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Eventually I will put more detail here. But I needed to get my redesigned web site up and going.
Born in 1955, the first child of dairy farmer parents, in a small place called Tamahere, about 10 miles from the city of Hamilton, in the North Island of New Zealand.
As a pre-teen I grew up in Tamahere, with two brothers and three sisters, attending the local Tamahere Model Country School, which includes both primary and intermediate education in one school.
As a teenager (1969-1973) I attended high school at Mt. Albert Grammar School, an all boys boarding school, in Auckland (75 miles to the north of Hamilton, and the largest city in New Zealand).
After receiving an educational scholarship (B bursary) to attend university, I returned home to Hamilton for one year (1974) to attend the local Waikato University, for an Engineering Intermediate year (core to all engineering degrees). I worked part-time at various jobs to put myself through university, but lived with my parents, who had moved from Tamahere to another small place, Eureka, about 5 miles away.
In 1975 I moved to Auckland to attend the University of Auckland, to persue a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree. I flatted with various friends in several places around Auckland.
Although I had an interest in electronics, did very well at high school in related subjects, and wanted to persue a career of being a computer technician (remember this was before the time of personal computers), it was while I was at Waikato University that I got hooked on the software side of computers. I was lucky to be able to get friendly with the university computer staff, and get good access often directly to the local IBM 1130 and remote Burroughs B5600 (at Auckland University - remember RJE <grin>?) mainframe systems. However what I did most of the time was produce "pinup" calendars on the line printer, from punched cards.
More of the same occurred when I attended Auckland University. Being a four year course (1 year Immediate), I got plenty of opportunities to use the computer centre.
Lots more to come...
