Robert Heller’s Resume
This is my resume. It is not a real formal sort of resume, but here it is anyway.
Now available: a formal downloadable version, PostScript and PDF files (sorry, it is not available as a MS-Word document, you will just have to download one of the many FREE PDF viewers available): RobertHeller-0.17_PDF or RobertHeller-0.17_PDF.tar.
Contents:
- Trivia.
- Birth, Early years.
- Education.
- Hobbies.
- Voluntary Activities.
- Employment.
- UMass Projects.
- Other Projects.
- Publications.
First the trivial:
Name:
- Robert Paul Heller.
Although the Paul is on my birth certificate, I don’t use it.
I also prefer NOT to be called "Bob". Sex:
- Male.
Marital Status:
- Single.
Address:
- 51 Locke Hill Road
Wendell, MA 01379. Phone:
- Home & Deepwoods Software: 978-633-5364, cell (not terribly useful most of time): 413-658-7953
Birth, Early years:
Born May 8, 1953 in the town of Bethlehem, PA, but shortly thereafter moved to Philadelphia, PA, where I lived until the age of 15 (there was a brief period when I lived in Levitown, PA). I moved to the hippie commune, Bryn Athyn, in Stratford, VT (in 1968) and lived there for about 2 years (1968-1969), then the commune (or most of it) moved to Lime, NH (fall 1969), and I lived there for a year (winter ’69/70). I then moved back to Stratford, VT (spring 1970) for another year (or a little more), then to Thetford, VT (late summer 1971) for a year (at this point I got my first access to a computer at the Dartmouth Computer Center, learning BASIC and DTSS), then up to Prentiss, ME (late summer 1972) for a year (fall/winter ’72/73), then two years in Bancroft, ME (spring ’73 to late fall ’75) at another commune, Battlebrook Farm, (with some of the same people as at the first commune) and helped build a large log house (hexagon, 20’per side), then I moved to Wendell, MA in the fall of 1975, where I have lived ever since.
Education:
Well, this is a bit iffy. I went through the usual public school scene while in Phily, but there were many version miss-match problems. Lots of random Permission denied, Invalid arguments, Bus Errors, and the ever popular Segmentation Fault. Not a very good experience. I finished through the 9th grade while living in Phily. In Stratford, VT, I attended (more or less) 10th grade at South Royalston High School, in (you guessed it) South Royalston, VT. This was even worse than things in Phily, and gave it up as a dead loss, and dropped out of school. I was learning more at home anyway.
When I moved to Maine, I took the SAT test and did very well (I don’t remember the scores). And when I moved to Wendell, MA, I took some Continuing Ed courses at UMass, all relating to computer science, and aced all of them. One of the courses was taught by Edward Riseman and was (in part) a course teaching the LISP language. This one I did so well in, that Ed hired me to do some LISP programming for him.
I am mostly self-taught. I have learned these programming languages:
- BASIC (who doesn’t?)
- FORTRAN (yeah, I’ve even used it)
- APL (a small amount)
- COBOL (I’ve written one COBOL program)
- SNOBOL (one of my favorite languages)
- LISP (another favorite language)
- Pascal (I know it, but hate it)
- C (of course)
- C++ (the wave of the future)
- Asssembly language for:
- 6502
- VAX
- 68000
- CDC Cyber (some)
- 8008 (useless at this point)
- 8048 & 8051 (not quite useless)
- Several shell & scripting languages:
- csh & bash (barely)
- Tcl/Tk (getting quite good at this one)
- DCL (used to be very good at this one, but am somewhat rustly now)
And have used these operating systems:
- DTSS
- XVM DOS (PDP-15)
- KRONOS/NOS (CDC Cyber)
- VAX/VMS (one of the best O/Ss)
- UNIX (several flavors: Ultrix, Iris, SunOS, & Linux)
- OS-9/68000 (another one of the best O/Ss)
- CP/M-68K — a 68000 version of CP/M 2.2
- Apple DOS
- ProDos
- MacOS
- TI Explorer System (runs on TI Explorer LISP Machines)
- p-System (gag me with a spoon)
- MS-DOS (gag me with a fork) & MS-Windows (gag me with a turkey baster)
Hobbies:
My hobbies include Model Railroading: I model in N scale (1/160) and H0 (1/87) — visit Uncle Robbie’s Workshop. I also enjoy 12 inch to the foot scale as well — here are some Photos I have taken. I also enjoy taking still pictures and home videos of my nieces and nephew — here are some Family Photos I have taken.
Voluntary Activities:
Early in 1998 I started thinking about getting involved in organizing social activities for local teenagers. In cooperation with the Wendell Recreation Committee, I organized two teen dances, one successful and one a failure (noone showed up). I formally joined the Wendell Recreation Committee in August of 1998 and stayed on until 2009 and still looking for things for the local teens to do that are fun, safe, and creative.
In November 2001 became the webmaster of the Wendell Full Moon Coffeehouse and joined the committee.
