I'm a fairly recent arrival to this list. I'm 34, a New Zealander, and
I've lived in the UK for almost 4 years.
I think the first 'computer' I programmed seriously was a Canon SX320
calculator, which was a desktop machine with a full keyboard and 40? col
printer. I also did Fortran and Algol-W programming at highschool.
My first computer of my own was an 8080 S-100 system, c.1978. I still
have that system (in NZ) though it hasn't run for 10 or so years. I
also have a twin-integrator differential analyser that I made from a
design in Scientific American.
I started doing various programming work on machines like TRS80 &
clones, Sorcerer, including quite a few BIOSes for CP/M, including one
for the TRS80 (a company in Auckland produced a bank-switching/FDC board
to fit into the System80.)
In 1982, while at uni, I acquired an IBM 360/30 system via the local
micro club. It had sat unused for 10+ years, but I got it going. For
the full saga see
http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/nbree/saga.html. Last I
heard it was rescued by Auckland Uni.
After uni I did embedded work, mainly Z80, until the '87 crash meant
that most of the companies I worked for scaled things down. My partner
and I went into office PCs, LANs etc. which went really well, and we
moved into accounting systems and other such stuff. Unfortunately for
me, despite being lucrative, this was getting rather boring, so I packed
it in and came over here for a change of scene.
My first job here was embedded work for racing car dataloggers and
instruments. My last project for that company was the dashboard for the
Lotus Elise (68HC11 running Forth) and I went on to look after the
datalogging on the BTCC Ford Mondeo Touring Cars (FYI the Bosch engine
management system in the '96 BTCC Mondeo had 17 processors in it, 12 8b
+ 5 16b and cost GBP16k.) This sounds like a glamour job (hey, you get
on TV) but after a while it's just tedious long hours. So now I do test
rig programming work for a company that makes gearboxes for the likes of
Indycars, F1, GT and Touring Cars. It's quite exciting watching a
differential rig simulating Damon Hill lapping at Monaco. Well, it is
for me anyway.
Apart from the 486 OS/2 system I'm using now, and my PalmPilot, I don't
have any computers here, vintage or otherwise. I do have an interest in
the history of computers, like Babbage's designs, the differential
analysers, Colossus ...
The one computer I would love to get is an Educ-8, which I think the
Australians may know of. It is a TTL 8-bit machine, designed by Jameson
(Jim) Rowe. When its design was published in EA (c.1975) I read all the
articles, but I was too young and poor to afford to make one. I did
play with one may years later, and I have written an emulator in
Smalltalk, but I would still like to get my hands on one.
Other hobbies include Volvo cars (I have a '65 P1800 in NZ) and
listening to IndiePop music, especially that on glittery 7"s, hence the
'GirlFrendo' homepage.
--
Lawrence Wilkinson ljw_at_formula1.demon.co.uk
The GirlFrendo homepage: http://www.formula1.demon.co.uk/girlfrendo/
"You've got the brains, or so you say, maybe you see things another way"-bis
Received on Mon Mar 02 1998 - 08:06:03 GMT