Academic Computing Resume
Richard M. Alderson, III (Rich)
Email: [email protected] Sammamish, WA LinkedIn! Contact Info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rich-alderson-2610292
CAREER SUMMARY:
Experienced systems and applica ons programmer on legacy mainframe pla orms, able to work on systems wri en both in high-level and assembly languages. My primary systems work has been done on IBM and DEC mainframes, with occasional work on other architectures as needed. I managed teams of student employees as opera ons supervisor and systems programmer in an academic compu ng facility at Stanford University; supported accounts payable and general ledger applica ons for the University of Chicago, followed by installing a new electronic mail system for the en re university; did opera ng systems development and maintenance for a successful startup; and was the systems administrator and developer on a heterogeneous mix of working large and small compu ng systems in a museum se ng. I am familiar with several older programming languages and thus able and willing to work on legacy systems which put off other developers, but am also able to fit into large system shops running modern hardware.
Experienced curator in computer museum emphasizing public interac on with vintage systems. In addi on to cura on, acted at mes as exhibit designer, collec ons manager, restora on and conserva on specialist, acquisi ons specialist, lecturer, educator, and tour guide.
TECHNICAL PROFICIENCY: (COULD ALSO LIST FUNCTIONAL SKILLS, ETC)
1 COBOL 68/74/85 6 Specializa on in systems analysis 2 PL/I 7 Accounts payable, systems programming 3 TOPS-20/Tops-10 8 Microso Office and Visio 4 VM/SP and MVS 9 Adobe Acrobat 5 Several flavors of Unix from DEC/HP/Sun/IBM 10 Successful at mul ple employers 11 With previous company for 17 years
WORK EXPERIENCE:
Vulcan Inc., Seattle, WASHINGTON 2004 - 2020 Senior Systems Engineer (Vintage Systems): In the setting of Living Computers: Museum+Labs, supported multiple systems from different vendors, keeping them running as well as administering on-line account requests and supporting active user communities on every system. In addition, acted at times as curator, exhibit designer, collections manager, restoration and conservation specialist, acquirer of historical computers, lecturer, and tour guide. • Developed software tools and techniques to allow installation of the WAITS operating system (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) on a system at the museum. WAITS never had a concept of installation, having grown organically over a period of 25 years. Creatively misusing a debugging tool to write formatting information and a program binary onto a disk, I was able to create a bootable system disk and run the OS for remote access.
• Recovered files containing a prerelease version of BASIC for the Altair 8800 computer from intentionally obscured images of media belonging to Paul Allen, who then used these to recreate the BASIC program demonstrated to Ed Roberts of MITS which led to the founding of Microsoft.
• Negotiated the acquisition of a DEC PDP-7 computer from the Nuclear Physics Laboratory at the University of Oregon, shepherding it through deinstallation, the State of Oregon auction process, and shipment to the museum.
• Restored a DECSYSTEM-2065 mainframe computer to operating condition, leading a team of four engineers in a year long project which entailed replacing the entire power subsystem and diagnosing decades old hardware issues. The result was a running Tops-10 timesharing system which supported several hundred guest accounts from June 2005 until July 2020 when the museum closed.
• Created Living Computers: Museum+Labs’ first incarnation from Paul Allen’s private collection of vintage mainframe and minicomputer systems. Oversaw and participated in restoration of many computer systems, administered accounting database for guest accounts on several multiuser systems, created final copy for timeline wall graphics covering many areas of computing history, trained initial group of tour guides, designed initial layout of exhibit spaces, acquired a number of systems on Paul Allen’s wishlist. self-employed, Seattle, WASHINGTON 2003 - 2004 Contractor: Hired by Vulcan Inc. to determine the feasibility of applying power to and running the vintage computer systems in the private collection of Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. Job morphed into restoration of two DEC mainframes, leading to a job offer from Vulcan which lasted 16 years.
• Performed initial analysis of a DECsystem-1080 mainframe computer system. The system had been modified by a previous contractor to use semiconductor memory intended for personal computers; brought in an electrical engineer from Vulcan to make it reliable, but ultimately it failed. Determined that predecessor had installed only a bare bones starter operating system suitable for configuring the hardware but only usable from the system console terminal. Recommended moving from the 1080 to a DECSYSTEM-2065 whose history and status were known to be good.
• Performed a forensic analysis on media images created by my predecessor to determine whether they were useful for system emulations. Determined that most media had been imaged according to de facto standards for the History Simulation project, but one particular set of media were pseudo-encrypted and usable only by a program offered by my predecessor. Created a tool to convert these images (from DECtapes) into usable formats. XKL LLC, Redmond, WASHINGTON 1993 - 2003 Customer Advocacy: Initially hired to handle pre- and post-sales customer support and advocacy in a small startup company building a clone of the DECSYSTEM-20 mainframe from Digital Equipment Corporation. In addition to those duties, I became the primary systems administrator for all server class computers used by the engineering and manufacturing teams, and was part of the operating systems development team fitting the TOPS-20 operating system for the DEC-20 onto the new hardware platform which we were creating.
