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Byte Craft Limited celebrates 30 years in embedded systems

 

22 May 2009, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada --

 

Byte Craft Limited is celebrating thirty years in the embedded systems industry.

 

Jimmy Carter was in the White House, and Skylab would soon re-enter the atmosphere. Walter Banks began the electronics design and software development work of Byte Craft Limited, an embedded systems firm that grew with the computing revolution.

 

Walter Banks, president of Byte Craft Limited, is an industry veteran. Banks describes the early days of Byte Craft Limited as "the exponential moments in the embedded systems world. It was early enough that embedded systems and personal computers were just starting to follow their own paths."

 

Byte Craft Limited collaborated on the first mouse for the original IBM PC, and peripherals for the Sinclair ZX81. Banks and Byte Craft Limited made fundamental contributions to the bar code technology and
touch-sensitive controls that we take for granted today.

 

Starting in 1980, Byte Craft Limited offered assemblers for nearly 100 embedded processor targets. In 1983, Byte Craft shipped a MISTRAL compiler for the Motorola 6805, offering the first high-level language that could compete with hand-written assembly programming. Auto engineers used MISTRAL to develop airbags, on-board communication systems and dashboard displays. MISTRAL evolved into C6805,
the first C compiler to use expert system technology for optimization.

 

Byte Craft continues to play an integral role in the launch of new embedded microprocessor architectures, participating in instruction set design and then supplying the first development tools. Byte Craft Limited's contribution can be seen in the Scenix (Parallax) SX, Motorola M6808, XGATE, RS08, and eTPU, National Semiconductor COP8, and Cypress M8.

 

Through Byte Craft Limited, Walter Banks represents Canada at ISO/IEC WG14, the international body developing standards for the C language. His proposals are introducing multiprocessor support and enhanced math capabilities to C. Byte Craft Limited also contributes to the field of fuzzy logic, offering linguistic variable language tools that simplify development of many domestic consumer products.

 

Byte Craft Limited
A2-490 Dutton Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada N2L 6H7