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Resumé of Bob Ribokas |
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| October, 1994 - Present |
Free-lance Writer Design, development and ongoing maintenance of Grand Canyon WWW Home Pages. This is a personal project that I took on myself because I felt it was necessary. I have attempted to use the technical writing skills tha t I have developed over the years to bring the Grand Canyon onto peoples desktops. |
| August, 1983 - Present |
TERADYNE, Inc., Boston, MA Senior Software Engineer / Analyst Primary responsibilites include design, development and maintenance of the Customer Service Division's MERLIN database. This database is used primarily to track customer orders for replacement parts, manage inventory, and support agreements and warranties at both the master product and component level. Some of the secondary features are the tracking of Activity Logs and Onsite Reports for field service personnel. This database was originally designed to run in the VAX/VMS environment using Digital Equipment Corporation's VAX DBMS database. A number of remote systems, located in Europe and along the Pacific Rim, run a scaled down version of this software which is written in FOXPRO and runs on Intel-type personal computer's. Transactions collected on the PC systems are automatically fed to t he master VAX database via network or dialup connections. Secondary duties are as follows:
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| May, 1981 - August, 1983 |
CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Cambridge, MA Senior Programmer / Analyst Responsibilites included maintenance and modification of existing computer software as well as design and development of new systems. Gained exposure to System 1022 Database Management System during this period. Majority of programming was done in 1022 D PL and COBOL with some assembly language (MACRO-20). Hardware used was a DECSystem-20. |
| September, 1981 - January, 1982 |
TUFTS UNIVERSITY, Somerville, MA Contract Programmer Contracted to Tufts University through Data Collaborative, Inc. Involved in a development effort to modify the Pledge Billing System. All work was done in COBOL and System 1022 on a DECSystem-10. |
| September, 1980 - April, 1981 |
TERADYNE, Inc., Boston, MA Self Employed Contracted to Teradyne to complete development of the ABACUS Personnel/Payroll System which was started and abandoned by previous employer. Secondary duties consisted of design of a file handler to make the ABACUS sytstem interactive with various users a nd of a front end screen formatting utility (IMAGE) to enable the ABACUS system to communicate with a large variety of terminals as well as performing various terminal/operator related functions. |
| May, 1980 - September, 1980 |
INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS, Inc., Burlington, MA Senior Software Engineer Lead development programmer for the ABACUS Personnel/Payroll System. Designed and implemented ABACUS data dictionary and report writer. Developed file access routines for maintenance and retrieval of data from the Personnel database. |
| January, 1978 - May, 1980 |
INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS, Inc., Burlington, MA Software Engineer Primary duties consisted of design, development and installation of various software packages supported by Interactive Systems. These packages were written primarily in COBOL with some assembly language (MACRO) and designed to run on Digital Equipment Co rporation's DECSystem-10 and DECSystem-20 family of computers. The software packages consisted of a Business Management System (General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Sales Order Entry, Purchase Order Entry, and Inventory Control), a Stud ent Record Management System (Class Scheduling, Grade Reporting, Attendance Reporting and Competency Based Testing) and a financial package for school systems (Chart Of Accounts Maintenance, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Purchase Order Entry and Budget Control). Secondary duties consisted of conversion of any existing customer data and travel to customer sites for installation of the software and to perform customer training. Travel involved during this period included most of the continental United States and S witzerland. |
| January, 1977 - January, 1978 |
CITY OF CAMBRIDGE, Cambridge, MA Senior Programmer Primary duties consisted of upkeep of existing system software and design and development of additional new systems (Attendance Reporting and Grade Reporting). These programs were written in COBOL with some assembly language (MACRO-20) routines involved, and were designed to run on the Digital Equipment DECSystem-20. Also gained exposure to DECSystem-10 and MACRO-10 during this period. |
| January, 1976 - December, 1976 |
CITY OF CAMBRIDGE, Cambridge, MA Junior Programmer Primary responsibility was programming and implementation of administrative systems (Financial, Damage Reporting, Scheduling, Revenue) and renovation of existing applications software. Involved in a conversion effort from a Burroughs B1700 to a Digital E quipment DECSystem-2040. |
It is sad to admit that I am extremely proficient in the COBOL language. I can write just about anything anyone else can write in any other language using COBOL assuming the operating system has the right function calls. I have written games in COBOL, I have written major operating system utilities in COBOL and I have even written programming languages in COBOL.
