Bil Herd
US computer engineer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bil Herd is a computer engineer who created several designs for 8-bit home computers while working for Commodore Business Machines in the early to mid-1980s.
Early life
He attended the Indiana school system.[1] Though Herd did not have a college degree and did not graduate high school, he was working as an engineer by the age of 20.
Military service
- 1977–1980: 238th Cavalry - 38th Division Indiana Army National Guard
- 1980–1982: 103rd Medical Battalion - 28th Division Pennsylvania Army National Guard
- 1981: Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service.
Working for Commodore
After first acting as the principal engineer on the Plus/4, C16/116, C264, and C364 machines, Herd designed the significantly more successful Commodore 128, a dual-CPU, triple-OS, compatible successor to the Commodore 64. Prior to the C128, Herd had done the initial architecture of the Commodore LCD computer, which was not released.[2]
After Commodore
After leaving Commodore, Herd continued to design faster and more powerful computers with emphasis on machine vision and is a co-author on a patent involving n-dimensional pattern matching. He also designed an ultrasonic backup sensor for vehicles while working for Indian Valley Mfg. in 1986, a feature found on many modern vehicles today.[3]
Voluntary health care work:
- 1989–1996: Fellowship First Aid Squad / Mount Laurel EMS Inc. Highest rank: Captain (also served as president)
- 1991–1995: Cooper Trauma Center - Camden, NJ: Trauma Technician
Herd has undertaken an entrepreneurial role and is owner of several small companies. As for recent low-level computer hacking, he did a "cameo appearance" by contributing a snippet of sprite logic code to the C64 DTV product designed by Jeri Ellsworth.
Herd appeared in and narrated the documentary "Growing the 8 Bit Generation" (a.k.a. "The Commodore Wars") about the early days of Commodore and the home computers explosion. Subsequently, he narrated the documentary "Easy to learn, hard to master: the fate of Atari", thus becoming the official voice of the "8-bit Generation" documentary series. As of September 2020,[update] he produces videos for Hackaday.
In 2021, Herd co-authored a book with Margaret Morabito, Back into the Storm: A Design Engineer's Story of Commodore Computers in the 1980s, in which he recounts inside stories about his and his team's experiences with designing computers for Commodore.