Computers in my Life - Nerd from Birth - Part 6

So it wasn't until I started my first postdoc that I really started getting kitted out with some new tech. Through my PhD I had my Dell Inspiron laptop, which did the job I needed it to do - write papers, remote logins to work mainframes, a few games, and of course writing for rpgs. It basically relegated my desktop pc to the rubbish tip.

But it was when I moved to Leamington for my first postdoc that I was able to afford getting something new. It was around about a year before the move that everyone was getting iPhones. I was of course jealous. Being able to access the net like that was very cool. As was the ability to tether laptops using them.

Now my first mobile phone at uni was a horrible Motorola. Yuck. it did the job, but really it was shit. The V2288. Back when displays were monochrome. My next phone was the a Sony Ericsson T610, a classic really. Hell it had a colour screen and a colour camera (not that the resolution was any good). Now after that I stuck with Sony Ericsson. The W810i was even better. A better camera and also a slot in memory card and a of course it was a Walkman phone. It replaced my crappy little mp3 player (a little stick thing that needed ultra compression to fit music on). That was then followed by the C902, which was basically an even better Cybershot camera phone.

But these were all still dumb phones.

My first smartphone was the Sony Ericsson X10. It was the first Android phone the SE put out, and it was pretty great. I wanted something non Apple so I was more free to do what I wanted. It looked good, but there were a few glitches. It did eventually get upgrades all the way from 1.6 to 2.3 version of Android, plus it acted as a great way to read ebooks and pdfs.

Now roll on another 2 or so years and I now have a nice new Sony Xperia S. Which of course is a major step up, both in terms of power and what I can use it for. Kindle books and comics are a staple of my use of the phone.

Now of course it isn't the only Android I have.

One device I wanted more than any was a tablet for reading pdfs for work and for rpgs. But of course I didn't want an iPad. But Asus came to the rescue. For months and months I followed the news on the Transformer. I saved up for it and preordered it and well, damn that morning it arrived - it was a piece of beauty. The metallic frame was ice cold from where it had been stored, and the chocolate bronze looked like it was made by Gou'ld. I also got it with the dock. So yeah the full deal. My god, it has been a game changer. I have only had it for about a year, and in that time Asus has brought out 3 other models and has the Padfone coming out soon. But still, just having this device to write blogs, take notes, read pdfs, read comics, watch tv, remote into my computers from anywhere in the world. It is awesome. Worth every penny.

Now onto the Xbox 360. This console I got on one basis. Assassin's Creed 2. did I say I am totally obssessed with Venice and Italy? So of course I love the Xbox 360. The media centre is OK and then it also has a number of games I love: Devil May Cry 4, Batman Arkham Asylum and City, Bioshock and a few others. Of course Assassin's Creed 3 is on my list. Now the other cool features of the Xbox are the channels and if I was in the UK I could use it to get certain TV channels.

On a final note I have my current laptop, one I got through work as it is a graphics machine when I need it to be. It also is a pretty good gaming laptop. Add in a decent graphics card that allows it to out put to HDMI and you have a raelly useful bit of kit.

So finally on the really geeky stuff by the point I am now a well versed programmer in a few languages, a UNIX user and I super computer user.

 

Computers really have influenced and changed my life, and are a constant factor in it. Can I really cut my self off. To a degree yes. But I like being connected and having my devices network to my benefit.[[posterous-content:pid___0]]nerd

Computers in my Life - Nerd from Birth - Part 5

 

 

About time I did the next one in this series.

 

University of course for me would be filled with computers and consoles. I remember that a room mate who was in the room next door on my floor of halls had bought with his first part of his student loan the PS2. I remember playing a lot of GTA3 on it and a few other games. I know the summer after my first year of uni was spent playing FFX as a friend back home also had the PS2.

 

In my second year of uni I of course got my own PC, which of course meant that I was now able to write stuff for roleplay on a more regular basis, plus be online a lot and take part gaming discussions.

But it was during my second year of uni that I got hold of a Xbox. Now this meant such games as Halo, and most importantly Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill 2 was an amazing game, that really put me on edge with it's horror and atmosphere. I did eventually complete the game to get the ultimate ending and to this day that game still freaks me out.

Another great game on the Xbox was Jet Set Radio Future. It was a stylish skater game, which blended elements of more serious skater type games with a more anime, cartoon, cell shaded look. Visually it was stunning. Gameplay wise it was so difficult. I did complete all of it but one challenge - echoing the issue I had with Treasure Island Dizzy on the Amiga (I completed the game all except for 1 gold coin).

 

 

The Xbox was a great bit of kit in the long run. I know many people who chipped it and turned it into a media centre. It was pretty cool to have it running and streaming movies off a pc. But I never did that with mine.

 

Of course the most important thing for me during university involving computers was my learning how to program. As part of my final thesis for my degree I was learning how to program in Fortran in order to modify computational chemistry programs. While I only had to spend 9 hours working on my thesis project I spent a lot more time on it learning to hack code, and learn other bits of programming languages. I was also generating data on large clusters and so really getting into the whole world of high performance computing. This is pretty much the start of my major geekdom into computers.

 

Next up Xbox 360, Android and Smart Phones.

