Embedded Linux Software Engineering

Wilbert L. (Wil) Blake

******@*****.***

www.emsys.net

www.linkedin.com/in/wilblake

Executive Summary

Entrepreneurial Senior developer skilled in life cycle for systems, software, and hardware.

Skills

Programming Tools: GCC, Forth, Perl, Visual Basic, VBA, SQL, Shell scripts, Xscale/ARM/OMAP, Clipper/xbase

Applications: Mobile database, mobile video, Firmware, Linux bootloader, BSP, Telemetry, Set-top box, Access/Excel VBA, Financial reporting, data translation/conversion, board bring-up, Integrated Library System.

Operating Systems: SwiftX, Linux, PowerTV, WindowsCE, Windows XP Pro, Cygwin

Education

Master of Science, Computer Engineering, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 1995

Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 1986

Professional Experience

Frederick County Maryland Public Libraries 2019 – Present

Software Integration Specialist

Support for CarlX and Symphony Integrated Library Systems (ILS): custom API scripts in Perl, custom Patron Loader, SQL database queries, custom Python MARC technical services to support FRBR maintenance. Support for public address systems used for Children Services. Support for staff offsite.

Frederick County Community College 2017 – 2023

Adjunct Instructor

Taught courses in Computer Organization and Architecture and Introductory Android Development.

Embedded & Mobile Systems, Inc 1999 - 2019

Lead Engineer

Graphing application utility for City of Fort Lauderdale Wastewater Treatment Monitoring. This effort used Microsoft Access 2007 and Excel 2007 to update graph utilities used to monitor flows in a waste water system. Data connectivity used links to text files combined with queries that sorted data according to minute by minute reports collected from Julian calendar days.

Developed MS Access Barcode identification "Age Verifier" application: This MS Access VBA application supported multiple variations of the drivers licenses standard and contained checks for legal age and valid license.

Repair data loss occurring in Forth Programming Language application in control board for water treatment scrubber. This freelance project occurred for a manufacturer of water treatment control instruments.

Support rugged POTS telephone using Cypress PSoC microcontroller. This collaboration with a 30 year old Central Florida telephone handset manufacturer company represents collaborative incremental approach to maintenance of a product that has legacy and modern elements.

Developed ARM Assembler test bench firmware for LCD and VLIO interfaces to Xscale processor based mobile device. Used Intel and EPI Tools JTAG Debuggers. Used Wasabi Xscale gcc compiler, Cygwin, Intel SDT, and CForth. Developed board bring-up code for various subsystems including 16 bit graphics, USB enumeration, and VLIO bus FPGA communications device, and the OS hardware abstraction layer. Supported OS supplier Bsquare as liaison for hw/sw integration.

Contributed to database training, design, and work processes for DHL Americas Performance group. Developed MS Access VBA, Shell Scripts, queries, and reports. Customized Travel reporting system.

Technotransfers/Ametek May 2010 – Nov 2010

Development Embedded and Web Software for Serial Event Recorder (SER). This effort used gnu tools to develop and support an Embedded Linux system having alarm inputs, Modbus RTU and TCP interfaces, and a Web management User Interface. Middleware used C++ APIs for event registration, notification, management and alarm log interfacing. Tools leveraged gnu emacs, gmake, g++/gcc, gdb, bash. Responsibilities included development, release management, and support.

Conserto Dec 2009 - April 2010

Senior Engineer

Supported WAMP stack based telephony conferencing bridge: conference call troubleshooting, system maintenance. Supported and maintained 3CX VoIP PBX with outside STUN extensions: ring groups, troubleshooting. Developed anti-fraud telephony extension to voice conferencing system using the VOS programming language. Migrated and combined corporate email to new hosting service: filtering, forwarding. Documented IT Processes to improve end-user productivity.

xG Technologies Aug 2011 – Dec 2011

Wrote C firmware for OMAP C64x DSP to program Altera Cyclone II FPGA. Used Open Embedded TI CodeComposer Studio 5, Gnuemacs, and Altera Quartus tools.

