About Us

From Congleton, UK until 16 years
Traveller of various countries:
Belarus, Croatia, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Isle Of Man, Laos, Nepal, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, Wales.

Started technology journey with Amstrad PCW 8256, Locoscript word processor in 1989, programming with Mallard Basic in 1994, DTP with Stop Press in 1992 and Microdesign 3 in 1995.

Fan of open source software GNU/Linux, Apache, Python, MPlayer and more. Started with Suse Linux 6.4 in 2000 on a 486 DX4 120MHz and Debian 2.2 Potato on a P75 with 64Mb RAM.

Vegetarian since 1989 and then vegan since 2010, sattvik since 2007 (no egg, onion, garlic, mushroom, caffeine). No alcohol since 2006.

Earlier jottings:

  • Monster Amstrad PCW8256

    Once upon a time (1989-2012) I had a monster PCW8256 with:
    512Kb RAM onboard and 1.5Mb RAM external = 2Mb RAM
    Parallel port for Epson 24pin dot matrix printer
    180Kb 3″ drive
    720Kb 3.5″ drive
    Creative Technology handheld scanner
    AMX Mouse

    Software wise I had:
    Locoscript 1, 2, 3, 4
    Creative Technology MicroDesign 3, Tweak 3, The Network, Microdisplay
    Stop Press
    AMX Desktop
    CBasic
    CP/M Plus 1.4, 1.15 including Mallard BASIC and D.R. Logo
    Mini Office Professional
    and more

  • Retro Computers

    I was a fan of collecting computers in the 90s and got quite a collection at one point before I had to move and downsize.

    1989 – 2012 Amstrad PCW 8256 + 3.5″ 2Mb RAM
    1994 – 2006 Acorn BBC B
    1995 – 1998 C64 + 1541 5.25″
    1995 – 2012 Amstrad PCW 9512 + 3.5″
    1996 – 2012 Amstrad PCW 8256 + 3.5″ 512Kb RAM
    1996 – 2011 Amstrad PCW 8512 + 3.5″
    1996/7 – 1998 Amstrad CPC 464 + DDI1 3″
    1996/7 – 1998 Amstrad CPC 464
    1996/7 – 1998 Spectrum +, Dragon 32, MSX, BBC Master x2, Amiga 500
    1996/7 – 2000 Apple Mac Plus

    Then a second wave in the 2010s:
    2015- Amstrad PCW8512
    2016- Amstrad PCW8512 + serial
    2016- Amstrad PCW8256 + 3.5″ + serial

    High School PC Nuisance

    In my high school the room of PCs was next to a room of Amstrad PCWs. One day the English teacher had booked the PC room for 1 hour for us to type an essay, I asked her if I could go next door to use an Amstrad PCW so I could finish the work at home. As 1 hour wasn’t long enough and I had an Amstrad PCW at home. She said “no, because I have booked the PC room.” I wouldn’t have been far away in the room next door…
    Instead everyone’s work was corrupted, random margins appeared the same time to many of us and we had to get the technical support guy to have a look. That was a waste of an hour using micro~1 word.
    I had to start the work again at home with the Amstrad PCW, which saved and printed my work without a crash. So there was a happy ending with help from the Amstrad PCW.

  • Welcome

    To my ramblings online, tech, music, medical, health all sorts!