I built my own computer when I was 12. It was a 4 bit Elf-II with a
hexidecimal display and keypad. It became "wired" when I interfaced
it to a radio kit through a DCO so I could use it to tune in radio
stations on what started out as a single diode radio kit I imported
through Tandy.
While still in Highschool, I worked part time as Sys admin at the
local university engineering computer lab. I used to have to take a
load of crap from the upper classman and grad students, until "crash
time" arrived and it was either get the code running or fail. I had a
knack for picking bugs out of "Forgo", a superset of Fortran which is
what ran on the punch card fed Harris 1000 main frame we had. It was
an interesting experience being a highschool student yet telling grad
students to "get in line" and then, having them actually listen. :-()
After that, a C-64, then a 128 and then an Amiga with which I used to
cruise a BBS system specifically for Commodore computers, I forget the
name of it now but they had an interesting virtual world called
"Monkey Island" or something to that effect. I wasn't on that BBS
very often or for very long as for me, it was an international
call. :-()
>From the Amiga, I then moved up to an IBM PC and then hopped that up
with a speedy VH-20 cpu that was pin for pin compatible with the
original 8086. I think I went from 8Mhz up to a whopping 12Mhz, or
something similar.
My first jobs in the computer area were primarily developping
networked control systems on various real time 'Nix systems. From
there, I segued into web based control system applications because by
that point, the "control system" had become nothing more than a
database with a 100k or so D-A and A-D converters as it senses and the
user input to the system could be implemented on just about anything.
Going the route of web based applications freed me from being tied
down to any one platform.
Somewhere in there though, I was the Chair of an MPEG-2 and 4 break-
out and ad-hoc group developing extended standards for IPMP,
(Intellectual Property Management and Protection), I ended up being
the final editor of the specifications too but I'll NEVER do that
again!
More recently, the past 5 years or so, my work has concentrated more
on the database side of things, unfortunately. Although I learned a
hell of a lot of cool things, all of the in between cool things times
were pretty boring but then again the same thing could be said for the
crypto and DRM related work.
In the past 3 months of so, I've found interesting projects to earn a
living that are not only almost entirely web based but more so, no
more intranet web applications that no one sees. But, now that I'm
more free-lance than I was before, although not entirely, I've been
deluged with people I know who want web sites. Oh well, at least
things are likely to never get boring. :-)
Craig
On Feb 22, 9:43 am, Volvox777 wrote:
> I was an early bloomer - first kid in the neighbourhood to own a Tandy
> 16 (yep a huge 16k of memory) at the age of 11.
> That was followed by the more impressive Commodore 64 and it went from
> there.
> Used to spend time writing RPG text games in Basic - which was pretty
> dumb - coz nobody else had a PC to play it on and I knew all the
> correct responses.
> Took a foray into the science area after reading about biotech -
> science was just too fascnating not to learn about - but soon
> discovered I don't have the attention span to work in a lab - hey,
> look, what's this over here...BOOM!
> Then the internet arrived and I was forever changed by the world's
> most advanced porn delivery device. Seriously though - saw the
> internet as an incredible marketing tool and set about acquiring the
> skills to help people use it just like that.
> To start off with I bought 5 domain names and for about 2 years just
> experimented with different techniques to make sites rank better -
> eventually came to the conclusion that you are just best off building
> a good clean site with compelling content - so probably could have
> saved myself the time and effort of doing the experiments if I just
> followed the search engines advice to begin with.
> Since then I have been running my business part time while working in
> science related field but have just been made an offer as a full time
> digital marketing consultant with an organisation that has big plans
> for their web future.
> Ok - that's the 20 second spiel
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