Where are you from and what's your story?

[erico]

RAISFONOGREEEEI!

hehe, quangdx thought to let you know:

So, are you a Been-boy?

I have to tell my sad story here, just getting the courage...

[Hatonastick]

Will attempt to be as brief as possible as I'm a known waffler...

Born 1972 in Adelaide, South Australia.  Moved to a small town (now a city) called Mt. Gambier (mostly "famous" for its Blue Lake) early on and ended up growing up on a farm out in a place called Allendale East where my Dad taught at a local school as the art teacher.  Now live in Adelaide again and have done since 1991, although this time way down south not far from the beach (can see it from our balcony).

I remember seeing an Apple something earlier on, but seeing it was about as close as we were allowed to it -- rural South Australia wasn't the place to find expensive home computers.  The first computer I ever got full access to was an Amstrad CPC 6128 that my Dad would borrow from school for me on a regular basis.  That was when I first got my taste of programming.  Still consider that my favourite computer system of all time despite not actually owning one.  Anyway I was 12 at the time.

The first computer we actually owned, which was mine really as I'm the only one who ever really used it, was an Atari 520STFM (upgraded to 1Mb).  I can't remember how old I was, maybe 14 or 15.  Bought for "home work" it had more games played on it than you could poke a stick at.  That was until I discovered STOS.  I bought all the add-on modules for that too.  Including the sampler.  I never really finished any projects though which is a pity, but some of the ones I remember included a Lemmings style game and a basic Dungeon Master clone.  The one I most remember is the one Im most embarrassed about.  I wrote a disk formatter as a joke in STOS with some minor assembler I think (complete with stupid scrolling message) for a mate of mine who was a student at Flinders University at the time -- and he only went and posted it on Atari PD FTP servers didn't he.  I never did finish his Tetris clone (he _loved_ Tetris), funny that.  We are still friends though.

During the 80's I practically lived in arcades too.  The coolest bit was that the friend I mentioned in the previous paragraph had a friend who owned an arcade and we used to go for our own private lock-ins.  Some of the games I used to play (and loved) were Bubble Bobble, 1942, Double Dragon, Time Pilot, Gyruss, Galaga, Commando, Tron Deadly Discs, Gun Smoke, Black Tiger, Final Fight, Cheyenne and many, many more.

My first real computer (ie. I paid for) was some high-end custom 486 job that I spent a small fortune on, which never actually functioned properly the whole time I had it.  I learnt from that mistake and have built my own PCs ever since -- cheaper and they tend to work better.

Towards the end of my Atari ST's life and the start of my IBM compatible journey, I migrated from BASIC to C.  And there I stayed for many years, never really accomplishing much other than the odd small library and a MUD I never finished -- technically I did finish, but then decided I could do better and started to rewrite the whole thing from scratch but burned out half way through.  At that point in time I lost all interest in coding and got into writing poetry (yeah, seriously, and no I'm not going to post any ) and art (not exactly "high art", I'm a cartoonist/designer but will spare you the obligatory picture posts).

After a few years or so I got the bug to code again, but decided I'd had enough of C and wanted to return to my roots.  Fonder days of Locomotive BASIC and STOS.  So I started "The Great Programming Language Hunt".  From a past conversation with Ian we realised we own some of the same development packages ie. a lot.  Eventually though Gernot put me onto his GLBasic while I was bouncing about aimlessly at Retroremakes and I've been here ever since.  Once you find GLB you shouldn't need anything else.  Great development package, developed by a great guy, supported by a community of great people.  What's not to like?

I still haven't done much, but that's unfortunately due to many major health issues I've had to battle with the past 10 years (if I told you, you wouldn't believe me, but I wouldn't want to bore you with all that anyway) that keep getting in the way of my efforts, ended my career in the IT industry and ended up with me being placed on a disability pension.  I still have hope though, and believe I have at least one game in me (ok I have about 50 ideas and designs but I only need to do 1) and will get there in the end.

[Hark0]

Ohhhhhh the arcade coin op... very good times.

[mentalthink]

CPC Amstrad  , I have 4 in home now... 2 6128 and 1 464, and I wnat make something whit ASM, but no Time!!! , This it´s another goal I want do, when I have 5 o 6 year old, I listen something about "Machine COde", but they say - "No kid this it´s very Complex, only for adults"... now sounds like a Porn Film...

Nice History , Hatonastich...

Regards,