Demography

From: Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk <(Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk)>
Date: Wed Mar 4 11:35:05 1998

Here's my contribution. I must confess to not having read all the
previous ones - traffic on the list has been somewhat high and my boss
has been making noises about my spending so much time reading it :-( I
suppose I'll have to get TCP/IP on my IBM 6150 ...

My name is Philip Belben and I'm an electrical engineer by trade. I
work for PowerGen, one of the electricity generating companies formed
when the UK split up its electricity industry in 1990. I'm 30 years old
(31 next week) and still single. I live alone in a 3-bedroom house full
of computers and other electronic junk, located at Coalville, England.

My introduction to computers was when my school got a Commodore PET in
1979. Suitable pestering of my parents meant that I received a
secondhand, 8K PET for my 13th birthday in 1980. I then caught the
computing bug - I forced the school to let me take exams in computer
science even though they had no-one to teach it.

After leaving school at 18 I did a year with IBM (Marketing - UGH!)
before going to university.

At university in 1987 I met Tony Duell, who had just founded the P850
User Group to preserve old computers. I caught the collecting bug at
about that time, and I now have around 60 of the things.

Old computers is just one hobby among many, though. I also write music;
I play the organ at my local church (yes I am a Christian), and also
sing and play Piano and Bassoon; I have recently taken up photography.
I would add that my computers aren't the only thing that's old - my
camera is a Yashicaflex 635 (late 1960s?) that I bought for 6 UK pounds
(just under $10) at a charity auction. My car is a 1971 Marcos Mantis -
a British kit car of which about 32 were made and 14 are believed to
survive - which I bought two years ago because I wanted something
sportier than my 1965 Ford Anglia (I shall always regret getting rid of
the Anglia). I also have a 1948 Fordson (= UK brand name for Ford
commercial vehicles until 1950s) truck, useful for carting computers
around. When I get the truck back on the road, I intend to join the
Classic Computer Rescue Squad.

Since this is not strictly on topic, I'd better not say any more!

Philip.
Received on Wed Mar 04 1998 - 11:35:05 GMT