Brooks Technology - Major Projects and Clients

Consulting

Before starting any job it's important to hammer out a specification for what is expected. Communication skills are an essential part of this process because many clients don't have the detailed technical understanding of what it takes to convert that napkin drawing into a real product. Flexability is another requirement! Without exception, every design I've started has had more than one mid-course correction, most often from the clients themselves.

A consultant must also keep up on the ever changing tecnologies of the day! But, there is so much to know, it's best to focus ones skills. I now intend to take my knowledge and experience of Microchip PIC® MCU controllers and expand into the rapidly growing Android market. The need for Android to external embedded controller functionality is very high, with many large corporations getting involved. As part of that effort I am prototyping an embedded controller with Bluetooth and jumping into Android programming. I've found some unique programming tools from Anywhere Software (Awesome software: Imagine being able to create an App for your smartphone with no prior knowledge of the Android OS, or JAVA for that matter within one day). Tools like these are critical to today's fast turn-around environment. Also, due to my interest in blind and vision impaired accessability I am also researching how blind accessability to the Android platform might be achieved with simple touch screen gestures and TTS voice response.

I looking forward to talking with my next prospective client, and I hope to add your project here soon!

PIC® is a registered trademark of Microchip Technology, Inc.

MAJOR PROJECTS AND CLIENTS

HI SPEED DISKETTE DUPLICATION CONTROLLER: Developed for Media Logic (1994)

Hi speed Diskette Duplication Controller A high speed industrial diskette duplicator, capable of copying a diskette every 12 seconds.

This is a "high" speed diskette duplication controller, able to write data to both sides of a floppy disk with a custom floppy disk drive at 4X the standard data rate, used in conjunction with an industrial diskette drive, copying a diskette in 12 seconds. Certainly not high speed by today's standards, but this was state of the art at the time. When I proposed this project to Media Logic I didn't know there would be a trade show in 3 months. I designed the logic, including 4 Altera FPGAs, the board, and the firmware for a V25 X86 CPU. We couldn't find a board house to do the PCB layout, so I did that as well. Up to 16 of these could fit in an industrial mother board. I wrote all the control s/w for the PC. Completed the prototype system the morning of the show. Against all odds, the show demo actually worked!!

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