Technipower/Ametek Sept 2008 – Jan 2009

Contract Senior Software Engineer

Ported u-boot and Linux to PowerPC based Freescale 8313 serial event recorder system: serial port, Ethernet, TCP/IP, device tree. Used gnu ppc tools, VMWare Fedora 7 Linux Virtual Image,and Linux Target Image Builder (LTIB). Migrated legacy RMA database from Access 95 to Access 2003.

Pace Microtechnologies April 2007 – Sept 2008

Senior Software Engineer

Developed, supported and maintained Linux and Scientfic Atlanta PowerTV Operating System set-top box codebase for products based on Broadcom 74XX set-top box ICs used on the MIPS 32 architecture core.

Develop Motorola cable network secondary bootloader download protocol application for embedded Linux set-top box using Broadcom MIPS-32 processor. Marked largely an effort to learn the Motorola cable download protocol, this effort had the all too frequent exclusive reliance on “printf” debugging rather than a source language debugger. This development work leveraged Linux and Cygwin tools, the BASH shell, Emacs editor, GCC compiler and binutils, the GDB debugger, and the Mentor / MAJIC JTAG ICE. Value added work : scripting using serial ports and the Scientific Atlanta DNCS cable network management tools.

Tyco Fire and Security 2003-2004

Sr Engineer, Advanced Research and Development

Wireless Sensor Gateway: wrote Windows CE 3.0 API application to obtain sensor data and save it in a Database. This project uses ActiveSync to synchronize to an MS Access Database. It also includes a MS Access Data Access Page (DAP).

Lead development of patented (EU O5002498.3) Database Consolidation Server with wireless video. This server included an IIS front end and an OLE DB Jet Database, and multimedia video clips from a video surveillance system. Web services, notification, Server technology used ADO and ODBC database connectivity Windows Sockets, WMV video, and Outlook Email. Utilized 802.11b, CDMA1xRTT, GPRS, and Bluetooth and wireless technology to verify wireless client access to the consolidation database.

Wrote client applications using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Tcl, and HTML technology displayable on Windows Mobile Smartphones and PocketPCs.

Embedded Systems Consultant 1994 – 1998

Outr.Net Inc., Motorola, Siemens, Racal Datacom, Encore Computer, Daleen Technologies Lead Development of two applications for Motorola FlexScript Pagers, (C++/C Device Driver Firmware) lead for Physical Layer software for HFC RF link, Lead Hardware developer for E1 communications adapter, Diagnostic Software developer for Distributed Shared Memory adapter. UI developer for Cellular Telephone.

IBM Corporation, Boca Raton, FL 1991- 1994

Digital Design Engineer

Development leader for notebook computer power-management ASIC. Developer on VHDL XGA Graphics ASIC module. Hardware lead engineer for rugged pen-based computer main board

Compaq Computer Corporation, Houston, TX 1989– 1990

ASIC and Hardware Development Engineer

Responsible for foundry release, defect diagnosis, repair of accelerated VGA graphics ASIC.

Developed multi-processor interface bus for a newly released X86 compatible microprocessor.

Wang Laboratories, Lowell, MA 1986– 1989

Digital Design Engineer

Developer for ISA and MicroChannel option boards, bus mapping logic, and diags using X86 Asm and Forth.

Example Embedded Projects

Firmware for OMAP3530 C64x DSP to program Altera Cyclone device using and rpd file. Used OpenEmbedded, TI CodeComposer, and Altera Quartus tools in Ubuntu 10.10 development host.

Embedded and Web Software for Serial Event Recorder (SER). This effort used gnu tools to develop and support an Embedded Linux system having alarm inputs, Modbus RTU and TCP interfaces, and a Web management User Interface. Middleware used C++ APIs for event registration, notification, management and alarm log interfacing. Tools leveraged gnu emacs, gmake, g++, gdb, bash.

Repair data loss occurring in Forth Programming Language application. I resolved a data loss in the control board for water treatment scrubber. I used Forth source browsing tools, collaboration with the tools vendor and customer to correct this problem. Primarily a post-mortem debugging effort, this project revealed that Forth applications can indeed provide useful documentation for the software life-cycle. Tools used included a Forth cross development environment, ROM programmer, and web search tools.

