Bil Herd

He attended the Indiana school system.{{cite newsgroup|title=F1 fuse replacement / SID silence|author=Andreas of Shape|date=June 27, 1998|newsgroup=comp.sys.cbm|message-id=6nhh02$s1g$1@news.jersey.net|url=https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.cbm/xVv2cnfkbFQ/WWuyFOtSINsJ|access-date=August 17, 2019}} Though Herd did not have a college degree and did not graduate high school, he was working as an engineer by the age of 20.

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• 1977–1980: 238th Cavalry - 38th Division Indiana Army National Guard
• 1980–1982: 103rd Medical Battalion - 28th Division Pennsylvania Army National Guard
• 1981: Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service.

After first acting as the principal engineer on the Commodore Plus/4, C16/116, C264, and C364 machines, Herd designed the significantly more successful Commodore 128, a dual-CPU, triple-OS, compatible successor to the Commodore 64. Prior to the C128, Herd had done the initial architecture of the Commodore LCD computer, which was not released.[https://youtube.com/wzMsgnnDIRE]{{Citation |title=Commodore History Part 5 - The C128 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzMsgnnDIRE |access-date=2021-03-31 |language=en}}

After leaving Commodore, Herd continued to design faster and more powerful computers with emphasis on machine vision and is a co-author on a patent involving n-dimensional pattern matching. He also designed an ultrasonic backup sensor for vehicles while working for Indian Valley Mfg. in 1986, a feature found on many modern vehicles today.{{cite web |title=Electronics Design Hack Chat with Bil Herd |url=https://hackaday.io/event/25382/logs |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202234544/https://hackaday.io/event/25382/logs |archive-date=2 December 2018}}

Voluntary health care work:

• 1989–1996: Fellowship First Aid Squad / Mount Laurel EMS Inc. Highest rank: Captain (also served as president)
• 1991–1995: Cooper Trauma Center - Camden, NJ: Trauma Technician

Herd has undertaken an entrepreneurial role and is owner of several small companies. As for recent low-level computer hacking, he did a "cameo appearance" by contributing a snippet of sprite logic code to the C64 DTV product designed by Jeri Ellsworth.

Herd appeared in and narrated the documentary "Growing the 8 Bit Generation" (a.k.a. "The Commodore Wars") about the early days of Commodore and the home computers explosion. Subsequently, he narrated the documentary "Easy to learn, hard to master: the fate of Atari", thus becoming the official voice of the "8-bit Generation" documentary series. {{As of|2020|September|post=,}} he produces videos for Hackaday.

In 2021, Herd co-authored a book with Margaret Morabito, Back into the Storm: A Design Engineer's Story of Commodore Computers in the 1980s, in which he recounts inside stories about his and his team's experiences with designing computers for Commodore.

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• Bagnall, Brian: [http://worldcat.org/isbn/0973864907 On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore], {{ISBN|0-9738649-0-7}}.

• Greenley, Larry, et al. (1986). Commodore 128 Programmer's Reference Guide. {{ISBN|0-553-34378-5}}. (Herd Co-author)
• Herd, B. & Morabito, M. (2021). [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BF53TW7/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Back into the Storm: A Design Engineer's Story of Commodore Computers in the 1980s]. {{ISBN|9798534584950}}.

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• [http://www.8bitgeneration.com/ The 8 Bit Generation] The story of Jack Tramiel and Commodore International Produced by JunkFood, narrated by Bil Herd
• [http://hackaday.com/author/williamherd/ Hackaday.com] – Bil Herd's Original Videos at Hackaday
• [https://www.commodore.ca/commodore-products/commodore-128-the-most-versatile-8-bit-computer-ever-made/ Commodore 128 History at Commodore.ca] – by Ian Matthews
• [http://freax.intro.hu/about.html A brief history of the computer demo scene] – By Tamás Polgár
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170808123245/http://homepage.hispeed.ch/commodore/c128_story.html The C128 story, by Bil Herd] – at Fab's Commodore page (Fabian Meyer)
• [http://www.c128.com C128.com Commodore Users Group Video - Updated 2005] – With Bil Herd, Dave Haynie
• [http://www.tllts.org/audio/tllts_209-09-12-07.ogg Appearance on The Linux Link Tech Show on September 12, 2007 (ogg)] [http://www.tllts.org/audio/tllts_209-09-12-07.mp3 (mp3)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20101229023933/http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/video/video.htm Two videos of Bil Herd at the 25th Anniversary of the Commodore 64 at the Computer History Museum in 2007]
• [https://archive.today/20130418213228/http://blip.tv/file/799758 A video of Bil Herd and Dale Luck post-show at the 25th Anniversary of the Commodore 64 at the Computer History Museum in 2007]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPD5N43VIsk C128.com video of Bil Herd describing the C116 TED family of computers under Jack Tramiel]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP1XwIJHkyE Video of Bil Herd and Jeri Ellsworth explaining Phase Locked Loops]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzMsgnnDIRE Commodore History Part 5 - The C128]

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Category:Commodore people

Category:Computer hardware engineers

Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)