SWCS About Us

	Stephen Williamson Unit 1, 103 Kempsie Road (click here for a Google screenshot) Upper Mount Gravatt Brisbane Queensland Australia 4122 E-mail steve@swcs.com.au Web Page www.swcs.com.au
Personal www.swcs.com.au /myspaceclassic.htm Close Business Ties since 1986 with Bruce&Gail Riddel now IT Integrity World view Timeline at the close of 6,026 years: Sep 30 2008 Recorded history: Free Will & Hidden design: 5,995 yrs of man, 31 yrs Son of God Genesis 45: 9-11 "Come down to me, do not delay — for there are still 5 years of famine" 6,027 yrs approaching 2010 = 2,513½yrs Eden→Exodus + 1,000yrs Exodus→Egypt + 2,513½yrs Egypt→Eden at Garden City 6,027 yrs This is Australia
	2 Timothy 2:11-13 "A faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we endure we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we disbelieve yet he stays faithful: he cannot deny himself"

Steve's Business Background
Eric, father, was an NCR cash register and accounting machines sales account manager, systems analyst, employer & educator 1956-1981.
1968: Grade 12 at Brisbane State High. Studied languages and economics.
1969: Back Office Clerk / trainee accountant at Wallace Bishop Jewellers.
1970: Money Market Clerk / trainee accountant at Pioneer Sugar Mills Ltd (overseeing, boy, "millions" of dollars with wining/dining etc).

Computer Applications Programming from 1971, with 2015 closing off 44 years as a professional programmer. See one definition. First 15 years included 7 versatile years of writing code for mainframes in COBOL.

1971-1973
COBOL click here for those unfamiliar with its inventor, is the early "natural English" language that gained widespread acceptance in the US and UK governments and allegedly still supports over 70% of business transaction processing worldwide. Regarding Australian support click here for a recent article in the Australian.
Most run on IBM mainframes. It has 90% dominance in global financial transactions and is also widespread in insurance, airline administration, and government infrastructure. It is a third generation (3GL) language, one of the six languages — the other five (more formulaic) languages being C, C++, Fortran, Ada and Prolog — whose standards are set by ISO/IEC. ISO/IEC have 18 participating member countries and 27 observer member countries click here. These early languages contrast with later 3GL (and 4GL) languages, with their run-time systems or "virtual machines" all built via C and C++ compiled executables, e.g. Java, now owned by the Oracle Corporation, and Javascript, having its "trademark" owned by Oracle but its script standardized by the group ECMA International.
Click here for a brief summary of what is meant by 1, 2, 3 and 4GLs.
And click here for some stats in answer to the question "Is there still a market for COBOL skills/developers?" The $2 trillion said to have been invested in those English-like, business-oriented COBOL systems over 57 years does play its part. And well written code is both straightforward and robust, explaining why banks depend on it so much.

So, working at Pioneer Sugar's Brisbane office and under tutelage from Arthur Andersen & Co, wrote a Financial Modelling application in COBOL that produced 10 year management reports: Balance sheets, P & L, and Cash-flow analyses, using data on punched cards to serve as the input for the forecasting required. It was an early "spreadsheet" type of application, employing that "Kiss" principle (as much as possible), Keep it simple, stupid . It ran at local Brisbane computer bureaus for a number of years, initially on a Univac 1108, later a CDC 6600.
1974-1975 Transfer to the North Qld offices and, liaising with Townsville software contractors, computerised the canepay and payroll office systems using Basic Plus when the company purchased a DEC PDP-11/40.
For keyboard input at the cane-receiving stations and the central pay office, the company purchased easy to use DECwriter II terminals, providing great real-time audit trails.
Took a four year sabbatical from the computer world in 1976 see further details in Christian Retailer section below.
1980-1982 Employed on NCR mini-computers and writing in COBOL in an interactive multiprogramming environment, adapted Property Rates, Cash Receipting and Debtors applications for various Local Government Councils. Trained Council staff throughout Qld & NSW.
1984-1986 dBASE II: Transition. In April 1984, contracted to develop a database for Human Resource Management on a $10,000, single-user, IBM PC (hard disk) XT. At Christmas, contracted at Myers Indooroopilly to develop a multi-user customer database using Digital Research's Concurrent DOS on PCs. Also, wrote a Stock and Invoicing system for Southern Carpets in Logan. In 1985, now back on mainframes, upgraded Qld State Govt COBOL applications and trained staff on the ICL computer at Dept of Main Roads. In April 1986, back on PCs, wrote a General Ledger and Debtors program for churches and aid organizations (Australia-wide), again in dBASE II.

