5 Years Ago

2 Years Ago

My BA (Hons) in Studies in the Humanities was obtained in 1978 from Hatfield Polytechnic (part of de Montford University now). I got a job at Imperial College Computer Centre in London in September that year where I toyed with many arcane languages: CDC assembler, apl, snobol, forth but used mainly fortran and pascal. We wrote programs by punching Hollerith cards (excellent roach material) but I much preferred the brand new time-sharing terminals. I started doing microprocessor assembler programming after I left Imperial adding features to printers and terminals and comms boxes. Started contracting in the nineties mainly writing SQL embedded in C programs to access Ingres or Oracle databases on various Unix platforms. Enjoyed Korn shell and awk scripting. Got into HTML, Java, Javascript and Perl at the beginning of this century. I made the decision to have an extended break in autumn 2004 but then didn't work again until the end of 2006? Now, CAE support for NXP Semiconductors. Jeez, how desperate were they? Still nice to be back.

2.4 GHz Pentium 4, Shuttle, WinXP Pro SP3 2.4 GHz Celeron D, iDeq, Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) 700 MHz Athlon, Evesham, WinXP Pro SP3 550 MHz Celeron, IBM Thinkpad i-series, xubuntu 6.10

languages, cooking, bushcraft, leatherwork, knife making

Dorset, UK

programmer/support monkey