Bill Stewart (programmer)

Bill Stewart, né William C. Stewart, was born in Memphis, TN in 1950.

Bill Stewart founded Stewart Software Company, Memphis, TN in 1984 and marketed Z80 Assembly Language programs, notably TOOLKIT and the ONLINE 80 Bulletin Board System, for Radio Shack TRS-80 Computers running TRSDOS. Later that company became Stewart Computer & Supply, Inc.

Switching to 8080 Assembly under IBM PC DOS and MS-DOS many programs in shareware and commercial distribution were released.

His Shareware FREE.COM was cited as a top 10 PC utility in PC Magazine, ("The Utilities That DOS Forgot", Paul Somerson, PC Magazine, Feb 24, 1987 v6 n4 p176(2). Elec. Coll.: A4689644.), and was a "Program Of The Month" in a publication in Great Britain.

The commercial programs were oriented towards MS-DOS computer servicing and diagnostics. Commercial products included UNIFORM, a non-destructive reformat for hard drives, CSR, which allowed service shops to archive CMOS settings from computers they serviced and restore them when necessary, and Rx, a small TSR, (Terminate & Stay Resident), program which gave plain English explanations to accompany the often cryptic "Abort, Retry or Ignore?" errors generated by DOS by changing it to "Abort, Retry, Ignore or Explain?".

Stewart Computer & Supply, Inc was sold in 1993 and Stewart moved to Fort Myers, FL where he continued to write computer diagnostic software for 8080 based machines until 1997, and was a frequent contributor to The PC Troubleshooter magazine.

He lived in Cape Coral, FL where he was a ham radio operator, call sign N4CRO, an infrequent scuba diver and an avid amateur weather enthusiast. See http://www.stewartweather.com. He has worked in law enforcement since 1994.

Bill died in August 2009 at the age of 59.