1986-2008 PCs: Data Analysis & Database Management on 16-bit DOS and 32-bit Windows, designing & building numerous systems using dBASE III PLUS, an easy-to-read scripting language and database management platform, that accessed Excel-friendly dBASE tables through its data engine (written in C, marketed by its US developer Ashton-Tate). Click here for a summary of its language and syntax. The fact that it came as a database manager as well as having a 4GL language (click here for "What is 4GL") led to an almost universal acceptance by programmers. Click here for an early 1986 interview with its author. Initially single-user, upgraded in 1992 to WordTech's dBXL (dBASE) data engine and its Quicksilver multi-user compiler, as it provided a well-behaved, protected mode environment with windowing extensions for each application.
Working with Datacare (now IT Integrity) who supported each installation, Steve wrote feature-rich, integrated systems for hundreds of sites, involving thousands of employees. Full office systems were thus installed at: Qld Theatre Company & Northern Securities on Novell networks, then, working with Blue Nursing staff at Moorlands House (originally owned by the Mayne family - see Mayne Hall below) wrote Domiciliary software for 62 of 63 Blue Nursing (BlueCare) Centres in Queensland (Brisbane excepted). During the 90s, implemented clients' care data on Apple Newton handhelds for RN nurses in the field, and installed office systems at Anglican, AOG, Baptist, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran and Uniting Church Aged Care Homes, Bible Colleges and Christian wholesalers - see below.
With Windows XP Professional edition, stable multi-tasking finally arrived coupled with advanced networking features.

In 2001, web enabled Jack Bradford's Brisbane Junior Theatre.

2000-2014 Microsoft SQL Server: Web-based Database Management in Active Server Pages scripts, combining server-side commands in SQL and VBScript with client-side commands in HTML and JavaScript to provide search pages for retail staff. Wholesalers upload their in-house database tables daily for retailer enquiry purposes and download orders subsequently placed. In 2005 Care and Share Products invested in a mobile platform using Dexterra software so their sales team could download full copies of the customer stock and backorders database to their Symbol barcode readers via cable or WiFi or at a pinch GPRS, and be able to take (offline) and transmit (online) orders from almost anywhere in Australia. In 2007 wrote a Stock Database program for CBAA.
This completed Steve's decentralized distribution database package: DEDICATION II DAD

Christian Retailer Background
1975-1976 Following a time of encouragement and prayer with a number of close brothers and sisters, started distributing Christian books and records to individuals and church prayer/youth groups through Ayr, Home Hill and Townsville.
In Townsville, struck up a deep friendship with Tony McLennan and lived with his family for several months. Working through Tony's church Calvary Temple, opened up an outreach building for daily ministry on Flinders Street (in the heart of the city) called "The Ark".

1977-1978 Inspired by their Bookshop in Brisbane, became Townsville secretary for the Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship Int'l and opened the Bookshop in this main street of Townsville. Ran a number of concerts with overseas artists, one of the first being an outdoor Larry Norman concert at the newly opened Dean Park Sound Shell, with Larry performing rock and ballads on high action classical guitar and grand piano, great acoustics and heart-felt message. Jamie Owens followed next in Bowen, then concerts with Barry McGuire, Honeytree, Chuck Girard, Randy Stonehill in Townsville, then - later in 1984 - a Phil Keaggy concert at UQ's Mayne Hall in Brisbane. Every concert included Australian artists in support.
Christian Wholesaler Background