I am a member of the Wendell Website Committee. I am also a member of the Wendell Municipal Light Board (in charge of operating the Municipal Light Plant, which consists of the town owned Fiber-To-The-Home network).
Employment:
When I moved to Maine, I got a SS card and got a job at a potato farm. This job lasted for a couple of weeks (it was a very seasonal sort of thing). Later, when I was living in Bancroft, I worked for about 12 weeks at a sawmill as a board stacking robot. Very boring. It was further complicated by the fact that the proper criteria for board stacking was such that no matter how I stacked them, it was wrong, at least according to the idiot driving the fork lift. Nobody else seemed to care much, however.
When I moved to Wendell, MA (and after I had blown most of the money I earned stacking boards), I bought a small hand-operated printing press (a whopping 3"x5") and did some small printing jobs. Not a way to get rich quick, but I did well enough to pay some of the bills. Then around 1978 or so, Ed Riseman hired me to do some LISP programming part time. This paid a lot better. I worked for Ed and the VISIONS group until being laid off in Nov. 2005 (the grant funding dried up).
In 1993 I started my own evenings and weekend business: Deepwoods Software. This a shareware and consulting business. It presently has two shareware products out now: Home Librarian and Role Playing Database. Deepwoods Software (me) owns a virtual web and E-Mail server and now can offer Web Hosting. Deepwoods Software presently hosts the Town Of Wendell‘s web site and the Wendell Full Moon Coffeehouse‘s web site as well as several other web sites.
In April of 1997 I hooked up with Lewis B. Sckolnick and did some CGI & web work for his web site at Rector Press, ltd..
In Feburary of 1999 Lewis & I formed CoyoteData Security and bought our own server box.
From 2006 to 2023 I was the IT person and the person managing the server and work stations at the Wendell Free Library.
Projects I have been involved with at UMass:
- Image Feature Extractor originally on the PDP-15 and later on the VAX-11/780.
- Helped with implementing Old LISPF3 based Vision System on the VAX-11/780.
- Helped with implementing Less Old CLisp based Vision System on the VAX-11/780.
- Wrote the original Lisp Compiler for CLisp.
- (1990-1991) Rewrote the VMS device driver for the Grinnell GMR-27 from the old DR-11B used by the old GMR-27 to the DR-11W/DQ-11W used on the new GMR-27.
- Helped get GRASPER compiled and running under CLisp.
- (1986-1989) Helped implement LLVS (Low Level Vision System).
- (1985-1992) Wrote a DECNET and later a TCP/IP network server for the Grinnell GMR-27 under VMS and the DECNET client (VMS) and TCP/IP client (UNIX). Wrote a DECNET network server and client for the Comtal VISION/One system as well.
- (1990) Did major design and implementation of ISR2 (Intermediate Symbolic Representation, V2) on the TI Explorers (Lisp Machines).
- (1994-2005) Did major design and implementation of the ISR3.1 and ISR3.2 in C++.
Outside of UMass Projects:
- (1993-Present) Home Librarian, a C++ & Tcl/Tk card-catalog database for home libraries.
- (1995-Present) Role Playing Database, a C++ & Tcl/Tk database for maintaining the information needed to play Role Playing Games, like AD&D.
- (1994-Present) A Model Railroad System, a C++ & Tcl/Tk package containing a CAD, CATDF, and related utilities for use by model railroaders. This is an on-going project.
- (Oct. 1996-Apr. 1998) Worked on a web-based mapping database server/client project.
- (1997-2008) Working on Rector Press, ltd.‘s web site.
- (1999-2001) Co-owner of CoyoteData Security.
- (2001) Wrote a short novel, Space Explorers (Available on Amazon, see Publications below).
- (2002) Hired by the Town Of Wendell to develop and host the Town’s Web site.
- (2016-Present) Designing circuit boards for Model Railroad use, mostly using LCC and various MCUs and SBCs.
Publications:
(Contact Laurie Downey about getting any of the VISIONS UMass tech. reports listed below.)
- UMass Tech. Report 87-15 Show-Plane and Friends User’s Manual, by R. Heller, January 1987.
- UMass Tech. Report 87-41 Using LLVS Under VMS, by J. Burrill and R. Heller, May 1987.
- UMass Tech. Report 89-76 Universal LLVS Plane File Format, by R. Heller, July 1989.
- UMass Tech. Report 90-52 ISR2 User’s Guide, by B. Draper, J.Ross Beveridge, J. Brolio, A. Hanson, R. Heller, L.Williams, July 1990.
- Home Librarian Reference Manual, by R. Heller, self-published, April 1996.
- Role Playing Database Reference Manual V1.1, by R. Heller, self-published, June 1996.
- Role Playing Database Reference Manual V2.0, by R. Heller, self-published, July 1999.
- Role Playing Database Reference Manual V2.1, by R. Heller, Great UnPublished, March, 2001.
- Space Explorers, a novel by R. Heller, Lulu, 2nd Edition, January 2009.