaOS. The computers are used desktop and laptop computers carefully tested and configured with software for common office tasks and software development.
I am an Arca Noae reseller. I can provide new licenses for this OS/2 compatible operating system. I am a member of the ArcaOS development team.
I've written many articles about various aspects of OS/2, collected on the Blonde Guy website as OS/2 Technical Notes.
Secretary and member of the board of directors, Warpstock Corporation
Warpstock Corporation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting education, information, and social opportunities to those persons interested in computer operating systems and related software through the production of an annual technology conference. As chairman of the speaker's committee, I managed all of the presenters at the conference.
Vice President and member of the board of directors
The Virtual OS/2 International Consumer Education (VOICE) is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the OS/2 and eComStation operating systems, the education of their users, improving the communication between the creators of the operating systems, ISVs, developers, consultants, and consumers as well as representing the community of users to the public.
VOICE asked me to head their PMMail/2 project in September 2006. Reporting directly to the VOICE board of directors, lead a team of 22 developers to modernize PMMail/2, an OS/2 e-mail client. Responsibilities included project management, source code control, coding, documentation, marketing, web site maintenance, customer relations and sales.
The team is all volunteer, and is located in various locations around the world. Communications between team members is handled by several Web and Internet tools, such as and e-mail listserv, a Wiki, a bug-tracker, web-forums and the Subversion source code repository.
PMMail had been developed for a long time, and then abandoned by its original authors. The OS/2 VOICE corporation purchased the rights for the program, and solicited volunteers to update it and fix bugs. OS/2 VOICE selected Blonde Guy as the project leader.
Software Engineer for Cubic Transportation Systems, San Diego, CA
Maintenance of Fare Card software on OS/2 and Windows NT
C, C++, REXX, Visual Basic
Took over maintenance of all OS/2 software used by the MetroCard fare card system used by New York City Subway System. Performed software and hardware troubleshooting including both modern and PS/2-based Industrial Computers. I used IBM CSet for the software on the PC and Communications Manager/2 to transfer messages to and from the IBM mainframe. Wrote requirements and specification documents for enhancements to the fare card system.
In January, 2003, Blonde Guy started working on the Fare card system for the New York City subway. The Metro Card was introduced in 1994, and is implemented on a network of machines. Blonde Guy is responsible for all OS/2 related aspects of the system.
The new station at the World Trade Center connects the Port Authority Trans Hudson trains with the MTA subway system. Blonde Guy prepared a modified Station Controller to accept PATH fare cards for this new station.
The New York City Transit Authority wanted to add auditing capability to the Fare Card system to ensure correct accounting of the fares collected. Blonde Guy modified the Station Controller software to support this capability.
The NYCTA has a long list of system deviations, Blonde Guy corrected the deviations that concern OS/2 machines. Some of the deviations are on the Station Controller, and some on the machine that encodes the information on the magnetic stripe on the MetroCard.
The fare card for New York is called the MetroCard. Every transaction made by a MetroCard passes through an OS/2 machine at some point. Cash transactions pass through a second OS/2 machine which connects the bill-counting and coin-counting machines to the Area Controller. Fare cards are printed on 15 High Performance Encoding Machines controlled by an OS/2 program.
The tools used to build the Fare card system are IBM C++ Set v2.01 and the OS/2 Developer's Toolkit version 2.1. The program is written in C. Some parts of the system are written in Gpf PM version 2.1.
Blonde Guy made all OS/2 machines and Windows NT based vending machines PCI compliant.
Blonde Guy provided support and configured computers to run automobile assembly lines. Blonde Guy has provided both hardware and software support for a computer that controls the flow of chassis from the paint shop to the assembly line. Reliability is crucial, because if the computer fails, the assembly line is idled. Dematic required support for large numbers of serial ports on OS/2.
In the 1990's, Ford Motor Company was a big backer of OS/2 and many of their industrial and office computers ran OS/2. Twenty years later, some OS/2 is still left, and Ford and their equipment manufacturer contacted Blonde Guy to help them extend the lifetime of their material handling equipment used on several of their assembly lines.
