Computing from the ark

Though confessing knowledge of BBC Micro and Fortran 4 from university, the Amstrad PCW with its 512 kb (!) hard drive was the key to learning much more on programming, formats and databases. Many letters were despatched overseas, several of my good friends and many tickets (another hobby) come from this era. The data remains useful and a free-standing floppy drive plus shareware CP/M software was used to retain its availability on PC.

In 1993 the dilemma of an electricity industry career - well paid but jobs difficult to find - was solved by teaching information technology (IT) to adults, simultaneously gaining a Royal Society of Arts NVQ3 in computing, which included word processing, spreadsheets, and databases (relational dBase 4). The last had not been attained by any teacher or student at my establishment.

1994 saw a move to goverment service as Executive Officer at the Department of the Environment, in business analysis, designing and implementing DataEase relational databases locally on successive fixed term contracts. A permanent position arose the following year in data networks and telecoms with CompuServe Network Services (acquired by WorldCom, Inc) but that's another story.

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