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Stonewall Ballard, founder and President of Stonetics, has over thirty years of professional experience in the computer industry. Since being introduced to Object Oriented Programming in 1974 at MIT, he has focused on dynamic languages, object-oriented programming, computer graphics hardware and software, and high-productivity programming environments. Since 1996, he has been concentrating on special-effects software development.

Professional experience by category

Special Effects Software

  • Created the painting system in Boris Red 4.
  • Designed and implemented many of the plug-ins in the Boris Continuum Complete product
  • Designed and implemented the Red Giant Key Correct Pro plug-in product and the Key Correct enhancements to Primatte Keyer.
  • Designed and implemented the Stonetics/ISFX plug-ins for Adobe After Effects, now known as the Image Lounge and Composite Wizard products
  • Primary responsibility for porting Pinnacle Systems Commotion to Mac OS X
  • Added anti-aliasing and reconstruction filters to Commotion, and optimized image processing, including Altivec support

Hardware Design

  • Created DEC's first bitmapped graphics workstation - the VaxStation 100
  • Lead architect for the Perq 3, aka the Crosfield 9000, a multiprocessor workstation with a 4Kx3K display
  • Designed the first version of the high-speed frame buffer, gate arrays, and logic simulator for the Megascan graphics system

Dynamic Language Environments

  • Designed and built the first scavenging garbage collector for Smalltalk and the first 32-bit Smalltalk
  • Implemented the first version of DEC Vax Lisp
  • Created Component Workshop - an incrementally-compiled C++ development environment
  • Implemented the Smalltalk-80 virtual machine on four different platforms.
  • Member of the Smalltalk Group at Xerox PARC and the Dylan Group at Apple Computer

Object-Oriented Programming and Software Architecture

  • Designed and implemented the object-oriented application framework for the Wildfire Assistant
  • Designed a distributed Smalltalk system at Xerox PARC
  • Taught C++ and Booch Methodology
  • Designed the C++ variant used in Component Workshop (which was similar to, but predated Java) under contract to Sun Microsystems.

General Programming

  • Have written with: assembler (dozens), C, C++, Objective-C/C++, Basic, Focal, Snobol, Smalltalk, Forth, Pascal, Lisp (several versions), Dylan, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Mathematica, AppleScript, Hypercard, Frontier, Bliss, FORTRAN, APL, TECO, various shells, and microcode.
  • Primary languages now are C++, Objective-C/C++, Ruby, and Mathematica
  • Have implemented compilers and/or runtime environments for Basic, C++, Snobol, Smalltalk, Lisp, Dylan, and microcode
  • Operating systems programmed with: Macintosh OS6-9, Mac OS X, Win32 (Windows and NT), Unix (several flavors), Accent (a precursor to Mach), Perq Operating System (POS), VAX/VMS, DEC DOS, RT-11, RSX-11, RSTS/E, PDP-1 Time Sharing System, PTOS (Paper Tape OS), and front-panel switches.

Seminars, Presentations, and Publications

  • Object World speaker for three years
  • Presented Apple Dylan language to over 1000 attendees at Apple Developer Conference and to many customer groups
  • Tutorial lecturer at OOPSLA conference
  • The Design and Implementation of VAX/Smalltalk-32 in Bits of History, Words of Advice, G. Krasner, Editor