In May, 2002, Blonde Guy started working on the Mean Wafers Before Failure system for a plasma etch processing machine. The program was completed in September, 2002. The program was never deployed due to the downturn in the Semiconductor industry.
In September 2002, Blonde Guy started working on exception handlers for the programs that run on the plasma etch equipment.
The plasma etch machine uses three OS/2 machines. Two of them are dedicated to running each processing chamber, and the last one runs the user interface, the robot arm control and all other tasks.
The tools used to build the plasma etch system are Borland C++ Builder for OS/2, version 2.0 and IBM C++ Set v2.01 and the OS/2 Developer's Toolkit version 2.1. The program is written in C++.
In addition to developing software for the semiconductor equipment, Blonde Guy provides support for all aspects of OS/2, both on the target equipment, and on the development computers.
Starting in 2000, Blonde Guy provided technical support to Intisys, a manufacturer of Industrial Computers. These customized IBM Industrial Computers ran OS/2 Warp 4, and the company lacked resources to support OS/2. Worked with IBM to fix network driver bugs.
In January, 2000, Blonde Guy started providing tech support for a manufacturer of industrial computers. These customized IBM Industrial Computers ran OS/2 Warp 4, and the company lacked resources to support OS/2.
Blonde Guy solved a memory leak problem for a customer with a graphics intensive application under OS/2.
Blonde Guy diagnosed a video problem with IBM industrial computers and managed the correction of the video device driver with the original manufacturer. I also went on-site to manage customer acceptance of the fix.
Blonde Guy created a field replacement unit hard disk, with OS/2 and a configuration program to select among six possible video drivers for each of the computers for which this hard drive is a replacement. Overcame significant BIOS to hard drive compatibility issues.
Blonde Guy helped to migrate a robotics application to newer hardware. The customer has an application distributed over three OS/2 computers on an ethernet network. To get the application to run on IBM's newest industrial computers, Blonde Guy had to overcome faulty network interface drivers and configuration parameters.
Blonde Guy debugged faulty network drivers, graphic drivers and customer software bugs. In the case of the network driver, Blonde Guy provided support for the Kernel Debugger to the driver developers.
Blonde Guy configured an IBM ThinkPad A20 with OS/2 Warp 4 for use as the secondary controller. The ThinkPad is used to apply service and collect data from the industrial computer. My configuration is used as the master disk for all orders for Thinkpads running OS/2.
Blonde Guy provided phone support, e-mail support and on-site visits for industrial computers running OS/2.
In 2002, I started to provide support to Gasonics, for OS/2 computers embedded in their PEP product line of Semiconductor equipment. Wrote exception handlers to gather information about failing systems in the field. Added a module to an OS/2 embedded program to provide reliability measurement and reporting. I used IBM CSet, Borland C++ for OS/2 and Borland Object Windows Library. Gasonics was acquired by Novellus. Novellus was acquired by Lam Research.
In 2011 to 2013, I migrated OS/2 Warp-based Plasma Etch Semiconductor equipment to run on eComStation on modern Industrial computer for Concept Parts Solutions, a dealer in refurbished semiconductor equipment.
Supplied consulting time to assist engineers to support OS/2 Warp-based industrial process control machine. Migrated computers from OS/2 to eComStation. Added motion video support to show training videos to production line workers.
Blonde Guy provided OS/2 consulting to Tekchand, an ATM Refurbisher. Topics have covered C language development tools, code review, OS/2 network applications and configuration and general troubleshooting.
Blonde Guy provides OS/2 consulting for Eckhart's, a chain of welding shops who have all retail locations running OS/2. Multiple terminals are in each store, with a store server and a central server all running OS/2, eComStation and ArcaOS. Uses Personal Communications/2 to communicate with host.
Repaired the OS/2 Warp computer included with the Nicolet Spirit electrodiagnostic tester. Reinstalled OS/2 and Nicolet software after minor hardware repair. In May 2012, supported another client with a Nicolet Spirit tester.
The University of Nebraska, Lincoln Audiology Department contacted me to repair a Nicolet Spirit Evoked Potential System. They were unable to install OS/2 Warp 3.
