Click here to Skip to main content
15,887,485 members

Welcome to the Lounge

   

For discussing anything related to a software developer's life but is not for programming questions. Got a programming question?

The Lounge is rated Safe For Work. If you're about to post something inappropriate for a shared office environment, then don't post it. No ads, no abuse, and no programming questions. Trolling, (political, climate, religious or whatever) will result in your account being removed.

 
GeneralRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:18
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:18 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Richard Andrew x6425-Oct-23 14:17
professionalRichard Andrew x6425-Oct-23 14:17 
GeneralRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
honey the codewitch25-Oct-23 14:43
mvahoney the codewitch25-Oct-23 14:43 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Chris Nicolatos25-Oct-23 21:40
Chris Nicolatos25-Oct-23 21:40 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
seismofish26-Oct-23 3:26
seismofish26-Oct-23 3:26 
GeneralRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
honey the codewitch25-Oct-23 23:14
mvahoney the codewitch25-Oct-23 23:14 
GeneralRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:22
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:22 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:07
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:07 
Notwithstanding I share your interest in weird engines, I first got the bug, to coin a phrase, at school - I'd have been 12 or 13. Read up books, used the school's timeshare terminal to learn a dialect of BASIC to make it do things, then went off in 1980 to Uni, to flunk a course in Electrical engineering, having been accepted as an apprentice by EMI in 1979. Learnt a teensy bit of FORTRAN on that course.

Had to get a job to make ends meet, so took a job at a small local company assembling specialist calculators. Fast forward a few years and I'm now troubleshooting them with a 'scope and I have an assistant who is doing an OU course in computing, and gives me a copy of UCSD Pascal. I start writing programs to emulate the financial calculators we're selling - I'm building "things" again. Then the company decides this might be worth pursuing and we hire a very mathematically adept programmer (with whom I'm still friends) in the mid 80's. He suggests we drop Pascal and go C based, which we do. Late 89 we both leave and join a software house which writes server based financial data delivery and calculation software. We're building "things" that talk to each other. Early 90s the company gets in financial trouble and some of the team including me are hired by one of their customers. We're building bigger "things" that talk to each other around the world. And I'm still there, building "things" and also building tiny things with Arduinos and so on from time to time for fun.

A lot of this is "making things do things" satisfaction. Which feeds in to my current hobby, amateur theatre, where we make really quite big things do things for the entertainment of others.

Still like engines, though ...


modified 26-Oct-23 6:50am.

AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
BryanFazekas26-Oct-23 1:48
BryanFazekas26-Oct-23 1:48 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
JohnDG5226-Oct-23 4:01
JohnDG5226-Oct-23 4:01 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
StatementTerminator26-Oct-23 4:41
StatementTerminator26-Oct-23 4:41 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Juan Pablo Reyes Altamirano26-Oct-23 5:33
Juan Pablo Reyes Altamirano26-Oct-23 5:33 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
sasadler26-Oct-23 6:23
sasadler26-Oct-23 6:23 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Choroid26-Oct-23 6:43
Choroid26-Oct-23 6:43 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
jkirkerx26-Oct-23 7:08
professionaljkirkerx26-Oct-23 7:08 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
englebart26-Oct-23 8:05
professionalenglebart26-Oct-23 8:05 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
bryanren26-Oct-23 8:38
bryanren26-Oct-23 8:38 
GeneralRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Alister Morton30-Oct-23 5:22
Alister Morton30-Oct-23 5:22 
AnswerRe: I go down rabbit holes on Wiki following internal combustion tech for some reason. Pin
Jacquers28-Oct-23 23:02
Jacquers28-Oct-23 23:02 
QuestionHow did you survive this migration? Pin
Nand3225-Oct-23 1:01
Nand3225-Oct-23 1:01 
AnswerRe: How did you survive this migration? Pin
11917640 Member 25-Oct-23 2:26
11917640 Member 25-Oct-23 2:26 
AnswerRe: How did you survive this migration? Pin
Amarnath S25-Oct-23 2:56
professionalAmarnath S25-Oct-23 2:56 
GeneralRe: How did you survive this migration? Pin
MarkTJohnson25-Oct-23 3:01
professionalMarkTJohnson25-Oct-23 3:01 
AnswerRe: How did you survive this migration? Pin
honey the codewitch25-Oct-23 2:56
mvahoney the codewitch25-Oct-23 2:56 
GeneralRe: How did you survive this migration? Pin
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:26
Alister Morton25-Oct-23 23:26 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.