About

Z-Systems has been developing software for over ten years. It currently runs multiple open-source projects and Z-Maestro, a complete music composition solution. One such open-source project is the highly-acclaimed Finestra Virtual Desktop.

The person behind Z-Systems is Zachary Northrup, who plays such roles as programmer, web designer, graphic designer, technical writer, musician, and magician. He has experience in many different areas including, but not limited to, .NET (VB.NET, C#, and Managed C++), native Windows development (C, C++, etc.), and robotics/embedded development (C, assembly). On the CodePlex, which hosts Z-Systems' open-source projects, he is known by the handle "zhuman".

Other Projects

Besides the many project publicly available from this site, Zachary has also worked on the following notable projects:

• Z-OS - A fully-featured real-time embedded operating system, loosely inspired by the architecture of Windows NT.
  • Preemptive multitasking/threading
  • Custom heap management algorithms
  • Features an object manager subsystem, which manages all system components
  • COM-like interface-based API
  • Full set of synchronization primitives
  • Implemented entirely in C, but object-oriented in design
  • Custom FAT file system driver
  • Supports 16-bit and 32-bit Microchip microcontroller platforms