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Steve's  Resumé

Steve, Age: 4    Steve Today
Steve at Four Years   Steve Today


12/85 to Present - (Age: 30 - 50)

President and Founder, Gibson Research Corporation
Located in Laguna Hills, CA 92653

1986 to 1993 — Leading weekly columnist (eight years 'TechTalk' column) and Contributing Editor to InfoWorld Magazine.

Gibson Research Corporation, a California Corporation, whose sole shareholder is Steve Gibson, is a respected software developer and publisher with a multitude of current and past products to its credit:

  • ChromaZone - The world's first 3D, virtual reality, real-time, interactive, screen saver construction set - praised by PC/Computing and PC Magazine. Awarded Dr. File Finder's Picks for December 1995 on Microsoft Network, "Single most spectacular product reviewed."
  • SpinRite - Winner of BYTE Magazine's prestigious First Award of Product Distinction, is a unique hard disk low-level reformatting utility for use with all IBM PC and compatible personal computers. Periodic use maintains a hard disk in "like new" condition, preventing long term head-to-track alignment drift, and eliminating the effects of disk surface defect drift. After eight years on the market, SpinRite is currently at version 5.0, recently celebrating its tenth birthday.
  • FlickerFree - A successful operating system extension (resident software program) which eliminates the annoying scrolling flicker present in IBM's original CGA (color graphics adapter) and all close compatibles. FlickerFree also increases screen display speed tremendously by 400% to 1100%.

Gibson Research Corporation is a recognized leading developer of personal computer software, and significant ongoing contributor to the personal computer industry. Steve routinely speaks to industry-related groups around the country on the subject of the technology, experience, and future, of personal computing. After eight years writing InfoWorld Magazine's top-ranked weekly TechTalk column, Steve continues serving as a contributing editor for InfoWorld.


12/83 to 12/85 - (Age: 28 - 30)

Independent Consultant, weekly columnist, and Contributing Editor to a Major PC Industry Magazine.

Specializing in the research, design, and development of applications for microcomputer hardware and software technology in the fields of: consumer electronics, robotics technology, medical electronics (with emphasis and experience in applications to cardiology), speech synthesis and recognition, micropower long-life technology and applications, high volume consumer business and home software package design and development.

Fluent in many popular micro, mini, and mainframe computer machine/assembly languages including: 6502, 8080, Z80, 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, 68000, 32000, COPS-400, TMS 1000, Nova, PDP-8, PDP-10, PDP-11, VAX 11/780, Interdata 7/16 & 7/32, and also with several higher-level languages including BASIC, C, PASCAL, MODULA, FORTH, ALGOL, FORTRAN, LISP and SMALLTALK.

Clients include: Amiga, Apple Computer, Atari, Hovik Medical Group, Information Mapping Inc., Koala Technologies, Microsoft, Sony Corporation of America, and Xanaro Technologies.

Projects completed include:

  • The specification and detailed design of the windowing video display architecture for SONY Corporation's forthcoming personal computer.
  • The hardware and software customization of a standard TeleVideo 955 video display terminal allowing it to support up to 80 simultaneous overlapping windows, the addition of a light pen and 512K bytes of window storage memory.
  • The design and full implementation of a promising new approach to computer-based image animation with full "tweening" and automatic generation of inter-frame "in between" images. This new technology was demonstrated at the Winter CES (Consumer Electronics Show), receiving tremendous acclaim.
  • Invention and development of a new telecommunications protocol for speeding and automating on-line computer sessions. This was implemented on "The Source" public telecommunications system - and is now widely known as the "Gibson Blink" technique.
  • Design of a consumer software product which was dubbed "CAPABILITY." It was the first desktop publishing system for IBM compatible PC's, allowing mixed text and graphics document preparation and embellishment with an advanced, "Better-Than-Mac" user-interface.
  • Design of a finished light pen hardware and software system for Atari Corporation. This included a finished ROM cartridge for operation with all Atari personal computers.
  • Design of a finished light pen hardware and software system for Atari Corporation. This included a finished ROM cartridge for operation with all Commodore C64 personal computers.

6/81 to 12/83 - (Age: 26 - 28)

President and Founder, Gibson Laboratories, Inc.
Laguna Hills, CA

Gibson Laboratories, Inc., a Delaware Corporation, a hardware and software manufacturing firm, designed, developed, manufactured, marketed, and supported a combined hardware and software high-resolution light pen system pointing device known as the LPS II - Light Pen System for Apple II (aka The Gibson Light Pen System). Gibson Laboratories financed its growth entirely from profits and attained a high profile as a leading designer and producer in the personal computer industry. The company and rights to all products was sold to Atari Corporation when the home computer and low-end personal computer market began to soften.