Bring-up software for a PowerPC 8313 embedded web server. This project called for porting u-boot, the Linux 2.6 embedded kernel, and rootfs to a PowerPC 8313 web server. Here I took on the software bring-up of a newly developed board based on a vendor platform development kit. This project typified hardware bring-up activities : bring-up of serial ports, diagnosis and repair of MII Ethernet. Similarly this project leveraged typical bring-up tools : JTAG emulator, digital storage oscilloscope, Hex editor. Originally this effort focused on serial event data collection, however the hardware proved incomplete necessitating extended bring-up activities. High level application development used Gnu GCC and Freescale tools like LTIB and CodeWarrior. Work on this project demonstrated competency learning new processors, leveraging open source tools, and diagnosing hardware defects, a skill garnered over many years as a digital design engineer.

Develop prototype Motorola DigiCipher/MSP protocol cable network secondary Linux bootloader. I developed C and MIPS assembly bootloader firmware in combination with DAC 6000 cable network headend packaging utilities for the bootloader cable network download application for embedded Linux set-top box using Gnu GCC compiler toolchain targeting a Broadcom MIPS-32 processor. Marked largely an effort to learn the Motorola cable download protocol, this effort had the all too frequent exclusive reliance on “printf” debugging rather than a source language debugger. Interestingly DOCSIS Common Download will bring TCP/IP facilities to the Motorola network, a feature already present in the SA PowerKey system.

Develop and Support PowerKey network /PowerTV OS compatible Set-Top Boxes. My efforts here supported set-top box "driver" middleware running on the Chicago/Pocono Standard definition set-top and the Corona High Definition set-tops. Tools used included the Cygwin hosted gcc tools. Development responsibility included support for a key cable Multi Service Operator customer having issues with HDMI displays, remote diagnostics, and a custom application. Key contributions included hardware support for RF downstream and upstream calibrations, Dolby audio testing, Test Task, factory testing, factory support for production Flash images. Along with SA Headend DNCS tools, I leveraged equipment and instruments such as the Mentor Majic JTAG debugger along with software development life cycle tools like CVS Version control, Bugzilla defect database, Build++ custom cross-platform configuration management build tools, Source Insight source code browsing, and test automation scripting using both Procomm Aspect and SA Cmd2000.

Add software features to rugged POTS telephone using Cypress PSoC microcontroller. This ongoing collaboration with a long standing company represents collaborative incremental approach to maintenance of a product that has legacy telephony requirements using a modern customizable microcontroller. Tools here consisted of the PSoC Designer and both the Hi-Tech and ImageCraft C compilers, and venerable gnuemacs extensible programmers editor augmented with cscope and ctags.

Develop diagnostics and bring-up code for Secure Mobile Device (SMD). I wrote and developed bring-up code for an Intel Xscale ARM Processor device dubbed the “presidential blackberry.” I delivered demonstrable results that included LCD graphics display programming, FPGA verification software, and arbitrating hardware / software testing mismatches. Here a “get it working soon” focus motivated use of multiple toolchains and programming languages : Intel Xscale tools, Mentor Majic JTAG ICE, Microsoft Windows Platform Builder, and OpenFirmware Cforth. Intel Premium Support and Open Firmware's Forth wizardry easily saved two months from this five-month effort.

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) I/O Expansion Design. This low-power digital design effort provided I/O expansion for an Intel SA-110 based PDA. National Instruments Multisim and Ultiboard schematic and PCB layout tools offered low-cost professional results in this “quickturn” effort that leveraged Internet Printed Circuit Board design combined with DigiKey component procurement.

Condition Monitoring Equipment Data Acquisition. This project served up a prototype for an Analog Devices 8051 microcontroller based data acquisition system using Keil C tools featuring ultrasonic sampling, A/D Conversion, peak detection, filtering, and data upload via USB to a Windows PC host running a VB6 data collection application. Though technical progress began fitfully and improved dramatically, mixed business results on this effort point to the service provider/ customer relations in establishing mutually agreeable project goals.

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