• Updated XKL’s version of TOPS-20, based on modifications to version 6.1 by Stanford University and Cisco Systems, to base it on version 7.0. This fixed an issue with a third party database, System 1022, which was needed by a prospective customer, as well as providing additional functionality for certain hardware configurations.
• Supported the Minx manufacturing requirements program on the HP-UX operating system (a variant of ATT’s System V Release 2 Unix), including classwork at the Minx offices in Massachusetts.
• Negotiated the free release of Bliss-36, Digital’s version of the Bliss programing language for the Dec-10/DEC-20 family, after Digital announced the free release of Bliss-16 for the PDP-11 and Bliss-32 for the VAX.
• Sold an XKL Toad-1 system, the DEC-20 clone manufactured by XKL, to Paul Allen for his PaulAllen.com web initiative.
Cisco Systems, Menlo Park, CALIFORNIA 1992 - 1993 Senior System Administrator: Primary systems support for Cisco’s 24x7 customer service ticket system. Lead for the team investigating replacements for the aging electronic mail system at Cisco. Member of team evaluating replacement systems to support business applications.
• Electronic mail was being handled on multiple systems, with Engineering on Unix based mail and the rest of the company conducting business by logging into an aging DEC-20 on serial line terminals. I was asked to head a team which would look at several possibilities which could be used across the company. We looked at several microcomputer based systems such as Eudora and Lotus Notes, as well as systems which ran on remote large scale Unix servers. The final decision was made after I left Cisco.
• Cisco started business using locally developed programs run on a DEC-20, then grew the business using servers from MIPS. By 1992, Cisco was rapidly outgrowing the MIPS systems, so together with the manager of business applications we evaluated systems from Sun Microsystems (SPARC), Digital Equipment Corporation (Alpha), and Hewlett-Packard (PA-RISC). The HP servers were chosen based on availability, reliability, and administrability. Cisco Systems, Menlo Park, CALIFORNIA 1991 - 1992 Contractor: TOPS-20 systems programming on legacy DEC-20 computer system
• Updated the TOPS-20 operating system on Cisco’s DEC-20 computer systems to solve an issue in their legacy business system, where a third party database product (System/1022) was interacting with an operating system bug introduced in the next most recent version of TOPS-20. The bug was fixed in the latest version, but Cisco had a number of local changes to the operating system and no one with experience to make the updates to the base release from DEC. I performed the updates, which allowed the business continuity people at Cisco to continue to generate reports from the databases in use prior to their move to MIPS hardware.
Academic Information Resources, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CALIFORNIA 1990 - 1991 Operations Supervisor: Managed staff of student computer operators responsible for nightly and weekly backups of timeshared mainframe systems supporting all academic computing at Stanford, and staff of student programmers maintaining the TOPS-20 operating system on these mainframes. Worked on facilities planning with the Facilities Manager. Essentially a continuation of previous position with management responsibilities added.
Low Overhead Timesharing System, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CALIFORNIA 1984 - 1989 LOTS Systems Programmer: Responsible for systems programming and continuity of operation for academic computing facility running 24x7x365 at a major university.
• Participated in update of TOPS-20 operating system from version 5 to versions 6 and 6.1, then managed the update to version for the entire Stanford campus (12 sites running DEC-20 systems).
• On-call after hours responsibility for LOTS, backup after hours responsibility for 11 other DEC- 20 sites at Stanford.
• Supervised student backup operators.
• Worked with student employees acting as faculty liaisons (planning each quarters’ probable computing needs for classes) and consultant coordinators (training and scheduling student volunteer help desk personnel).
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:
Touraine Homeowners Association 2007-2015
Member of three-person board of directors for a neighborhood homeowners association. In different years, secretary/treasurer, vice president, and president, usually VP.
Quora.com
Regular contributor to online forums on topics in linguistics, computer science and engineering, and classical languages (Greek and Latin). CERTIFICATIONS:
University of Washington Continuing Education Certificate in Museum Studies (2009)
• Three quarter program undertaken to support creation of Living Computer Museum from the personal collections of Paul Allen.
EDUCATION: doctorate, a.b.d., University of Chicago, Chicago ILLINOIS master’s, Artis Magister, Yale University, New Haven CONNECTICUT baccalaureate, Bachelor of Arts with distinction in Linguistics, The Ohio State University, Columbus OHIO