1979. Warehouse manager for Rhema Records and Keystone Magazine. Travelled twice to U.S.A.
1982-1986 Business manager in Australia for DTS Records & David Smallbone Promotions Pennant Hills Sydney.
1987-1996 Royalty Systems / Stock & Debtors software at Alpha & Omega Records now Crossroad Distributors - Keith & Joyce Bray.
1990-2012 Stock & Debtors software at Harvest Christian Products (Christian Art Gifts) & until 2002 GPH in New Zealand.
1991-2001 Stock & Debtors software at Lighthouse Christian Distributors.
1993-2008 Stock & Debtors software at W A Buchanan & Co
2003-2014 Stock & Debtors, Payroll, General Ledger & Creditors software at Care and Share Products.
2007-2009 Stock Database manager for Christian Bookselling Association Australia.

** End of page

1971-1973	COBOL click here for those unfamiliar with its inventor, is the early "natural English" language that gained widespread acceptance in the US and UK governments and allegedly still supports over 70% of business transaction processing worldwide. Regarding Australian support click here for a recent article in the Australian. Most run on IBM mainframes. It has 90% dominance in global financial transactions and is also widespread in insurance, airline administration, and government infrastructure. It is a third generation (3GL) language, one of the six languages — the other five (more formulaic) languages being C, C++, Fortran, Ada and Prolog — whose standards are set by ISO/IEC. ISO/IEC have 18 participating member countries and 27 observer member countries click here. These early languages contrast with later 3GL (and 4GL) languages, with their run-time systems or "virtual machines" all built via C and C++ compiled executables, e.g. Java, now owned by the Oracle Corporation, and Javascript, having its "trademark" owned by Oracle but its script standardized by the group ECMA International. Click here for a brief summary of what is meant by 1, 2, 3 and 4GLs. And click here for some stats in answer to the question "Is there still a market for COBOL skills/developers?" The $2 trillion said to have been invested in those English-like, business-oriented COBOL systems over 57 years does play its part. And well written code is both straightforward and robust, explaining why banks depend on it so much. So, working at Pioneer Sugar's Brisbane office and under tutelage from Arthur Andersen & Co, wrote a Financial Modelling application in COBOL that produced 10 year management reports: Balance sheets, P & L, and Cash-flow analyses, using data on punched cards to serve as the input for the forecasting required. It was an early "spreadsheet" type of application, employing that "Kiss" principle (as much as possible), Keep it simple, stupid . It ran at local Brisbane computer bureaus for a number of years, initially on a Univac 1108, later a CDC 6600.
1974-1975	Transfer to the North Qld offices and, liaising with Townsville software contractors, computerised the canepay and payroll office systems using Basic Plus when the company purchased a DEC PDP-11/40. For keyboard input at the cane-receiving stations and the central pay office, the company purchased easy to use DECwriter II terminals, providing great real-time audit trails.
Took a four year sabbatical from the computer world in 1976 see further details in Christian Retailer section below.
1980-1982	Employed on NCR mini-computers and writing in COBOL in an interactive multiprogramming environment, adapted Property Rates, Cash Receipting and Debtors applications for various Local Government Councils. Trained Council staff throughout Qld & NSW.
1984-1986	dBASE II: Transition. In April 1984, contracted to develop a database for Human Resource Management on a $10,000, single-user, IBM PC (hard disk) XT. At Christmas, contracted at Myers Indooroopilly to develop a multi-user customer database using Digital Research's Concurrent DOS on PCs. Also, wrote a Stock and Invoicing system for Southern Carpets in Logan. In 1985, now back on mainframes, upgraded Qld State Govt COBOL applications and trained staff on the ICL computer at Dept of Main Roads. In April 1986, back on PCs, wrote a General Ledger and Debtors program for churches and aid organizations (Australia-wide), again in dBASE II.
