Researching Bill Stewart

Stewart was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He founded Stewart Software Company there in 1984 and marketed Zilog 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 8088 Assembly under IBM PC DOS and MS-DOS, it released many programs via shareware and commercial distribution.

His shareware FREE.COM was cited as a top 10 PC utility in PC Magazine in 1987, and was a "Program of the Month" in a publication in Great Britain.

His 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 terminate and stay resident program (TSR) 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, Florida where he continued to write computer diagnostic software for 8088-based machines until 1997, and was a frequent contributor to The PC Troubleshooter magazine.

Later he lived in Cape Coral, Florida where he was a ham radio operator, call sign N4CRO, an infrequent scuba diver and an avid amateur weather enthusiast. From 1994 he worked in law enforcement.

Bill died in August 2009 at the age of 59.

Stewart attended Michigan State University, where he played baseball. He signed with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1949 and his professional baseball career lasted for nine seasons and 971 games, all but 51 of them in the Athletics' organization. In his 1955 big-league trial, Stewart began the season (the A's first in Kansas City) on the varsity, and went hitless in three at bats during April. Sent to the Triple-A Columbus Jets, Stewart hit .299 with 12 home runs in 92 games. He was recalled by Kansas City when the rosters expanded in September, and played in eight more games, three as a starting outfielder.

On September 11, 1955, in the second game of a doubleheader, Stewart started in right field and collected his only two MLB hits, a single and a double off veteran left-hander Eddie Lopat of the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore won, 4–2, with Lopat recording the penultimate victory of his pitching career.