About John99

Hi, I Live on the coast not far from Liverpool. Some may know the city as a major port and home of the Beatles pop group, with a couple of well known Football teams. I am semi-retired and have done office work, some of that inevitably involved some computer use in later years.

I have an interest in how things work, and as a hobby quite likely to play with computers, I find that much more interesting that sitting doing crossword puzzles. At Uni I recall a computer taking up a large area of the ground floor, in the only Air Conditioned room, and feeding it with code one line to each punch card, with output on a line printer. No such things as a VDU terminal. My first computer was a Sinclair Spectrum, that took input on a Philips Audio cassette, and had printed output on a thermal printer and connected to a TV as a VDU. My second was an Atari STFM, it would not be recognised today as much of a computer, but it was powerful enough to emulate and even outperform some of the PCs of that era, and that could be done with floppy disks only! (A PCs DOS OS would fit on a single floppy!).

I am now starting to take an interest in Linux. My latest laptop has Windows 7, but is used almost entirely as a linux machine. So now I can regard myself as a novice with Windows 7 and Linux. I use phones as phones, rather than as mobile internet devices, connecting at home works out a lot cheaper than paying cellnet prices for internet access. I have never taken an interest in Facebook or twitter.

In my younger days I was a bit more active and adventurous, and have tried surfing, scuba diving, parachuting and potholing, now I am more likely to have a gentle walk or use a push-bike.