My CV - well, a bit of it anyway.





I have been writing computer programs more or less full time since 1968. I worked for IBM for 20 years, for Microsoft for 5 years, for Sony for 2 1/2 years. I recently (99/00)spent best part of a year training to become a physics teacher but that went pear-shaped (6th formers yes, 13 year olds no). I am now (July 2000) working more or full time on Muse.

Some people think that being a programmer means knowing one or more computer languages. It doesn't. It means knowing how to program. I have debugged other people's programs written in languages I didn't know. My daughter taught me HTML, but at the stage when she knew lots and I hadn't started, I had to debug her stuff to make it work. Nevertheless, just for the record, I have made serious use of the following languages:
Algol 60, Algol W, PL/I, PL/S, PL/DS, PLS3, PL.8, Pli68, PLS86, Pascal, Modula 2, C, C++, APL, Rexx, Basic, Fortran, Eliott 503 machine code, System/7 machine code, System 370 assembler, probably I've left a few out.
I've written the odd program in many more. I even produced a good data base based on datastar (arguably the world's worst data base system).

I have worked on the following architectures:
Titan, Elliott 503, System/360 (370 etc), System/7, 6800, 6809, 68000, 8086..pentium, MIPS, Alpha.

I have worked on operating systems, compilers and applications. I spent three years teaching software engineering. My first project after university was computer control of traffic lights, the last one that someone else paid me for was professional quality digital audio.

I am a member of the British Computer Society (which means that I'm signed up to their standard of ethics and I try to be professional in the finest sense of the word).

I learned to play the recorder at school and I have several different sizes of them which I play occasionally. My flamenco guitar playing is rusty. I used to play round the folk clubs of Southampton in about 1976. I must have been OK because they kept asking for me to come back again. I played the banjo in the Spike Island Band (a local dance band which I helped to start) for several years, meanwhile I learned to play the fiddle and I now play that and other things with strings in the same band.

Aside from computing and music, I enjoy sports. I play badminton enthusiastically, but not very well. I ski very competently (off-piste, all snow conditions). I sail whenever I get the chance. I grew up in 505s, I helped design the Spearhead, I'm learning to boardsail and in 2000 I sailed across the Atlantic (but not on a sailboard). I am still fascinated by physics (that's what my degree is in). I read Terry Pratchett's books and some science fiction. I have a wife and four children. Three have permanently left home. The fourth is Rachel who taught me html and is now at University. Rachel will be looking after Musements while I am away sailing.

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