1986-2008	PCs: Data Analysis & Database Management on 16-bit DOS and 32-bit Windows, designing & building numerous systems using dBASE III PLUS, an easy-to-read scripting language and database management platform, that accessed Excel-friendly dBASE tables through its data engine (written in C, marketed by its US developer Ashton-Tate). Click here for a summary of its language and syntax. The fact that it came as a database manager as well as having a 4GL language (click here for "What is 4GL") led to an almost universal acceptance by programmers. Click here for an early 1986 interview with its author. Initially single-user, upgraded in 1992 to WordTech's dBXL (dBASE) data engine and its Quicksilver multi-user compiler, as it provided a well-behaved, protected mode environment with windowing extensions for each application. Working with Datacare (now IT Integrity) who supported each installation, Steve wrote feature-rich, integrated systems for hundreds of sites, involving thousands of employees. Full office systems were thus installed at: Qld Theatre Company & Northern Securities on Novell networks, then, working with Blue Nursing staff at Moorlands House (originally owned by the Mayne family - see Mayne Hall below) wrote Domiciliary software for 62 of 63 Blue Nursing (BlueCare) Centres in Queensland (Brisbane excepted). During the 90s, implemented clients' care data on Apple Newton handhelds for RN nurses in the field, and installed office systems at Anglican, AOG, Baptist, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran and Uniting Church Aged Care Homes, Bible Colleges and Christian wholesalers - see below. With Windows XP Professional edition, stable multi-tasking finally arrived coupled with advanced networking features. In 2001, web enabled Jack Bradford's Brisbane Junior Theatre.
2000-2014	Microsoft SQL Server: Web-based Database Management in Active Server Pages scripts, combining server-side commands in SQL and VBScript with client-side commands in HTML and JavaScript to provide search pages for retail staff. Wholesalers upload their in-house database tables daily for retailer enquiry purposes and download orders subsequently placed. In 2005 Care and Share Products invested in a mobile platform using Dexterra software so their sales team could download full copies of the customer stock and backorders database to their Symbol barcode readers via cable or WiFi or at a pinch GPRS, and be able to take (offline) and transmit (online) orders from almost anywhere in Australia. In 2007 wrote a Stock Database program for CBAA. This completed Steve's decentralized distribution database package: DEDICATION II DAD
Christian Retailer Background 1975-1976 Following a time of encouragement and prayer with a number of close brothers and sisters, started distributing Christian books and records to individuals and church prayer/youth groups through Ayr, Home Hill and Townsville. In Townsville, struck up a deep friendship with Tony McLennan and lived with his family for several months. Working through Tony's church Calvary Temple, opened up an outreach building for daily ministry on Flinders Street (in the heart of the city) called "The Ark". 1977-1978 Inspired by their Bookshop in Brisbane, became Townsville secretary for the Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship Int'l and opened the Bookshop in this main street of Townsville. Ran a number of concerts with overseas artists, one of the first being an outdoor Larry Norman concert at the newly opened Dean Park Sound Shell, with Larry performing rock and ballads on high action classical guitar and grand piano, great acoustics and heart-felt message. Jamie Owens followed next in Bowen, then concerts with Barry McGuire, Honeytree, Chuck Girard, Randy Stonehill in Townsville, then - later in 1984 - a Phil Keaggy concert at UQ's Mayne Hall in Brisbane. Every concert included Australian artists in support.
Christian Wholesaler Background
1979.	Warehouse manager for Rhema Records and Keystone Magazine. Travelled twice to U.S.A.
1982-1986	Business manager in Australia for DTS Records & David Smallbone Promotions Pennant Hills Sydney.
1987-1996	Royalty Systems / Stock & Debtors software at Alpha & Omega Records now Crossroad Distributors - Keith & Joyce Bray.
1990-2012	Stock & Debtors software at Harvest Christian Products (Christian Art Gifts) & until 2002 GPH in New Zealand.
1991-2001	Stock & Debtors software at Lighthouse Christian Distributors.
1993-2008	Stock & Debtors software at W A Buchanan & Co
2003-2014	Stock & Debtors, Payroll, General Ledger & Creditors software at Care and Share Products.
2007-2009	Stock Database manager for Christian Bookselling Association Australia.