For a couple of weeks at least in the back of my mind there has been a nagging thought as to why I am currently so enthused about returning to the QL, this may or may not be unique to me, I don't know. So to start I need to explore contextually how I got to this point, the advances in technology has been one driver, however going back even further before I left school and started work, my 'hobby' if you could call it that, was messing about in my parent's cellar with the electrics.
Normally blowing the occasional fuse and sometimes complete sections of very old cable (yep pretty dangerous), however like most teenagers I had no real idea what I wanted to do when I left school, but with my interest in electrics, it seemed logical that my first step on the career ladder should follow this line, so my first job was to become an electrician.
My hobby by this time had moved on from simple electrics to engineering, electrical motors and such. Changing jobs to become an engineer followed suit thereafter, however I moved on again and got in to electronics in a fairly big way, and so eventually so did my career, around the 1980s my electronic enthusiasm was starting to wane a little and that's when I turned to computing.
So by now hopefully you can see the pattern, job follows hobby, hobby moves on, job follows hobby. At some point this must have become quite boring to me, never being able to separate the two things. of course this whole thing could be over simplification but nevertheless this is why I think retro computing and specifically back to the QL is so tempting and slightly out of control. This new hobby is it not something my current job can follow and unless I change career into journalism and the one Retro Magazine (as far as I know) that exists, I am not likely to pursue it either, therefore it can remain a hobby and keep it separate from work, hurrah. Am I the only one that has followed this sort of route I wonder?
ha ha ha. that is so weird. that is exactly why I've started QLing too.
ReplyDeletec++, java, weblogic. are great pieces of engineering. but they're not fun it's work. no one's gonna pay me to write in 68 assembly so it's gonna be at my pace and following whichever path takes my fancy
For some unknown reason I am suddenly relieved that it not just me then.
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