Name, Rank and Serial Number...
During the day
Computers and me
Babylon 5
Reading Matter
Music
...and The Rest
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Name: Chris Coulson Age: 29 Hair Colour: Dark brown Eye Colour: Blue-Green Height: 5'11" (1.78m) Weight: Closer to what it should be than it used to be :-)
Birthplace: Newcastle upon Tyne
Loves: My gorgeous girlfriend Dee, Babylon 5, Newcastle (and therefore football), computers, Australians, and a certain Spice Girl... E-mail: chris@bay13.demon.co.uk |
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After near enough 21 years of full-time education, I decided enough was enough and escaped to
join the ranks of the full-time employed on Monday 7th December 1998... I currently work for Satchwell
Control Systems (or as the sign outside now says, Invensys Climate Controls Europe...) in Slough
as an embedded systems design engineer, developing HVAC controllers and peripheral hardware. In a
nutshell, it's playing with technology, and being paid for it :-)
I've always figured it's better to work at something you enjoy, even if it means earning less,
than spending your day doing something you hate just because the money is good. And whilst the
money here certainly isn't bad, the main thing is that the only thing I enjoy more than hacking
out a microcontroller design is working on websites, so I know I'm going to enjoy the job, and
the decent pay is a bonus...
Although an increasing number of interests are taking up my free time, I'm still very definitely
first and foremost a fan of computers, in all shapes and forms. I've been using computers since
1981, and I've been an owner since 1983, and in that time so many changes have taken place, but
one thing remains the same - computing is FUN! (no matter how hard Microsoft work :-)
My first computer was that classic, the Sinclair Spectrum, with (for the time) a vast 48KB of
memory, medium res graphics, an "interesting" keyboard and a quite basic audio capability. In
the 5 years that I was a user, I watched Spectrum software turn from the quite simple to the really
rather outstanding. Considering all the limitations of the hardware, some of the games on the
Spectrum were truly excellent, and it's no surprise that Spectrum (and other 8-bit system) emulators
are so popular today. But still, there are times when an emulator just doesn't quite give you the
same nostalgia rush, and so I'll get out the real thing and play on that for a few hours.
Still, after 5 fun years of Spectrum use, it was time to upgrade. I could so easily have ended up
as an Atari ST owner but for two events - the price rise of the 520ST and the price drop of the
Amiga 500. For the first time ever, these two machines were identically priced, and it didn't take
a genius to see which was the better option. Bye bye Spectrum, hello Amiga!
I can still remember plugging it all in for the first time, loading Workbench and just being amazed
at how fast everything was, and how good it all looked. Half a meg of memory (soon upgraded to 1MB),
880KB of storage on each floppy disk, 4 channel sound that still sounds good today, and a
bewildering array of graphics resolutions and colour depths.
The Amiga really was a machine ahead of its time, and it maintained the spirit of the 8-bit days,
with everyone and their dog writing software for it. Time doesn't stand still though, and three
years on I was looking at upgrade options. Fortunately I kept putting any decisions off, because
about six months later the first rumours of the all new AA Amigas started to circulate. A few months
later and the first of what became the AGA Amiga range was released, the utterly droolworthy
A4000/040. Granted, the hardware specifications were quite different to the original AA specs, with
a lot of the predicted updates left out. However, what remained was still a machine to excite and
entice. Unfortunately, with a price tag just a shade under 2000 pounds, there was no way I was going
to get my hands on one.
A couple of months later, the A1200 was released. Same basic hardware as the A4000, same operating
system, but a far slower CPU, less memory and everything packed into a single box. Sure, the price
was far more enticing, but after nearly 5 years with the A500, I didn't want to get another single
box system - I had big plans for expansion!!! So when just a few months after this, the A4000/030 was
announced, I was grinning from ear to ear. Exactly the same expansion potential as its big brother,
but half the price. Like a shot I was down to the local Amiga dealer to buy one.
Well, a lot of time has passed since then, and the Amiga as we knew and loved it is, to all intents
and purposes, no more. There's still a small band of dedicated users keeping their old systems alive,
and there's still some work being done on new developments in the hardware and software arenas. But
the glory days are over, PCs and Macs are getting ever more powerful and affordable, and the technical
reasons for preferring the Amiga over other "lesser" systems have (for my purposes at least) vanished.
I still have both my Amigas, but all they do these days is gather dust sitting on a shelf. There was
once a time when I thought I'd never stop using the Amiga, now the nearest I get to one is occasionally
running UAE just to remind myself what it was all about...
Eight years ago I added to my little computing collection by buying a PC. For years I'd looked upon the PC as the underpowered and overpriced enemy, and yet here I was actually hopping with glee at having one at home. Had I gone mad, had I been hit on the head, or had I stepped into a parallel universe? No. Quite simply, I needed access to certain pieces of software, and the only way to get that access was via the PC. Today I'm still a happy PC owner. Happy because I can work from home, if I really need to. Happy because I can edit audio and video with ease. And really happy because of all the flight sims available...
Some of my favourite PC flight sims
Over the past few years, I've been steadily reducing the amount of TV I watch, even though with a cable
subscription I now have far more choice than ever before. Quite simply, there isn't all that much GOOD
TV worth watching, and I have better things to do with my time that sit in front of a TV all evening for
no good reason. There are just a few shows spread across all the channels that I make an effort to
watch, and right at the top of this short list is Babylon 5.
Quite possibly the finest example of sci-fi TV ever, B5 is an absolutely brilliant series. Unlike
so many shows, it assumes the viewers are intelligent adults, and provides a rich interweaving storyline
just like a good novel. Whilst I do like watching the various Trek series that are around (with the
latest Voyager series proving to be a real gem), I treat them as fillers in the same way that I'd read an
Ian Fleming or a Jack Higgins novel as a filler inbetween something more substantial. B5 is not the sort
of show you can watch a lot of, you have to let each episode sink in, mulling over any new revelations
and twists in the overall story arc, and thinking about what might happen next. I could quite happily
read the newspaper or talk to someone whilst any other show is on, but when B5 starts I'd like nothing
better than for the rest of the world to shut down for the next 50 minutes so I can enjoy the episode
without any sort of distraction.
They say actions speak louder than words, and since I organised the Newcastle B5 meetings for over 2
years, I guess this must be true. I'm not the sort of person who particularly enjoys organising things,
but I had no hesitation in doing it for B5.
The Newcastle Gatherings homepage
I do a lot of reading, and I really do mean a lot. If I go for more than a day or two without reading a hundred or so pages of something, I get withdrawal symptoms. My main interest is in "technothrillers" and their close relations, and a quick look across at my bulging bookshelves reveals virtually every book written by Tom Clancy, Harold Coyle, Frederick Forsyth, Michael Crichton, James Clavell, Terry Pratchett, Dale Brown and Richard Herman Jr. Supporting these collections are less complete collections of Ian Fleming and Jack Higgins. On top of all that, to either side, and generally shoved into whatever free space is left, there are numerous other books by numerous other authors.
Some of my favourites:
Since I spend so much time in front of one computer or another, whether I'm working or just having fun, I have plenty of time to listen to either the radio or a CD. My taste in music is, how shall I put it, varied. I don't really like/dislike any particular music genre, I just like or dislike specific bits of music. And so you might find me listening to some Mozart, followed by some Meat Loaf, a bit of Clannad and Enya for dessert, and maybe all washed down with a burst of Shania Twain. Like I said, varied. And that's just one example. At the moment I'm in a bit of a Corrs phase, since I seem to be listening to them just about every day. But I'm also deeply in love with the solo releases from my fave Spice Girl... Ms Melanie Jayne Chisholm.
What else is there? I like to get out for the occasional hike across any nice bits of countryside I can find, particularly the steep bits of Snowdonia :-) And if I can't get out for a full day of hiking, I'll just spend a few hours striding through various bits of London parkland (I'm in love with Hampstead Heath...), or along some of the lesser used paths and bridleways nearer to home - in particular, the stretch of Thames Path between Bourne End and Marlow makes for a rather nice walk, and there's rail access to both end, which is handy when you don't own a car ;-)
I'm a bit of an aviation enthusiast, with particular interest in modern military stuff, both fixed and rotary
wing, so I try to get to at least one airshow a year. Back in the good old days of airshows, I used to get to
the Valley, Church Fenton and Finningley shows on a regular basis. But nowadays I don't have as much free time,
so getting to a show is a bit harder. This being the case, for the last five years, I've only done one show.
But when that show is the RIAT at Fairford, who needs anything else :-)
The '95 show is just a blur, since I was only there on Saturday - BIG mistake! Fairford runs for two days, and
you really do need both days to see it all. '96 was memorable for a variety of reasons, but finally getting to
fly on Concorde was the high point. '97? Just one word... Stealth. Thank you USAF! '98 didn't really have
any single killer aspect, it was just generally great :-) '99, what can I say. More stealth, a pair of
Crusaders, some gorgeous paintschemes on both the static and flying aircraft... yeah, it was another good 'un!
I'm also a Formula One fan, and the last two years have been pretty damn good for F1 fans. The '97 season didn't
disappoint at all. We had some very close racing, no one team had been all dominant, we had new circuits to enjoy,
and even though I still hate the intrusion of advert breaks, I have to admit that the ITV coverage is much better
than the BBC's. And of course, we had some side-splittingly funny events (who'll forget the Williams tyre choice
at Monaco, or Villeneuve nosing into the wall at Montreal ?), as well as a good dollop of controversy... Just a
shame the season didn't conclude with someone other than a Williams driver picking up the drivers title.
'98 was even better, although I'm disappointed that Ferrari didn't take the constructors title - next year
perhaps... Whenever a season goes right down to the last race without the titles being decided, it's A Good
Thing, and thanks to the start-line blunders this year, Suzuka gave us a race as good as any I can remember.
But Ferrari disappointment aside, it was pleasing to see the late surge from Jordan, a team who've never
really got the results they deserved. Hopefully they'll be following Ferrari in '99 and spending more time
up at the top.
And that is pretty much it. 26 years of living in a medium sized nutshell.
