Bil Herd is a

computer engineer Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...

who created several designs for

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...

home computers while working for

Commodore Business Machines Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mach ...

in the early to mid-1980s.

Biography

He attended the Indiana school system. Herd did not have a college degree, and did not graduate high school, though he was working as an engineer by the age of 20.

Military service

Military service: * 1977–1980: 238th Cavalry - 38th Division

Indiana Army National Guard The Indiana National Guard (INNG) is a component of the United States Armed Forces, the United States National Guard and the Military Department of Indiana (MDI). It consists of the Indiana Army National Guard, the Indiana Air National Guard, a ...

* 1980–1982: 103rd Medical Battalion - 28th Division Pennsylvania

Army National Guard The Army National Guard (ARNG), in conjunction with the Air National Guard, is an organized Militia (United States), militia force and a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States A ...

* 1981:

Army Commendation Medal The Commendation Medal is a mid-level United States military decoration presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service. Each branch of the United States Armed Forces issues its own version of the Commendation Medal, with a fifth ...

for meritorious service.

Working for Commodore

After first acting as the principal engineer on the

Commodore Plus/4 The Commodore Plus/4 is a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM resident office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, database, and graphing); it was billed as "the produc ...

, C16/116, C264, and C364 machines, Herd designed the significantly more successful

Commodore 128 The Commodore 128, also known as the C128, C-128, C= 128,The "C=" represents the graphical part of the logo. is the last 8-bit home computer that was commercially released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Introduced in January 1985 at the ...

, a dual-

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

, triple- OS, compatible successor to the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

. Prior to the C128, Herd had done the initial architecture of the

Commodore LCD The Commodore LCD (sometimes known in short as the CLCD) is an LCD-equipped laptop made by Commodore International. It was presented at the January 1985 Consumer Electronics Show, but never released. The CLCD was not directly compatible with other ...

computer, which was not released.
/ref> File:Commodore_128_002.jpg, Commodore 128 File:Commodore 128D-IMG 1726.jpg, Commodore 128D File:C128mobo.jpg, C128 PCB Image:Commodore Plus 4.jpg, Commodore Plus/4 Image:Plus4 komplett.jpg, Commodore Plus/4 system File:Plus4_main_board.jpg, Commodore Plus/4 motherboard File:Commodore-116-a.jpg, Commodore 116 File:Commodore 16 002f.jpg, Commodore 16 Image:Commodore264.jpg, Commodore 264

After Commodore

After leaving Commodore, Herd continued to design faster and more powerful computers with emphasis on

machine vision Machine vision (MV) is the technology and methods used to provide imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance, usually in industry. Machine vision refers to m ...

and is a co-author on a patent involving ''n''-dimensional

pattern matching In computer science, pattern matching is the act of checking a given sequence of tokens for the presence of the constituents of some pattern. In contrast to pattern recognition, the match usually has to be exact: "either it will or will not be ...

. He also designed an

ultrasonic Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies fr ...

backup sensor for vehicles while working for Indian Valley Mfg. in 1986, a feature found on many modern vehicles today. Voluntary health care work: * 1989–1996: Fellowship First Aid Squad /

Mount Laurel Mount Laurel is a township in Burlington County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a suburb of Philadelphia and part of the South Jersey region. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 41,864, reflecting an increase of 1 ...

EMS Inc. Highest rank: Captain (also served as president) * 1991–1995: Cooper Trauma Center -

Camden, NJ Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 2020 U. ...

: 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 A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly eit ...

" by contributing a snippet of sprite logic code to the C64 DTV product designed by

Jeri Ellsworth Jeri Janet Ellsworth (born August 14, 1974) is an American entrepreneur, computer chip designer and inventor. She gained fame in 2004 for creating a complete Commodore 64 emulator system on a chip housed within a joystick, called Commodore 30- ...

. 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. he produces videos for ''

Hackaday ''Hackaday'' is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine. Since 2014, Hackaday also hosts a community database of open-source hardware designs. History Hackaday was founded in 2004 by Phillip Torrone as a web magaz ...

''. 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.

References

*Bagnall, Brian
On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore
. * Greenley, Larry, et al. (1986). ''Commodore 128 Programmer's Reference Guide''. . (Herd Co-author) *Herd, B. & Morabito, M. (2021)
''Back into the Storm: A Design Engineer's Story of Commodore Computers in the 1980s''
.

External links

The 8 Bit Generation
The story of

Jack Tramiel Jack Tramiel ( ; born Idek Trzmiel; December 13, 1928 – April 8, 2012) was an American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home compute ...

and

Commodore International Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mach ...

Produced by JunkFood, narrated by Bil Herd
Hackaday.com
– Bil Herd's Original Videos at

Commodore 128 History at Commodore.ca
– by Ian Matthews

– By Tamás Polgár

– at Fab's Commodore page (Fabian Meyer)
C128.com Commodore Users Group Video - Updated 2005
– With Bil Herd,

Dave Haynie Dave Haynie is an American electrical engineer and was chief engineer at Commodore International. He is vocal in the Amiga community. See also * Metabox (on German Wikipedia) * PIOS The International Open Series (often referred to as Pontin ...

Appearance on The Linux Link Tech Show on September 12, 2007 (ogg)(mp3)
* ttps://archive.today/20130418213228/http://blip.tv/file/799758 A video of Bil Herd and Dale Luck post-show at the 25th Anniversary of the Commodore 64 at the Computer History Museum in 2007br>C128.com video of Bil Herd describing the C116 TED family of computers under Jack TramielVideo of Bil Herd and Jeri Ellsworth explaining Phase Locked LoopsCommodore History Part 5 - The C128
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herd, Bil Commodore people Computer hardware engineers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)