Microsoft Windows 3.0 Device Driver Kit

In 1989 James was contracted by Microsoft to explain to independent software vendors the first Windows virtual device drivers. He produced all content for the resulting DDK as well as the memory management chapters in the SDK.

Using both Microsoft developers and staff from UC Berkeley and Stanford as resources, he authored conceptual descriptions that became standards for the software and hardware development community (the success of Win 3.0 is credited in part on the quality of the development kits).

This was a classic "we need it fast, we need it right" project, and therefore an ideal use of the Information Refinery tools James had developed for Far West Publishing Systems.

For example, James worked with the developers to embed API descriptions directly in the assembly code. The code could then be fed to UNIX scripts which served as a front-end to programmable publishing software (Interleaf 4.0).

These techniques not only allowed rapid assembly of hundreds of pages of text and art (3 days from code freeze to printer ready), but ensured a high-degree of completeness and accuracy by allowing developers to easily modify content in their source code after reviewing timely, fully-formatted drafts.