The System Engineer's Handbook, written by the developer of the VME bus system and some of the most knowledgeable experts in the computer industry, is the most comprehensive guide available for the VME bus standard. It is the system engineer's guide to building high performance multiprocessor systems. This book contains complete copies of VME bus and VXI bus specifications and applications information, enabling a system engineer to purchase state-of-the-art board components from specialized manufacturers and assemble them into a fully-functional system.
John A Black, Jr was born in Mexico, Missouri in 1949. At the age of 5 he and his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he attended elementary and high school. In 1967 he began his university studies at Arizona State University, graduating in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He then spent the first 13 years of his career at Motorola, as a hardware/software engineer, project engineer, and engineering manager. During that time he authored the VMEbus Specification, which was eventually adopted as an IEEE, ANSI, and ISO standard, and currently serves as the primary multiprocessing backplane architecture for the US Military.
In 1985 John earned a Masters of Science in Engineering, and left Motorola to found his own consulting company (Micrology pbt, Inc) to work with start-up companies seeking to offer leading edge backplane-based products, based on the VMEbus standard. At the same time he partnered with two other people to launch a technical publishing company (OpenSystems Publishing) to promote the development of open computing standards, and to assist start-up companies in introducing products based on those standards. In addition to his responsibilities as a publisher, John served as editor-in-chief of VMEbus Systems Magazine and Real-time Engineering Magazine. OpenSystems Publishing (now known as OpenSystems Media) is currently a leading publisher of embedded computing industry journals.
In 1992 John compiled and edited the "System Engineer's Handbook" which was published by Academic Press.
In 2004 John earned a PhD in Computer Science, and joined the Arizona State University faculty as a Research Scientist, to help launch the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing and the iCARE project, which conducts research aimed at the development of assistive technologies for people who are blind. John's current research is focused on understanding the process of human visual perception and cognition, with the goal of using technology to enhance those abilities.
