Software

When I was really young, a company called Texas Instruments released a new gadget called a "Home Computer" - the TI-99/4A . It was a simple device that you plugged into your television, much like the blip-tennis games that were starting to be quite popular, but this was different. What this did, was it allowed you to give it instructions, and then it followed them! We had reached the technological level that we could create a machine that could do as you commanded! This sparked a sense of utter wonder and amazement in me that I've never lost to this day. It is the reason that I view creating software as an end in itself. While much of the software I write is produced for a purpose, I still, sometimes, just create programs because it is fun...

Here you can find some of that fun, split into major projects, and miscellaneous.

Project: TAK-OS

This is one of the those "Why on earth would you do that" projects that I suspect is going to grow to be really rather useful.

TAK-OS is a bundle of Alpine Linux, Kubernetes and some extra components to enable fully automated deployment of small scale Kubernetes Clusters without all the usual hassles.

Projects:

Project: BBC Microcomputer

The BBC Microcomputer was a quantum leap both in technology, and availability. A home computer style device, backed by the UK Government for use in every school in the country, with multiple TV series made by the national broadcaster (The British Broadcasting Corporation or BBC, hence the name). This was a real, concrete, and effective drive by the government to make the UK a serious world player in IT, and it worked! The machine they made was no less remarkable. Whilst based on one of the simplest 8-Bit CPUs of the time (the 6502), they built in to the initial design the concept of task specific co-processors, which even now we see in our gaming PCs with graphics cards slaved onto less powerful main CPUs! This was in 1981! The on-board design was no less ground breaking. It was a consumer device that the consumer was anticipated, or even expected, to add to - You could open it up and add your own ROMs (Read Only Memory chips, containing additional software), or even entire daughter boards for almost any purpose.

The machine was so breathtakingly advanced that they are still in use today, and people are still making addons for them, for example, you can now add a SD card reader (a 21st century technology) to your BEEB (a very definitely 20th century machine!).

Here are a few bits I've created for the BBC Microcomputer:

Project: Edge Nexus

This one is currently a little hush-hush, Once released I think it is going to turn a few heads!

Miscellaneous: