Where I am now
I'm using Windows 11 as my home OS for the first time in nearly two decades. It’s visually appealing and feels responsive. Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I used to work on Windows IoT and really enjoyed it. While Linux will probably always be my first love, I’ve come to appreciate that there’s space in my heart for a different perspective.
Where it began for me
My journey started on a Binatone bought for our family by my big sister and was closely followed by an Atari. Games machines are in your pocket now so you cannot imagine how new and different this was. It seemed quite sociable at the time as we had to share the console. But even this console came with a gun.
Dipping my toe in - My first Project
My next computer was a Commodore VIC-20, soon followed by a C64. It came with a manual that taught you how to program a sprite—a graphic in the shape of a balloon—using its built-in BASIC interpreter. The sprite would glide smoothly across the screen. I had also picked up a book on assembly language and thought it would be a fun challenge to port the example to assembly, just to see if I truly understood it. To my surprise, the graphic didn’t glide from left to right—it simply appeared on the right-hand side. Was this my first bug? Not quite. The “aha” moment was realizing the code executed so quickly that the balloon skipped the animation entirely. I added a delay routine and gave myself a satisfied Rick Stein-style smile.
AS/400 Bigger was better
Moving to Dixon's Stores Group I had Opportunity to work on the "bigger" machine including IBM's System/36, System/38 and the AS/400. The operating system allowed you to assign a timeslice of the CPU to processes.
OS/2 And IBM
Taking my experience to Big Blue in New Zealand marked the beginning of my journey into personal computers with OS/2 and Warp—operating systems that, to this day, remain among the most underappreciated in history. They were stable, multitasking, and thoughtfully designed with developers in mind. But then Windows 95 arrived, and OS/2 became like the brilliant kid in school who peaked early and was quietly forgotten.
Windows - Fun times
When I think back to my younger days, it's the games that come to mind—Discworld, Day of the Tentacle, Myst, and Zork. Professionally, I mostly developed software for other machines like AIX, HP-UX, and DEC systems. So Windows was primarily a tool for emulation and connectivity. From my perspective, Windows 95 marked the point where real innovation began to taper off. I did enjoy it—it was new, different, and (mostly) worked.
Linux - Tux of All Trades
And then there's Linux—beautiful, flexible, and sometimes as stubborn as a mule. I've worked with everything from Debian to Fedora, including some obscure specialist distributions. My first encounter was with Red Hat 4.0, bundled with a PC magazine. What drew me in wasn't Linux itself, but the novelty. The idea that you could compile it yourself and coax the hardware into cooperating was captivating. More than anything, I loved that you could see exactly what was—or wasn't—going on.