 

 

Computers in my Life - Nerd from Birth - Part 3 @rustyrockets

As a brief aside, here is a great piece by Russel Brand from his series 'Ponderland'. The series in general is excellent, and some of the observations are hilarious. In particular in this episode he comments on how computers and cellphones have changed. Note this was him joking about how cellphones have changed our lives, and this was recorded before smartphones had arrived.

 

Anyway the clip itself is about the ZX Spectrum. Fortuantely the Amiga 500 didn't sound like it was shitting out bees when loading games. Enjoy.

 

Computers in my Life - Nerd from Birth - Part 2

The Amiga 500 - and others.

 

So last time I quickly blogged about the pong computer console. My memories of it are that it has a certain chemical smell to it. The white plastic had yellowed quickly with time. And of course it was heavy. Very heavy.

Now other friends at primary school had computers. One had the ZX Spectrum, and another had an Amstrad. My cousins had of course an Atari 520 ST (or something of that brandfrom around that time). Another friend had the Commodore 64.

But one Christmas, I think 1991 as I was 7, my parents got for my sister and myself the Amiga 500 Screen Gems pack.

Holy shit.

 

 

 

It had games based on movies (Nightbreed, Back to the Future Part 2, Days of Thunder), another game called Shadow of the Beast 2. Fuck these were hard games to play. Even mroe so when you only have a mouse.

Other things included we Delux Paint 2 which was quite impressive for what it could do. To be able to create images on a colour screen was amazing.

Now of course it had attachements that would allow you to output to the TV and video. So in theory you could do video editing with it.

Of course it only had 512k of RAM, but we did get it an upgrade to a full meg of Ram (how fucking stupid does that sound in this day an age). But it did mean there were more games to play with it. Mortal Kombat was a favourite. So too was Worms, and even Dune 2, a legendary precusor to Command and Conquer.

 

At the time there were numerous Amiga magazines that came out, with freeware and demo games. Furthmore we also got books that let us program out own games for it. Yes I really did this. At the age of 8 I knew what a go to loop was. Amiga Basic was my first true foray into programming.

Now at school they did have a BBC Acorn computer. It of course ran off tapes and cartirdges. But compared to the Amiga it seemed dated.

Some fun facts about the Amiga 500 and the 500 + which a friend got a year later.

Some games would not run using a meg of RAM. You had to turn the Ram off... physically.

Also some games would not run on the 500 + because of this issue. More funny was that some games would not run on the 500 + because.... the 500 + had a real 1000 bits of ram. Yes, not 1024, but 1000. Hmmm...

We also got a printer for it. A dot matrix printer. Remember how those seemed to grind paper out. Almost like some small animal was chiselling it out of stone like it was the Flintstones.

I think some of the craziest things I remember about it was that I once did fully max out it's ram. I borrowed from school Delux Paint 3D. Yeah 3D mofos! And so tried to do some animating with it. Yeah. You see to do that you really need more RAM or some form of storage to write out to.

Now I think, at the time, the bundle my parents was around £500. That is a lot of money for the time.

In retrospect I have found memories of this machine. I think it taught me a lot, and got me into computer gaming. As far as device life time it last a good long while before my parents bought a PC. I know they still have the amiga packed away. I wonder how much it would go for? Fuck all it seems. Hmmm.... a quid for a Amiga plus extras, and £15 postage.... bargin!

 

 

 

Computers in my Life - Nerd from Birth

So I though this was interesting as it all relates to how I became me, a goth, gamer, podcaster, and computational chemist and programmer. Also Gamerati posted something on google plus where they showed an old gaming system. And it made me think. I have been in contact with gaming machines since birth. So here starts my computer journey.

 

 

 

Above is the Tele-Partner. I think this is what my parents had, perhaps even still have in storage. It certainly looked quite similar to this. Really when I think about it I'm quite surprised they even had something like this. It's as old as me. I do even remember playing with it. Needless to say back in 1988 this was quite a novelty.

Now we didn't have the light gun, so we could only play the pong games.

 

Next up - Amiga 500 - Birth of a programmer.

IT JUST AIN'T MY FUCKING PROBLEM!!!

Or at least that is what was running through my mind today when in a meeting just now with my supervisor Paul Popelier.

Last night I left work, code nicely compiled on our server, me having been debugging it using a unix X server gui.

Today.

Total fucking disaster. Bastard thing won't run even though it is the exact same executable.

"I am Jacks Screaming Code Ninja Monkey. Windows screen goes blue, I say fuck you!!!" *BLAM!!!*

I am not happy. Not in the slightest.

Other than that the meeting was a total success. I think he final understands why somedays I just can't be fucked (not a trend in the lingo here kid's) coming in early (unlike today I may add). I just feel in my bones it ain't gonna work.

Meanwhile back at the batcave....




I still have the last day of my conference to write up, pictures to post, say that it was great celebrating

glittersavvy

's birthday, getting such an awesome tie from her, eating more pizza, watching transformers... at the IMAX... (it so fucking huge!!!!! - Sam looking at Optimus Prime... and not me ;_; ).



Smoke me a kipper.... I'll be back for breakfast.