John has been a self-employed consultant and contractor for over 25 years specializing in cross architecture porting and performance engineering across a wide range of hardware and software systems. He has extensive experience with UNIX Kernel Internals and Driver development since 1975. He completed the first commercial Unix V7 Microprocessor port for the Onyx Z8002 desktop system in the spring of 1980. In 1981 he joined Fortune Systems during the early start-up phase to became a key contributor for the business plan which produced the first high volume, low cost, desktop Unix system based upon the Motorola M68000 Microprocessor. Since then John has continued supporting Unix related product development as an evangelist, lecturer, consultant and contractor.

Resume

John L. Bass
B.S. Computer Science
D.B.A.: DMS Design
jbass@dmsd.com
(970) 227-2227

Areas of Expertise

Hardware/Software Systems Architecture, UNIX Porting and Systems Programming, Large Applications Porting, Performance Evaluation/Tuning, Device Drivers, SCSI drivers/firmware, Graphics Software, Networking, Microprocessor Based Hardware Designs, Diagnostics, Firmware, Drivers, and Operating System Development. Hardware/software development or reverse engineering for a wide variety of platforms. I have an extensive development lab with a wide variety of hardware and software development systems including Silicon Graphics Workstations (IRIX), Apple Macintoshes (MacOS & A/UX), 386/486/Pentium Servers(Win95, NT, Xenix, SCO UNIX, SCO ODT, SCO OpenServer, UnixWare, Solaris X86, FreeBSD, Linux and NextStep), plus hardware development/debugging/reverse engineering tools including a CAD tools, PROM/PLD programmers, Oscilloscopes, and several HP and Dolch Logic analyzers.

Employment History

Oct 1983 to Present: DMS Design, Owner & Consultant

DMS Design's diverse project history spans UNIX Operating System and Application development, porting, performance engineering and device driver development for major UNIX vendors and VARs. Have completed several UNIX ports, including an SCO UNIX port under contract to SCO for the Altos 1000 series systems. Experienced with Motorola 68K, 80X86 Intel based UNIX PC's and high performance multi-processor UNIX systems, DEC PDP11/VAX/RISC under UNIX/Ultrix & VMS, and MIPS/SUN/SGI RISC based UNIX systems. Hardware and software development of a single board UNIX system, SCSI host adapters, and interface boards with supporting diagnostics, firmware, and device drivers. Developed first Macintosh SCSI disk and tape products. Employees may be available to support larger development and porting contracts.

Jan 1981 to Sept 1983: Fortune Systems, Sr. Software Engr & Manager.

Joined during startup developing parts of the technical business plan, systems architecture, and gave technical presentations for investors. Worked in a variety of design and development roles during prototype and product development as a senior member of the development team. Formed and managed 5 member engineering software support and diagnostic team. Active in new product design teams and 3rd party product evaluations. Member of crisis management teams for manufacturing problems. Fortune Systems representative to /usr/group standards committee, chairman of UNIX extensions sub-committee.

Jan 1980 to Jan 1981: ONYX Systems, UNIX Software Engineer.

Joined during startup development of Z8000 based system as the UNIX Specialist in a 5 member hardware/software engineering team. Ported the UNIX V7 operating system and stand-alone support software to the Z8000 including all machine interface and driver software development. Aided in the porting of UNIX utilities and applications. Debugged hardware and software problems in "dog boards and systems" during manufacturing ramp-up and production. Extended locking system call into UNIX file locking protocol resulting in lockf system call and promoted as public domain /usr/group UNIX systems standard.

Oct 1976 to Jan 1980: SRI International, UNIX Systems Programmer.

Installed, managed and maintained a production 20 user PDP11/45 UNIX system with a staff of three. Designed and implemented device drivers for graphics devices and ARPANET interface. Did custom modifications in Nroff/Troff. Implemented slave LSI11/UNIX text processing stations. Provided design and development support for client projects. Provided in-house UNIX training and consulting.

Fall 1968 to Oct 1976: Other Full-time, Part-time, and Contract Jobs.

Electronic technician for Bill Maxwell's TV and Appliance and Custom Electronic Design. (1968 to 1970)

Keypunch operator, tab equipment programmer/operator, IBM 1401/360/370 computer operator, and 360/370 DOS applications and systems programmer at various sites. Extensive 360 BAL, BASIC and COBOL coding during development, conversion, re-write and modification of GL, AR, AP, PR, forecasting, inventory, and scheduling systems for various clients. Porting applications, performance tuning and systems programming for various clients in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. (1969 thru 1976)

Converted PDP11 RX11D graphics facility to UNIX for campus wide use, including device driver development for 5 specialized graphics devices, applications porting, plus system administration for a year and a half. Designed & developed locking system call to manage resources for multi-process graphical applications, UNIX training for faculty, staff and students. (1975 and 1976)