A lot of people (especially here in Austin, TX) have asked me about the significance of WinterHEARTH in my Web site URL. It is a long story, but I will try and relate a short version of that story here.

During the summers of 1972 and 1973, a friend and I rented half of a duplex in Ames, IA. We got a good rental rate because we agreed ahead of time that we would move out at the end of summer, when ISU started the fall term, and the "normal" renters returned for yet another year of higher education. We called this residence SummerHouse (I'm not sure, Chum probably would give it a Germanic spelling). After the second summer, we decided to continue sharing an apartment during the school year. We found a large house which had been converted into a "tri-plex", and rented the largest plex. This apartment had a fireplace, and so that winter we decided to call it WinterHEARTH. Well, I guess the story isn't so long after all!

My name is David D. Hall.  I was born early in the morning of December 12, 1949 in a small town in Iowa.  While in college I studied FORTRAN, PL/1 and ALGOL (the only general purpose languages available then).  Because I have not earned a living using any of these languages since college, I consider myself a "self-taught" software engineer.  I am conversant in C and C++ , proficient in C# and extremely proficient (dare I say expert?) in Basic, Visual Basic, VB.NET and several micro-processor Assembly Languages.  Although not currently using Forth, I have implemented Forth on several micro-processors.

	While at Iowa State University I was a member of the ISU Honors Program and Omega Chi Epsilon, the National Chemical Engineering Honor Society. More recently (February 1998) I passed my 6th test to become a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), an MCP+Internet, and a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

I started earning a living as a software engineer while living in Simi Valley, CA.  Using the Intel 8085 and the Zilog Z-80, I created real-time operating systems for micro-processor controlled communications devices.  These devices included Stat Muxes, Polling Stat Muxes and several DDS "Split Channel" devices.  After adding the Hitachi HD64180 to my list of "supported" micro-processors, I have written real-time operating systems for PBX data collection systems and intelligent network devices (Token-Ring MAUs and Ethernet Hubs).  My Visual Basic efforts have produced programs used to administer and control the intelligent network devices.

My founders were Chester Hall from NE Iowa and Alice Hall from New Mexico Territory.  I also have three sisters (Jean, Shirley and Kelly) and a brother (Robert), all older than I.