Personal (personal) computing
Media coverage / exposure.
1981. The BBC computer show showed the promise of simple 8 bit programs as well as the promise of IT well before most people had access to home computing. Tomorrow’s world a future looking TV showed the potential of computing in general. Link
Sinclair ZX81 in 1981. Basic BASIC programming and a TV with a too low refresh rate, but a start!
LET X = 10;
David Green, son of a Physics teacher introduced me to the ZX81. There was a predecessor, the ZX80. That seemed like ‘old school’ compared to the sleek ZX81 😉
Also 1981 surprisingly. The commodore VIC-20. The next step in home computer, colour! and games to buy. Link.
BBC Micro
Classy machine, even a floppy drive 😉 Games included pong, a space docking game called Elite (1984).
Nelson and Colne College. home computing was done by a PET, a robust computer, first program (Dugdale) was imitating a login screen and when executing a program jokingly saying “can’t be bothered” … “sorry not today” etc. thereby the programmer loosing all input 🍭
I received a Bachelors degree in Physics and Computer Science in 1987 from Manchester Metropolitan University.
One year later he completed a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Manchester University. Vision project was cool, signalling processing and prolog exposure, generating musical scales in any key or mode.
In 2009 he completed a Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, Sweden, with a thesis entitled “Quality aspects of Internet telephony”.
Ian has researched and published on several topics including end system network support for real time media, including BSD kernel support for queuing algorithms UNIX and handover solutions for Windows platforms. Some of the software systems developed have been incorporated into industry platforms. Ian as extensively worked on Web caching algorithms, road traffic flow and Edge computing.
Ian has worked at the research institute for 25+ years, supervised 20+ students and applied and worked in 20+ projects from small SME-led consultancy to large multi-million Euro efforts.