Stoke 3 and Stoke 4
We will neither of us see our half century again. (old, that is!)
Ray has spent most of his working life driving vehicles from the Land Rover range. He has also used radios all his working life and had to do several stints in the Control Room where using a computer was part of the job.
Me? Well, I spent some years teaching at the time of the BBC and BBCb. The Archimedes had arrived by the time I went into entertainment where I worked with a microphone for a living.
At home in those days we had an Acorn Electron which I learned to write programmes for. Mostly useful ones, not really entertaining, but I could use one to find out how long it would take to drive somewhere, the distance by the most economic route, the cost in fuel and the time that ought to be spent in stops.
We expanded the Electron with a Plus 1 that gave it ROM slots and a Slogger daughter board which gave us an expanded memory of 64K and turbo! We also had a Plus 3 which gave us a very new disc drive (it was spelled that way!) which was called a "hard disc drive" into which you inserted 3½ inch hard discs. The BBC had the floppy - a 5¼ inch brown square of cardboard - which has since disappeared into oblivion. The Electron hard disc is what you now know as a floppy or cassette. Still have quite a few of the old Electron discs. Although useable with the PC they don't hold much data!
Now we have taken early retirement and we spend our free time following hobbies that reflect our working days. Computing, radio operating and off-roading. And Ray has become interested in building computers, a task he is very good at and which gives him immense satisfaction. His PCs just don't go wrong!
Stoke 3 and Stoke 4