since everyone else is at it... the identity we received at birth is available to anyone who asks, but we adopted the collective name "communa" a few moths back, on realising that we're multiple. it's raised a few eyebrows since, but that's life. we're 23, and our first computer was a second-hand zx81 at the age of 9, followed with reasonable swiftness by a new zx81 and memotech rampack. the rampack died after a few years of non-use, and by then we had moved on and up, and weren't much interested in the zx81 any more (we maintain that attitude; it was a handy springboard, it was nice to have used one, but it was the first and only eminently *disposable* computer...) over the years we also acquired: * a commodore 16, complete with tally roll printer; * a memotech mtx512; * a sinclair ql with serial port - we are currently waiting for a friend at work to throw some more bits our way; * a trigem xt with 40Mb hard disk, hgc monitor and panasonic kxp1170 printer - faithful workhorse for 5 years; * an amstrad nc100 that we don't use anywhere near as much as we should; * an original zx spectrum 48; * a spectrum +2; * a 286 motherboard, then a 386sx motherboard, an old case someone left behind on doing a runner, a digital vga mono monitor and olivetti card, 4 1Mb simms, and a win95 keyboard, for use as a convenience system (and for internet surfing); * an ncr 286 computer that looks like a paving slab and came with ega colour monitor and lovely keyboard; * and there may well be a decstation 3100 going at work if we can arrange / wangle it. (plus a ridiculously heavy 300Mb scsi hard drive box that feels as if someone forgot to remove the lead casing...) a preponderance of home computers and odd pcs (with the exception of this 386, none are particularly standard inside), which we are not very happy about - hence our published wish list. for our living, we do things with webs and databases - sometimes in connection - with a little company based in sleepy gargrave (typical village - 3 shops, 3 pubs, about 200 houses, pathetic public transport) and have done for a year, during which time we have seen the depth of our overdraft *increase*. (hmm...) however, it does mean that now we have the money to pursue a dream, which is to acquire old and interesting hardware and write operating systems for them. and therein lies our interest in classic computers; less for the beasts themselves, more for the programming challenges and joys that they would present. hence we'll focus on specific architectures rather than specific machines. it's also something of a revolt against the trend in the modern computer market, especially with regard to software. before that, we studied computer science at bradford university, but lost interest once we realised that we already knew most of what we were being told, and didn't particularly want to know the rest. we nearly failed; we got a degree out of it, just. we'd prefer a job that tallied better with our interests; on the other hand, there's a novelist here trying to get out, and we suspect that this would represent our future career development. (but because of who we are, we don't want to write a book until we've written the word processor. :> ) and we'd also like to have more time to ourself and our interests. oh, and we're devoted to our three cats, firstborn, blackie and calliope - our babies. they come first in all considerations. -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her... Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive