James R. Andreas
Software engineer with a background spanning technical workstations, graphics systems, molecular biology informatics, and Android/OpenGL development.
Education
M.S. in Computer Science — Oregon State University
My master’s thesis examined the design and implementation of a programming language interpreter:
“A Study of the X2 Interpreter” James R. Andreas Master of Science (M.S.), Oregon State University, November 1987 Advisor: David Sandberg ScholarsArchive@OSU
Hewlett-Packard — Graphics and Systems Software
In the 1980s and early 1990s, I worked at Hewlett-Packard on the development of UNIX-based workstation systems and graphics software. Two published works from that era document areas I contributed to:
HP Integral PC — October 1985
The HP Integral PC was a transportable UNIX workstation introduced in 1985, based on the Motorola 68000 and running HP-UX. It was notable for integrating a high-resolution electroluminescent display, a thermal printer, and a flexible disc drive into a single portable unit — an unusual achievement for its time.
I was a co-author on the article describing the UNIX implementation for this system:
“A UNIX Operating System Adapted for a Technical Personal Computer” Ray M. Fajardo, Andrew L. Rood, James R. Andreas, and Robert C. Cline Hewlett-Packard Journal, Volume 36, Number 10, October 1985, pp. 36–44
The October 1985 issue of the HP Journal was devoted entirely to the Integral PC, covering its electronics, custom graphics processor, electroluminescent display, mechanical design, and UNIX operating system adaptations.
📄 HP Journal — October 1985 (Integral PC issue, PDF, 9.2 MB)
Starbase X11 MergeSystem — December 1989
By the late 1980s, the challenge of running HP’s Starbase graphics library alongside the X Window System on the same workstation required significant architectural work. The Starbase X11 MergeSystem enabled both graphics environments to share display hardware, overlay planes, and input devices simultaneously.
I co-authored the article on the Graphics Resource Manager (GRM) — the object-oriented subsystem that managed shared display objects between X and Starbase applications:
“Managing and Sharing Display Objects in the Starbase X11 Merge System” James R. Andreas, Robert C. Cline, and Courtney Loomis Hewlett-Packard Journal, Volume 40, Number 6, December 1989, pp. 12–19
The December 1989 issue covers the full MergeSystem architecture, including display resource sharing, overlay/image plane management, input device sharing, and testing.
📄 HP Journal — December 1989 (Starbase X11 MergeSystem issue, PDF, 6.7 MB)
Later Work
After HP, my work shifted toward:
- Molecular biology / bioinformatics — computational approaches to sequence analysis and phylogenetic algorithms
- Android and OpenGL ES — 3D graphics programming on mobile platforms, documented elsewhere on this site
- AI-assisted development — exploring how large language models can support software engineering tasks
All HP Journal issues are archived at the Internet Archive and historically at hpl.hp.com.