My demographics:
I'm 33 and from Sydney, Australia. I'm a Taswegian by birth, and my first
intro to computers was a gift of a 4 function calculator from my mother when
I was 10. That particular unit (a CASIO) had a problem dividing by 0 - it
tried to!! The display patiently counted from 0 up to... well I never saw
it stop before the batteries gave out. I guess thats what started my prime
interest in computers - the quirky and unusual.
Mixed with a dollop of nostalgia (it's not what it used to be), and you have
me today - a collector of just about anything that calculates and isn't too
big (we're renting). So, slide rules, mechanical calculators, handheld
electronic calculators and recently some of the early home micros and game
machines. That's my collecting field. Our house blows a fuse when I turn
on the dishwasher and the washing machine; there's just no way I'm going to
have a mainframe running here for anything over a couple of milliseconds.
I'm a programmer by nature - having earned my stripes on the console
machines of the mid to late 80s (Nintendo and Super Nintendo, Commodore 64,
etc). Mainly 6502 stuff. I'm now programming what we call Interactive
Multipath Movies - real time rendered 3D movies with which you can interact
and see story changes as you interact. Its quite neat, actually - I just
bought shares in our company.
Anyway, my other passion is lost information. I find the search for missing
information - the gathering together of widely dislocated pieces - somewhat
enjoyable. Why, just today I tracked down the original owner of my Exidy
Sorcerer. I've been known to track down the owner of a slide rule deposited
in a junk store some 20 years ago. He was rather surprised to hear from a
guy from Australia - and unfortunately thought I was a kook!
Well, maybe I am :)
I'm married to a lovely American lady, and we have two rugrats. The kids
just love circular slide rules and my little girl (3yo) begs me to let her
clean my calculators. Which, of course, I do.
I invite you all to visit my web sites, devoted to various parts of my
collecting interests...
Museum of Soviet Calculators (currently a Yahoo! and Netscape Cool LInk)
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/calculator/soviet.html
Slide Rule Trading Post
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/
Weird Computing Machines
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/weird/
I have various other sites, but not related to computing. I'm hoping,
eventually, to move back to Tasmania - the place I grew up and the place my
heart longs for. Of course, my computers and calculators will move with me.
I'm sure the wife and kids will come too :)
My collection consists of the following, and lots of widgets I forget...
Wang calculator (interesting)
Altair 8800b
Kaypro II
Exidy Sorcerers
OSI Challenger
Atari 800
Commodore C64
KIM-1
BBC
Creativision
Soviet Calculators (about a dozen)
HP calculators (nearly, but not quite, the whole set)
Slide rules
and the prize....
a Thatcher Calculator.
I welcome all emails, but warn that due to the large amount of email my
sites generate I'm sometimes less than quick to respond!
Cheers
A
adavie_at_mad.scientist.com
Received on Mon Mar 02 1998 - 04:15:43 GMT