I replaced a floppy drive, and entered corrected values for CHS into the BIOS and installed OS/2 Warp 3. I then installed the Nicolet Software.
The instrument was functional again after the software reinstall and reconfiguration.
Provided OS/2 support for an upgrade to communication servers. Helped with installation and remote control issues.
Customer needed to upgrade several OS/2-based communications servers providing thousands of telephone circuits for teleconferencing.
Looked at remote control of OS/2 servers using Desktop on Call, NetOp and PMVNC.
Customer with a shop full of laser etching equipment with OS/2 based control computers needed management, communications and backup needs.
Provided an IBM Intellistation with OS/2 and eComStation and Windows 2000 installed. Installed latest fixpaks and created a disaster recovery CD-ROM.
In March, 2002, Blonde Guy built a Scientific Workstation for the University of North Carolina Biology Department.
The workstation was based on an IBM Intellistation, and had two Pentium Xeon 2 GHz CPUs, 2 GB RAM, and an Ultra-SCSI III disk system.
The workstation featured OS/2 Warp on drive D and eComStation 1.0 Pro on drive E. The eComStation Pro support for SMP worked flawlessly on this machine.
The workstation was prepared using Suntan Special software.
Recovery CDs for drive D and E were created using Suntan Special and bootAble.
Provided OS/2 support to a team of developers. Supported Visual Age C++ for OS/2, DB/2, Java 1.3.0, JNI,.
In June, 2002, Blonde Guy started providing on-line help for an OS/2 programming project in India. The developers, who were from a UNIX background, were unfamiliar with OS/2 programming.
Blonde Guy provided help for the tools used to create and debug the software. At the project continued, Blonde Guy also provided guidance for the OS/2 API, for exception handling, for the Java Native Interface, and for Shared Memory.
The code was in C++ and Java. The tools used were the OS/2 Developer's Toolkit, version 4.51, Visual Age C++ version 3.08 and the IBM Java JDK 1.3.0.
The project was completed rapidly and was shipped on time.
Blonde Guy serviced the computer and added networking support to a Thermwood 91000 Model 40 with controller model 1999, moving table and 8 position turret head.
Blonde Guy wrote software for operating system power management to be included in the distribution of eComStation.
Blonde Guy wrote software to automatically repair OS/2 hard drive corruption by replacing damaged files at boot time.
Senior Software Engineer for Wyatt River Software, Santa Cruz, CA
Web application - user interface using Java/Swing
Software usage measurement - agent using C/Win32, Win16, OS/2, MacOS
Software licensing tool - server and library using C/Solaris, Win32, Win16, NT, OS/2, HP-UX, AIX, VMS, UNIX SVR4, Cray UNICOS, NetWare, MacOS
Patent 6021438 License Management System using Daemons and Aliasing
Software Engineer for Spectra-Physics Analytical, San Jose, CA.
Spectra-Physics Analytical was acquired by Thermo Separation Products. Starting November, 1993, worked as a consultant.
Prepared feasibility studies of data reduction techniques for liquid chromatography. Used C and Excel
Wrote Liquid Chromatography data reduction and instrument control software in C under OS/2 Presentation Manager
Automated build and source code control using PVCS
Administered a Novell NetWare network for twelve developers.
Developed procedures for ISO 9000 certification
Software Engineer for Waters Chromatography Division, Millipore Corporation, Milford, MA. Millipore sold Waters Chromatography Division to Waters Corporation.
Developed data reduction software for High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Gel Permeation Chromatography and Process Control in FORTRAN, BASIC and C under VAX/VMS and RSX-11
Software developer for AT&T, Basking Ridge, NJ
Wrote software to customize a database package for a marketing measurement system using FORTRAN under VM/CMS
Software Developer for Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
Wrote software to customize a database system for maintenance of long distance network equipment using PL/1 under MVS
BS Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1978
Systems and Software Requirements Management, California State University at Long Beach, 1999
President, OS/2 Bay Area Users Group
Secretary and Board of Directors, Warpstock Corporation
Vice President and Board of Directors, Virtual OS/2 International Consumer Education (VOICE)
Member, American Chemical Society
Patent 6021438 License Management System using Daemons and Aliasing