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MattHeffron

HN member
Joined
Sat, Nov 25, 2023, 1:44 AM UTC
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About MattHeffron

I started programming in Basic on a DECSystem-10 as a Freshman at Caltech in 1974. I quickly transitioned to assembly language, Fortran, and Pascal. As a summer job at JPL, I did analysis of fuel consumption for the Viking Mars Orbiter attitude control system. I also spent a summer doing O/S maintenance at Digital Equipment Corporation. After graduation, I started developing microprocessor development tools (e.g., cross-compiler, debugger) for Beckman Instruments, a scientific instrument company. I've worked on custom file systems, a real-time O/S for Z8000, Expert Systems (SpinPro™ & PepPro™), and internal and external networking support (I was their first webmaster). I've worked on their DNA analysis system software. I was the console/UI software architect for Ultracentrifuges and protein Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) systems. After 35 years, Danaher having acquired Beckman (now Beckman Coulter), transferred the CE group to become part of Sciex (2014), and I was on the software team that developed the new (9/2021) Sciex BioPhase Capillary Electrophoresis instrument. --- Finally, after 43 years, 7 months, and 19 days, I am retired.

Recent public activity

  1. comment
    Comment #40138701

    Depends on your definition of "super fantastic expert" systems. I was one of the developers/knowledge engineers of the SpinPro™ Ultracentrifugation Expert System at Beckman Instrum…

  2. comment
    Comment #38410937

    Beckman Instruments got our Xerox 1108 in 1983 (and an 1186 a couple of years later). We developed Expert System commercial products in Interlisp-D but ported them to run on the PC…

  3. comment
    Comment #38410499

    why Beckman Coulter Life Sciences supported the development of Swish, an extension of Chez Scheme Having worked at Beckman¹ from 1978-2022, I strongly suspect that the support of a…