After management migration at Atari, all rights to Gibson's proprietary hardware and software technologies were recovered by Gibson and a successor product, the Gibson Light Pen for Apple II computers was designed and manufactured under contract to Koala Technologies.


2/80 to 6/81 - (Age: 24 - 26)

Independent Consultant
406 Orange Blossom, Irvine, CA

Projects completed include:

  • The development of a microcomputer-based Holter Recorder for 24-hour cardiac monitoring of out-patients in post-op and during annual cardiac checkups. An entirely new market was created due to the recorder's ability to perform real-time, on-the-fly analysis of ECG data. The analysis results were then written onto the tape cartridge, multiplexed with the entire 24-hour, two-channel ECG data recording. This eliminated the need for subsequent manual interpretation of ECG and sped results to physicians. This work was completed in association with Hovik Medical Corporation.
  • The development and perfection of two differing techniques for non-invasive ambulatory monitoring of heart pulse rate.
  • The first was a slip-on-the-finger, ultra-miniature monitor/chronometer for sports and general health applications. This device utilized strobed reflected infrared illumination to detect blood volume of finger-tip capillaries. The result was then fed through a simple delta-modulation detector for digital pulse-peak discrimination.
  • The second pulse-rate monitor was never taken to market, but it looked extremely promising when work on it was suspended. It was to be a completely functional wristwatch with a specially designed wristband carrying a piezoelectric crystal transducer. Arterial blood flow was monitored via mechanical/acoustical means to determine pulse rate and pulse pressure.

Both products were developed in association with Holt, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA, a custom CMOS LSI circuit designer and fabricator.

  • Development of a medication-schedule wristwatch for Human Systems, Inc. as an aid for persons requiring periodic ingestion of medication. Once set, the watch would signal at prescribed times and/or intervals until silenced by the wearer.
  • Development for Human Systems through the prototype stage of a two-channel thermal stress monitor for use as a relaxation training device. The display was a dynamic graphic "bar chart" which eased trainee interpretation. Audio feedback cues were later added to enhance the psycho-biological feedback of the device.
  • Formation of a joint venture for the extensive research and development, with surprising success, into speech recognition. The target application area was the market for non-trainable, speaker independent limited vocabulary recognition for high volume consumer electronics sector. A proprietary technique was designed and developed which appeared to extract the proper "word descriptors" thus affording highly speaker-independent recognition. Funding for this research was provided by Holt, Inc. Gibson retained ownership of the technology and Holt retained manufacturing rights.
  • A fully functional prototype of a monitoring device suitable for monitoring, detecting, and alarming in the event of infantile respiratory dilemmas such as those associated with SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) was invented, developed, and tested. This monitor was unique in its ability to independently measure the heart rate and respiration of a human being at over three feet of distance without contact of any kind.

4/79 to 2/80 - (Age: 24)

Director of Engineering
Hovik Corporation, Irvine, CA

Responsibilities include: New product planning, new product design, existing product engineering support, marketing/engineering liaison.

Company was joined at an extremely critical time. Its existing product failures were greatly hindering corporate cash flow. Several critical areas of the company's existing ECG Holter recorder product line were immediately redesigned to eliminate or minimize field failures.

Other projects completed include:

  • The specification and development of H.E.R.M.E.S. - Hovik Extensive Rapid Medical Evaluation System. HERMES was to be a fully automated, multi-parameter, real-time and batch, multi-user medical diagnosis data base with interactive and background user interfaces.
  • The invention and development of a cardiac "cardboard slide rule" which served as an inexpensive guide for demonstrating and determining the sensitivity of various physiological factors to cardiac arrest probability. This "cardiac risk factor predictor" was mass produced and distributed nationally.
  • The development of an ultra-miniature "medallion" dual-channel ECG ambulatory telemetry system which greatly eased the problems associated with traditional, bulky and visible, 24-hour Holter (ECG) monitoring.

1/79 to 3/79 - (Age: 23)

Independent Consultant
406 Orange Blossom, Irvine, CA

During this period, an electronic game product known as "Tuneful Tilly" (later renamed Garfunkle) was developed. Costs associated with patent protection and product production stalled further pursuit.


7/78 to 1/79 - (Age: 23)

Founded Gibson & Garnish Advertising
Tustin, CA

Believing that there was a need for a competent high-tech advertising and promotion agency, Gibson founded a proprietorship specializing in media advertising and public relations for high-technology computer and related firms.

Gibson & Garnish grew to service thirteen technology and computer industry accounts before being purchased by FROST, SCHAFFER & LATREILLE, a major Santa Ana based advertising agency. All account responsibilities were transferred at that time.


