{"id":193,"date":"2013-08-14T14:11:50","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T19:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pjg-developments.com\/?page_id=193"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:05:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:05:35","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/?page_id=193","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Okies, where I start\u2026<\/p>\n

Puts on a Michael Caine voice\u2026<\/i>\u00a0\u2018My name is Paul, and not a lot of people know that.\u2019<\/p>\n

Ok, enough of the voice. So I\u2019m a guy in my 50s, who has been into computers since the tender age of 12, in one way or another. I started on a c16, that I managed to get my mum to buy for \u201ceducational\u201d reasons. I also managed to obtain the full set of \u201cINPUT<\/a>\u201c, if you remember that. INPUT was a magazine that was issued fortnightly, if I remember correctly. It contained basic source code for various machines, Electron, BBC B, C64, Spectrum 16 & 48K, and I think Dragon 32, but anyway, I started to type some of that stuff into the c16, and wondered why some worked and some didn\u2019t. So I looked into it, and a couple of months later, and a walk around \u201cLittlewoods\u201d stores, who at the time sold computer related things, had a book on the \u201cC16\u201d and I managed to convince my mum to buy me it, and after convincing her to give it to me then, and not wait until a special occasion, I set myself down and started to read, and read, and read, and eventually learnt why the programs were working, so with the exception of the really heavy programs (sprite based, etc) I managed to get a lot of the programs to do at least something. So I started.<\/p>\n

So what happened next.<\/p>\n

Ok, I had been messing around with this machine now for a while, and learnt sort of what I could, and what I couldn\u2019t, and the main thing that I found out was the whole \u201crun\/stop & reset button\u201d trick, which used to reset ya machine, into a \u201cmonitor\u201d, ooooohhhh, what was this I though, so I looked into it, and saw all these things I could do, but I didn\u2019t\u00a0 know what I was doing, then I started buying some monthly magazines, and my world was starting to open. I started\u00a0 finding out about \u201cG\u201d commands as in \u201cG 2000\u201d or \u201cG 4000\u201d, and soooo it was born, the assembly language learning experience<\/p>\n

The Assembly Language Learning Experience.
\nRight, I had opened the door the assembly language, well, I say opened, I merely nudged the door open, and peeked inside,\u00a0 and I started to play, I loaded up games, and after finding the cheats, and restart command from a magazine, set about trying other things, and one of my first all time games I decided to rip into was \u201cGullwing Falcon\/Gremlin Graphics\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 ok, all I did was change text and stuff, but it was a start. Then (\u2018Hears Drum Roll\u2019) I actually, one day, fired it up\u00a0 without a game, and decided to go into the \u201cMonitor\u201d and mess around (using my C16 book for reference) and I got a\u00a0 scroller born, so technically that was my break into \u201cAssembly Language\u201d.<\/p>\n

What happened next.<\/p>\n

So, a few years passed, and I mainly used the C16 for games playing, many a \u00a31.99 was spend on the \u201cFirebird Silver Range\u201d, but one Christmas morning, I was totally shocked my mum had gone out and bought me a C64c, and I mean I was shocked, normally when your a kid, you have an inkling on what your getting, but this, nope well shocked, I think I spent the next few days up in my bedroom, playing the games I got with it. Then I managed to save up some money, and got some of my mum, and bought myself a 1541 disk drive (as i was finding Tape loading far too slow, although I likes the \u201cOcean\u201d loading music, and many a time I would load up \u201cParallax\/Ocean\u201d just for the music on the title page), anyway, I digress,\u00a0 so I bought myself a 1541, and at the time I had started a\u00a0Saturday job working with my Uncle, delivering bread (yeah I know, boring you may say, but I was 14 I think, and it was way cool then), but there is a reason for the bread delivery tale, we used to delivery to a sweetshop, and whilst my Uncle was doing the business (so to speak) I used to look at the magazines, and one that caught my eye (and because I just had bought a 1541) was \u201cCommodore Disk User\u201d, so the venture began.<\/p>\n

