Mike James

I am Mike James, an electronic engineer.
I was born in 1963, and I can just about remember the investitiure of the Prince of Wales, and the clever bit where the astronauts were talking to a Richard Nixon hanging in the sky above the moon. I was usually allowed to stay up to watch the Apollo launches on TV.
I am not the Michael James who wrote/writes columns in Computer Shopper, although I think he went to the same school, a year ahead of me, in Canterbury, Kent.
I went to University in Southampton where I used to waste hours in the Computer and Radio Clubs. I was president of the radio club for a while, and enjoyed the beer and the radio contests which involved getting hypothermia on hill tops.
They let me have a degree, and so I got a job.

I have now been married to Shirley for 18 years. We have always worked as engineers for the same company at the same place at the same time, but we have worked in Redhill (where I met Shirley), Mitcham and Southampton (no guesses which electronics company).

Hobbies and Interests

Electronics

I have been building electronics projects since I was at primary school

 

I hold the amateur radio call sign G6IXE.

I have designed PCBs for such things as memory upgrades for my Acorn computers using photo-resist and etching them in the bath.

Computing

See Hamble CyberZone

Sailing

I have been sailing in dinghies since 1972. In 1995 we tried Greek Flotilla sailing with Sunsail. Then we went on the John Laing, a 76 footer with the Ocean Youth Club.

I crewed on Jupa, a Sigma 33 in the Warsash Spring series in 1996. The result of this and a review of finances (no children!) led me to the surprising conclusion that we could afford a very small yacht. See Forethought: Westerly GK24 for more information

 

Skiing

skiing (not too black). A healthy fear of heights gets me every year, although I can usually get down.

Walking

I quite enjoy walking when I can be dragged away from my computer. I am am member of a team that takes part in a company wide walk which is against the clock. This year our team won. In the past I have organised one of these walks.

Potted CV: At work since 1984

• Video/Data LAN (in 1984): Switch controlling software, improvements to data rate on links.
  
• GSM Mobile Telephones : writing simulations of the TDMA channel in Pascal
  
• Analog Cellular telephone 900MHz transmitter power amplifiers : efficiency investigations.
  
• PMR portable VHF transmitter: auto antenna tuning.
  
• Crystal oscillator analysis
  
• CT2 and DECT digital cordless telephones: Burst mode controller design
  
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• <>Digital Compact Cassette/MPEG 1 Audio : System Simulations in C , Custom DSP cores embedded in ASIC block designs in VHDL. Discovered in 2004 that one IP block I designed (audio de-emphasis filter) is still in use in CD player chips !
  
• PC Sound Card IC: Initial System investigations.
  
• CD-ROM/CD-R / DVDROM Drive: ATAPI interface block decoder/ chip device architect (SAA7391).
  
• Altera / Xilinx EPLD /FPGA based designs in VHDL, some Verilog. Using Synopsys/Mentor tools.
  
• FPGA prototyping Design advice, supporting pin assignment/design partitioning software 'Vertical' in C, YACC and LEX. Some TCL/Tk
  
• GPS systems: tracking GPS hardware design, tracking software
  
• Real Time Operating systems : PSOS and UCOS/II also custom kernel for 8051
  
• Microprocessors: 8051 and ARM assembler.
  
• Telematics : GPS / Cellular phone hookup for vehicle tracking
  
• Data logger : realtime capture of vehicle sensors and GPS baseband data at 4.8 Mbits/s on laptop via USB 1.1 and using FTDI chips
  
• Software GPS : Data acquisition hardware for product : DSP in a 64-256 macrocell CPLD using VHDL. Device driver for Mobile Phone proprietary OS.
  
• Linux Kernel Porting : Device drivers for 2.6 family kernels on ARM9.