About

Page Title: About
Created: 2025-04-03 09:39:04
Current: 2025-05-01 23:20:44 UTC

I was just 15 and I was into science and astronomy stuff during my childhood. Technology did not even get a look in because there was not really much tech around. Then I was seduced by a lovely ZX81 in the shop of WH Smiths during the school summer (August) holidays in 1981 (43 Years ago)

Seeing the ZX81 sat there on the display cabinet got me excited, so I used my money from the paper rounds jobs I did in the early mornings to purchase that ZX81 for £69.95. A few months later I upgraded the RAM with the 16K Ram Pack and of course suffered with the famous wobble.
I spent many nights now sitting at the ZX81 keyboard writing simple programs, programs from computer magazines and the odd game.

I upgraded to a ZX Spectrum during the school summer (August) holidays in 1982 (42 Years ago) again using money from my paper rounds to purchase one for £125.00. The ZX Spectrum was a much better computer with a Zilog Z80a 8bit processor running at 3.5MHz with 48KB of onboard RAM and colour graphics.
A year later I upgraded by buying the ZX Interface 1 and the ZX Microdrive. A couple of years later I got the Currah μSpeech speech synthesizer. (The last time I powered on my ZX Spectrum was in October 2020 and it was in fully working order).

Ten years later in 1992 I decided to jump onto the IBM Compatible bandwagon and I looked around I saw this little beauty, an Amstrad PPC-640D. The Amstrad PPC-640D was an Intel 8088 running at 4.77MHz with 640KB of onboard RAM, inbuilt Green Monochrome LCD, Twin Floppy Disc Drives and an inbuilt 2400 baud modem

I still can remember sitting out in my garden in the sunshine on a hot July day in 1993 with the PPC-640D, my portable TV next to me watching the British Formula 1 Grand Prix along with plenty of ice cold Grolsch Pilsener's

To start with what is Node 2:253/414.3? Well here is a description of Node 2:253/414.3
In the very early 1990's before the Internet was fully available here in the UK, I was on a global network of BBS (Bulletin Board System's) called FidoNet. I was operating off the Highlander BBS 2:253/414

The FidoNet network addressing system is broken down as thus...
Zone:Nets/Node.Point

So the Highlander BBS was in Zone 2 (Europe), Net UK Central 253, Highlander BBS in Gloucester 414 and finally I was point number 3

Not every user of the BBS was allocated a point number but once you gained the trust of the BBS operator you were then given a unique point number.

Even though Fidonet is really no more I still refer to my home network as Node 2:253/414.3, a bit of nostalgia to a bygone past.

I left the world of BBS's and got onto the Internet by joining Demon Internet as part of the founder £10/Month.

Since 2001 when ADSL got installed into my area I then had enough 'upload' bandwidth to start hosting my own web server. Over the years equipment failed and got replaced and currently I am running my home network off a NAS for file storage and everything else is running off various Raspberry Pi's, this site is running on an overclocked 4GB Raspberry Pi 5.

I was very lucky starting a job working for UK Military contractors, this started back in August 1984 and after a while they brought in computers and installed a Novell Netware running on 10base2 (BNC), and I could then start to do stuff with computers at work and writing software. I moved around a bit between different competitors gaining my IT knowledge and experience and eventually ending up running the IT department at a large military contractor and doing programming, database work, TCP/IP networking and communications. I did this last job for 10 years but had to give up due to poor health with my spine in 2006.

I no longer work in IT but still involved at home. I can truly say that I have sat in front of a keyboard virtually every day of my life since 1981 which is currently 15979 days.

I have done a few hobbies over the years, the main ones are of course computing, FRP, writing software, developing websites and High Power Rocketry.

Since 2015 I have also been interested in researching the Paranormal and EVP's.