The Letter.<\/p>\n

Ok, the heading might confuse a bit, but I will try to explain. After buying a few editions of \u201cCommodore Disk User\u201d<\/a> and loading a few things off them, I came across a demo by a guy with the nickname of \u201cTLH\u201d, was impressed at this and stated to read the \u2018scroller\u2019, and at the end of the demo, was his \u2018then\u2019 name and address, and I thought, lets write to him. Anyway a week or two later, I got a phone call from TLH, and started to chat to him, and our friendship was born (passes the bucket). It started off with me ringing him here, and there, wondering what he was up to, etc,\u00a0 as he was in the \u2018industry\u2019 and I was a mere mortal, but eventually over there years, the c64 talk slowed down, as\u00a0 I was getting more and more proficient on my own, and the calls with TLH just were ya normal \u201cHey, hows tricks,\u00a0 how ya been?\u201d etc<\/p>\n

The PDS Setup.<\/p>\n

Well, this was my first break into serious (non-profit making) programming, I had a nice little setup. A C128 on\u00a0 one side, and a C64 on the other, connected via a cable, TV for the C64, and a green screen monitor for the C128. Simply the C128 had a program called Zeus128 assembler, and the C64 had something called \u2018receive\u2019 software, and\u00a0 all you did was code on the C128, and send it to the C64 to be executed, it was great. If you got an error, or an lockup, all you had to do was reset the C64, and load up the small \u2018recieve\u2019 software again. Off I went into\u00a0 6502 seriously.<\/p>\n

The Years.
\nRight, another confusing heading, but in a nutshell, there were a few years that were blank, well not really blank, just no 6502, I got myself a girl, who wasn\u2019t into computers, and you can work out the rest.<\/p>\n

Ok, around Dec 2000, I met up with a young lady who wasn\u2019t Cyberphobic, and enjoyed using computers, just like me.\u00a0 Instant messaging, games, even managed at one point to try to learn \u201cC++\u201d together, but hey, we didn\u2019t get anywhere. So now, whilst I\u2019m on the computer, the lady of the house doesn\u2019t mind, well providing she has control of the \u201cTV Remote\u201d. So I can pretty much do what I want, I still code on the c64, admittedly I isn\u2019t on the C64 direct, but still in a PDS environment, I code all my c64 stuff on \u201cCrimson Editor\u201d, and compile using \u201cc64asm1a\u201d, and run my compiled program on \u201cWinvice\u201d. Also I started to use Visual Basic, Blitz Basic and Dark Basic. Notice the similarity there, yeah Basic but hey, it works\u2026<\/p>\n

So as you can see, I was there, then I wasn\u2019t, and now I\u2019m back again. I am very, very rusty, but slowly I am getting back into what I enjoy, and thankfully I have a missus that understand, and a few friends out there who are helping me along. I would like to do like I used to on my C64 stuff, and have a scroller, but hey it would be too lame.<\/p>\n

May 2009<\/p>\n

Ok, so 9 years on, that relationship decided to take another turn and we decided to part our ways and ended as friends.<\/p>\n

So on Mothers Day (in the US) I decided to go online and ended up in a chat room and met with a person and we started chatting.<\/p>\n

The chatting continued for about 6 months until I plucked up the courage to suggest that we meet\u2026 now here is the problem, you notice above I said it was Mothers Day in the US, well, yeah, she was from the USA. So I booked a flight and went to visit.<\/p>\n

Long story short (and this text will be updated soon, but I wanted to get the main bit down) we had a long distance relationship for just over 1 year, and we decided to get married\u2026<\/p>\n

I am now living in the USA, I am a Permanent Resident and all that Jazz.<\/p>\n

\u2018It may be continued, but who knows? Do I need to?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okies, where I start\u2026 Puts on a Michael Caine voice\u2026\u00a0\u2018My name is Paul, and not a lot of people know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":189,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-193","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5524,"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193\/revisions\/5524"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.pjghangouts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}