7/77 to 7/78 - (Age: 22 - 23)

Director of Marketing, Educational Data Systems
Irvine, CA

Responsibilities include: Future product planning, Advertising and promotion, Management of their direct sales force.

Gibson was brought into EDS to reverse their negative sales growth. The sales force was reorganized and new emphasis was placed upon public relations and media coverage. Sales policies and strategies were reevaluated and changed. Prior to this the sales effort had been operating under an individual who understood sales but not marketing.

The company's image was turned around, resulting in significantly boosted market performance.


5/77 to 7/77 - (Age: 22)

Independent Consultant to Western Telegraph and Telephone Company.

A microprocessor-based, hotel message unit accounting system for multi-message unit call billing was developed, and preliminary research into feasibility and implementation of self programming applications software systems for mass market business systems was conducted.


3/75 to 7/77 - (Age: 20 - 22)

Vice President, Marketing, Operations, Product Design and Development
Minicomputer Technology
Palo Alto, CA

Gibson joined an existing company with two employees which had been surviving in a self-financed mode from its inception several years before. Two years later, still entirely self-financed, Minicomputer Technology had achieved annualized sales of over two million dollars. During that time the company designed, introduced and shipped five new products.


5/72 to 3/75 - (Age: 17 - 20)

Vice President, Systems Development
Advanced Information Design
Mountain View, CA

Responsibilities include hardware and software design and the implementation of many new features of a multi-user business computer system.

Completed projects include:

  • The development of a read-only memory crash-safe automatic loader with microcode support.
  • The development of several new mass storage media packages. My performance during this project led to my employment by MiniComputer Technology.
  • The design and development of a theft-proof software capability implemented through changes to the micro-code of the host computer.
  • The design and implementation of an entirely new interrupt driven concurrent ring-buffered terminal I/O system for the Interdata's operating system.

1/70 to 5/72 - (Age: 15 - 17)

Employed by Stanford University, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Palo Alto, CA

While attending high school, Gibson was employed by the prestigious Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), working alongside Stanford's post-graduate students and helping with their fundamental doctoral research.

Projects completed include:

  • Work with ex-IBM Research Fellow Arthur Samuel, applying advanced concepts of machine learning and pattern recognition to machine understanding of natural human speech.
  • Development of adaptive techniques in real-time image processing with application for Bell Telephone Picturephone camera controller.
  • Design and construction of a PDP-10 to Xerox Graphics Printer (XGP) interface for experimental XGP Serial Number 1 printer. The world's first functioning laser printer. Fully supported the interface electronics with PDP-10 system software allowing emulation of existing graphic and textual output mediums.
  • Participation in the design and implementation of a computer piloted vehicle with fully machine interpreted vision for real-world modeling for future Mars and Venus autonomous probe applications.
  • Development and prototyping of a version of linear predictive coding (LPC) speech synthesis technology which was subsequently adapted by Texas Instruments for their "Speak and Spell" family of speaking products.

3/68 to 1/70 - (Age: 13 - 15)

Tecnica Education Corporation
San Carlos, CA

Responsibilities include the design and implementation of enhancements to the company's product line, especially Data General NOVA and Hewlett Packard 2116 based timesharing systems.

Projects completed include:

  • Development of a mark-sense card reader and hardware/software interface into the Data General timesharing system.
  • Development of complete hardware and software controls for a Houston Instruments digital incremental plotter.
  • Development of a telephone activated remote power controller for unattended operator-free computer system power activation.



PROFESSIONAL ENGAGEMENTS:

  • Speaker at Creative Think's Success In Software conference, Palo Alto, CA / October 4, 1983
  • Speaker at Esther Dyson's Personal Computer Forum, Phoenix, AZ / February 6-8, 1984
  • Speaker at Creative Think's Success In Software conference, Palo Alto, CA / September 26, 1984
  • Frequent speaker at many local Orange County and Los Angeles IBM PC computer user groups.
  • Weekly columnist writing a top-ranked column for a Major PC Industry weekly magazine.

EDUCATION:

University of California at Berkeley. EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences) major with 4.0 average.


AWARDS & HONORS:

  • Bank of America Laboratory Sciences Achievement Award
  • Computer Sciences Honors Award
  • BYTE Magazine award of Product Distinction for SpinRite.
  • Best Advertisement of 1990, Marketing Computers magazine.

OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS:

While attending High School, Gibson conceived, implemented, and taught two years of computer science electronics curriculum. The resulting courseware was then expanded throughout the San Mateo Union High School District and is still being taught today.



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