Bäcchus, Inc., founded in 1985,
is a full service software development consulting firm specializing in
Internet and web-based technologies, e-commerce, graphics, imaging and
GUI.
Over the past twenty years, Bäcchus has
designed and developed a wide array of innovative applications for a variety of
high profile clients and partners as well as several successful,
in-house commercial products.
Our primary task was to port the Netscape
IFC's
look and feel using
Swing
(then still secret) and the AWT, producing what is now
called the Elegance Look and Feel.
Approximately fifty classes were involved covering the full
spectrum of graphical user interface widgets: windows, buttons,
scrollbars, sliders, etc.
We are particularly experienced implementing pluggable
look-and-feels using Swing. We also helped Sun remove a number of bugs.
Wrote, integrated, setup, deployed, and maintained real-time
web-based customer service tool—eLiveAdvisor. This tool is
currently in service providing live on-line support on the
CarsDirect.com
web site.
We also helped develop and deploy proprietary J2EE technology used
in the real-time web-based customer service system and other
back-end systems used to ensure
web site up-time
.
Other work included design and implementation of an EAI solution,
which processed their two-month and growing backlog of orders
in a single night and the solution to numeruous Java, Javascript,
HTML, and web site integration problems.
Our work for Ixia included the design and implementation of
IxCore, a
fundamental part of Ixia's NetOps
suite of products for optimizing and monitoring network traffic.
System included Java-based central server for collecting,
aggregating, and storing data from Ixia's hardware nodes. JSPs
and servlets provided browser-based monitoring front-end, including
various on-demand and prerendered report graphs, logging, and a
management UI.
IxCore is platform, application server, and database independent and
runs on Linux and Windows NT/2000.
Joined a team of 20+ J2EE developers as the primary
user interface developer for
DealSnap 4.x—5square's Customer
Resource Management (CRM) Web application for Car Dealerships.
Front end development with JSP's, servlets, custom taglibs, DHTML, DOM, JavaScript
and CSS.
Developed on a Windows XP/Pro platform using JBOSS 4.x/Tomcat. Deployed
on a Linux platform with Apache/JBOSS.
As a member of the core
Web i18n
development group, Bäcchus helped design, manage and implement multi-lingual J2EE-based
real estate web applications–
i18ngenious and associated content
management system–
agent.i18ngenious.
Initial offering supports Traditional Chinese, Simplified
Chinese, and English.
Japanese and Spanish locales will be
added soon.
Helped develop ComBill,
Worldsite's Java-based e-commerce software system, including check
and credit card payment processing.
Other work included implementation of SSL and other security
for electronic payments and the development of a flashy,
Java Swing-based,
multi-threaded console application to monitor server farm liveliness
and alert system administrators upon warning and failure conditions.
These applications are currently in production at
Webcountry
(formerly WorldSite Networks) on Linux, UNIX and Windows.
As members of the core development team at Path Communications, we worked on
P.A.M.,
an application manager and automatic recovery system, and eLiveAdvisor,
a realtime web communication technology.
Our work included design, development and deployment of core Java
client/server multi-threaded distributed applications using RMI and Java 2,
heterogeneous system and network administration, Apache, IIS, SSL, servlets, JRun, Oracle,
Perl, JSP, and JavaScript.
This technology is currently being used on several high-profile web sites, including
CarsDirect.com,
LRN, and
Pratt & Whitney.
Designed
Mirage, an innovative 3D interactive
adventure game for Viacom New Media (a Viacom International subsidiary) to
help inspire interest in mathematics in teenagers.
We were responsible for the original story material, game design and the
management of several writing teams, graphic houses, and game designers.
Bäcchus also created the underlying
3D
graphics engine and associated technology.
In the early 1990s, we designed and created
LightWatch, a
sophisticated, highly graphical, SNMP-based network management
system for managing and controlling multi-protocol LAN's.
The underlying graphics interface for the MS-DOS version
used the
Bäcchus Window Management System, a proprietary,
platform independent window management system and widget
library. These tools were licensed to Fibermux by Bäcchus.
Bäcchus was also responsible for the look & feel and
graphic asset generation for both the UNIX and MS-DOS versions
of LightWatch.
In the mid-1990s, Bäcchus designed and implemented a
high-resolution, cross-platform, realtime 6-DOF
3D graphics
engine, including an accelerated implementation for the
Rendition
Vérité.
We used the Vérité implementation to create a
technology demo for Rendition, showing off the features of their
V2000 3D chips. Demo highlights included real-time video
feed and
true reflections.
We also helped debug problems in their graphic chip firmware and
video driver software.
Worked for the
Yamaha Systems Technology Group
writing low-level assembly language video device drivers
to support various high-resolution graphics chips and demos
for third party flat panel displays.
Our relationship with the Yamaha Music Group (YMG) led to
Bäcchus delivering the first
commercial
IBM-PC graphic editing systems for Yamaha's popular digitial FM
synthesizers and rack-mount tone generators—the TX81Z and TX802.
Work for the YMG also included being
one of the first developers to work with and support the
Yamaha C1 Music Computer, the first laptop computer with
built-in MIDI hardware.
Designed, wrote, and installed an interactive computer,
touch-screen-based digital music exhibit at the Smithsonian
museum in Washington DC.
This exhibit allowed users to select and play musical pieces of
various styles and periods. The selected MIDI music files were
played through a
Disklavier—Yamaha's
digital/acoustic piano with MIDI electronic connections.