I am also quite proficient with Visual Basic and this has become my language of choice over the past few years (since it's introduction) for ad hoc systems programs. Some of the software that I have developed using VB is: MERLIN's Crystal Ball, an ad hoc SQL query builder; MAKESQL, a SQL statement builder for an ORACLE pre-compiler; Nature's Desktop, a Windows desktop utility that incorporates a calendar (with lunar phases!), a daily memo pad with alerts, a random wallpaper selection function and a scre en saver. There are many others.
I have also been doing a lot of work with the ORACLE product set: SQL*FORMS, SQL*MENU and SQL*REPORTWRITER. I also use SQL*PLUS and write database routines in PL/SQL.
Up until Visual Basic was released I used to do a lot of ad hoc development and prototyping using FOXPRO. I do much of this now in VB but FOXPRO still as its uses when I need heavy duty database functions.
I can program in a variety assembly languages including VAX MACRO, MACRO-10, MACRO-20, PAL (PDP-8) and believe it or not assembly language for the IBM 1130 and Symbolic for the IBM 1401. Now I am dating myself. Luckily with the advent of the C programming language, assembly language programming has become pretty much obsolete.
Yes, I do program in C. I don't like it but I do use it where I have to. It is a neccccccessary evil these days, but I personally feel that assembly language is easier on the eye!
I make use the full suite of Microsoft products: Excel, Word, and Project.
I use Aldus Pagemaker and Micrografx Designer as my preferred tools when writing technical manuals and user documentation. For image manipulation I use Photo Magic, also by Micrografx.
In the past year I have become very good at laying out documents for WWW pages using HTML.
The Grand Canyon (fits in below but really requires its own category)
Backpacking, hiking, camping, non-technical mountain climbing, walking and general nature loving
Flat water kayaking and canoeing
Amateur astronomy
Cats (we have 3)
Freshwater tropical fish (about 130 gallons worth in 3 tanks)
Travel (wanderlust is a disease)
Numerous training courses for a variety of Microsoft products:
University of Massachusetts 1975 - 1977
Rindge Techinal High School, Cambridge, MA
Computer Science Program
Graduated June, 1975
I am a member of DECUS (Digital Equipment Corporation User Society) and usually attend one symposium per year
I am also a member of the International Oracle User's Group
I have been programming various types of computers for over 20 years now. It is hard to believe that I had my roots on an IBM 1130 that filled a room and only had 8K (right, K, not M, it's not a typo) of main memory. The disk pa ck for this thing was the size of large pizza (with everything on it) and had maybe the capacity of a high density floppy. And there was only one disk on-line at a time. To change the disk meant a COLD START, I think that's archaic for CTL-ALT-DEL. The p rimary input device for this machine was, of course, a card reader. The system had a console type-writer (IBM Selectric) but to activate the thing was not an easy task and even then it would only accept JCL (that's archaic for DOS) commands. The printer for this monster printed 60 lines PER MINUTE.
I also did some programming at Harvard University in the Symbolic programming language on an IBM 1401 system. That had 4K. For my junior project in high school I wrote a 1401 emulator for the 1130... why, because I could. I also did not like the assembly language that the 1130 had because it did not have support for macro expansions... so a friend and I wrote our own assembly language that did support macro expansions.
For my senior project in high school I wrote a compiler. It ran in that 8K, in one pass, without overlays! I still have the source listing.
I like to consider myself a Jack-Of-All-Trades when it comes to engineering software. I have met some programming languages that I did not like but I have only met a few that I could not use, mainly because I could not see the point (i.e. LISP and APL).
My general outlook on developing computer software (and life in general) is that just about anything is possible and miracles just take a little longer.
Now... where DID I put that Project Genesis file... Ah, there it is.
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