When you’re teaching, a personal introduction is almost mandatory to help people get to know you, establish a little credibility and just get everyone talking to each other. Whenever I did mine, I’d explain what I’d done with Oracle, teaching and IT in general, talk about a couple of personal interests but the one thing that impressed people more than anything else is that I used to be a games programmer for a living. If you speak to British IT folk of a certain age, the phrase ‘ZX Spectrum’ commands instant attention.
It got to the stage when I felt like saying – ‘Look, I used to write Spectrum games, shall we just skip the Oracle stuff?’
In truth, that work was far more technical than anything I’ve done since – programming in Z80 assembly language is just more difficult than being a DBA – but, most importantly it was fun and I was lucky to stumble into a golden age of UK computing. So, if Manic Miner, Imagine, RAM pack wobble or Ultimate Play The Game mean anything to you, check out some of these links. (A couple of the sites have interviews with me. So Mark Rittman is Oracle Ace of the Year and I get interviewed by ZX Spectrum fan sites. Mmmmmm ……)
Those links should carry a health warning, though, because you might not manage to get to bed at the normal time!
Enjoy.
Doug, I used to program games for a living, when I was at Sixth Form. For me, it was 6502 assembly programming for the C-64, Oric and Vic-20, I think the company was called Salamander Software, based down the road in Brighton.
I also used to write database software for the old IBM PC (based around DBase4) and before that, stuff for the Commodore Pet. This was all when I was still at school, not a bad little income actually…
Oh, yeah, I remember you telling me now 😉
It was definitely Salamander – I remember them. (No Crash Smashes, then? Shame on you …) Anyway, choosing to be a 6502 programmer immediately marks you down as a suspect character.
Guess what I did next? PC software using dBASE III+, then Foxbase, then Clipper.
I reckon this might be the career path for gentlemen of a certain age and eyebrow density.
Cheers
I’ve still got my “Programming the 6502” book by Rodney Zaks on my bookshelf, takes me back a bit. One thing I miss about computers these days is that there’s no way you could understand every aspect of a PC now (programming, I/O, graphics, disk access etc) like you could with an old home computer.
Also, thinking about it, it was probably dBase III, not IV.
When I first left University and started working at Amex in Brighton (1990), I remember putting a planning application together using Lotus Improv – now there’s an interesting one for the computer museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv). Not a million miles away actually from the sort of OLAP systems I work with now. Now I’ve thought about it, I’ll have to write a blog posting about it…
Oh this is sad… I used to write games too – mainly one-offs as promtion give aways for pharmaceutical companies and usually in very bad taste – that appeals to medical people 😉
And my first db was Delta by Compusoft on a CPM/80
Ah, but did any of you get a program (listing) published in Computer & Video Games…?
Pete,
I don’t think we ever thought we could compete with you 😉
Mark, it’s all coming back to me now – I remember you mentioning C&VG listings. You mean the rubbish ones that never worked? Don’t tell me yours did, no-one will believe you ;0)
Rodney Zaks! Sybex author who did the Z80 book too, didn’t he? I must admit it wasn’t how I learnt (a bit too dry for my tastes) but his books were always kicking about in the Imagine offices.
It’s going to be like an old folks convention at that blogger dinner ….
Cheers,
Doug
Mark,
“One thing I miss about computers these days is that there’s no way you could understand every aspect of a PC now (programming, I/O, graphics, disk access etc) like you could with an old home computer.”
Big time! But don’t you often feel that that background helps you at least understand things a bit better rather than if you imagined that all just ‘sort of happened’, as if by magic? If you always have the low level in the back of your mind, it helps you make more sensible decisions.