Conor’s Bandon Blog

This mightn’t be a big deal to most people but it’s a huge deal to me. If my parents hadn’t got me a ZX Spectrum in 1982, I wouldn’t have had the life I’ve had. No exaggeration. Every single college and career choice I’ve made stems from the skills I learned on that machine, which I still have (the machine, not the skills ).

Sure 50% of the time I was playing Jet Set Willy and Sabre Wulf but on the Speccy I learned BASIC, Forth and Z80 assembler. I also learned the basic architecture of computers and basic electronics circuits.

I still crank up emulators on my PCs, phone and Palm and still get annoyed over the bugs in the games I wrote!

Thanks to my parents for realising how important computer skills might be to me and to Sir Clive Sinclair for having the clarity of vision to create the ZX series of computers. I’m actually surprised he didn’t come up with the OLPC as it is right in line with his thinking.

Happy Anniversary Speccy!

p.s and just in time, the 1988 Edition of the Your Sinclair Rock n Roll Years has just been released!

UPDATE 1: Colin Woodcock has also just released a Special 25th Anniversary Edition of the wonderful ZXF online magazine.

Given that this blog is six years old this week and we’ve started reminiscing about the good old days of Engineering in Merrion Street and Earlsfort Terrace, I’ve decided that it’s officially Nostalgia Week here at O’Neill Towers.

Knarf reminded me of Jimmy Jamjars at the gates to Merrion Street. Catherine reminded me of The Jimmy Jamjar Awards. I think Teresa won one in 1991 for the largest number of PFOs of any Engineering student.

I nominate our pop-rivetted aluminium boxes which ended up holding bog-roll in Merrion Street as a candidate for best re-use ever.

17th April 2001, I got an account on this thing I probably heard about on Slashdot called Blogger. I just saw it as an easier way of keeping my personal homepage (which I think I started in 1996 on Indigo) up-to-date.

How wrong I was. The second blog post was 7th August 2001.

For the first 4 years, the blog mainly consisted of baby announcements of my friends and my job situation. In 2005 I finally started doing it very regularly, moved to a WordPress blog and now look at me. In the next 4 weeks I’ll be launching a business built on blogging.

I can’t claim to have foreseen the profound impact that blogging would have in many areas. As with most things I get involved in, it just “seemed like a good idea at the time”. I’ve been very lucky over the years that many of those ideas turned out to be genuinely good.

I’ve gone from one reader (Catherine) to several hundred per day. Thanks to all of you for stopping by and leaving comments. I hope I’ve written the odd useful thing and made you smile once or twice.

I encourage anyone who has ever felt like expressing an opinion to more than their mates down the pub to give blogging a try. It takes less than a minute to get a blog over at wordpress.com and writing blog-posts is easier than sending an email. If it turns out you have no long-term interest, well you’ve probably wasted less time than your daily commute.

Here’s to another six years of conoroneill.com

Cheers!

I was a bit sad today to read this from the UCD Alumni office:

UCD will soon be saying goodbye to Earlsfort Terrace and completing the move to Belfield. Generations of students spent their university years at the Terrace and hold fond memories of that time.
This year, the last medical and engineering students will make the journey to Belfield and the Terrace will transfer to the National Concert Hall for major redevelopment as a multipurpose concert venue. To commemorate 124 years of UCD at Earlsfort Terrace….

From 1st Year to 3rd Year Engineering (1986-1989), we alternated between the Terrace, Merrion Street and Belfield. Then in 4th Year, they moved us out to the new Engineering building. I still think it is the worst thing UCD have ever done. I know they needed the space but there is simply no comparison between going to college in a City with all the facilities and social aspects that provides and going out to some horrible 60′s-style campus in the middle of nowhere.

I loved Merrion Street, I loved Earlsfort Terrace, I loved being part of the City. I hated so much of Belfield, apart from the huge increase in the number of women I actually have fond memories of individual rooms in the old buildings. And who can forget the Merrion Street canteen with the white loo tiles on the walls or the pink pork chops in Earlsfort Terrace? I can’t say the same about anywhere in Belfield.

I was in UCC a few weeks back and that warm feeling of “this is why I liked college” flowed through me. Compare that to CIT on the edge of the city where everyone has a car and there is no sense of place. It is just somewhere to go to be lectured.

I’m not explaining myself well and I know I’m an old fart, but still.

My Dad kindly voted for this blog in several categories in the Blog Awards earlier. He mailed me to say that it reminded him of my Granny (Mary O’Neill) who voted for Dev eight times in the 1932 elections on both sides of the bridge in New Ross. Could you imagine if those old Cumann na mBan women were around now and decided to help the blog result?

Technorati Tags: iba2007, Irish+Blog+Awards, Cumann na mBan

We discovered over Christmas that you can in fact put 5 children, 2 adults and all their stuff in a Zafira+Roofbox and go from Cork to Kilkenny to Cavan to Cork. Hurrah.

On our trip back from Cavan on the joke’s of national routes known as the N55 and N62, we got to Roscrea and Oscar decided to puke. We caught most of it in a nappy bag and then I dropped the bag as I exited it from the car. We pulled into the McDonald’s carpark at the roundabout and proceeded to change both Oscar and Fionn.

A McDonald’s employee appeared and asked if we needed any help, we did. He headed off and got black sacks and a roll of kitchen paper. He introduced himself as Dave and stuck his card in my pocket. He then apologised for heading off but his shift was over. Two minutes later he reappeared with a cup of water for Oscar to wash out his mouth and another one of 7-Up which he told us to shake flat so it would settle Oscar’s stomach (a trick we’ve used many times in the past).

Dave then left with the message to give any of the bits to staff and to just say that he had said so. I was so impressed with this guy. All of this help was unprompted and was deeply appreciated by us. I thought he was just one of the new-style Helper’s in McDonald’s which are a fantastic addition but when I checked his card later, I found he was the manager.

Anyone who thinks McD’s are going away any time soon had better wake up and smell the lattes they now serve. McD’s are finally realising that customer service is just as important as the burgers to retain customers. It’ll be employees like Dave who make that seachange happen.

Promote this man fast – he’s capable of far more than Roscrea!

Thanks again Dave.

Technorati Tags: McDonalds, Roscrea, Ireland, Dave+Green, Customer+Service

So Haydn tagged me. Five things you don’t know about me eh? Apart from my Spaghetti Hoop fetish?

1. I was Junior Irish Archery Champion in 1980. Not as impressive as it sounds. Three of us in the competition and other two were beginners. Never improved after that and gave up in mid-teens. Turns out not everyone else saw a blob of colours down the end of the field and I later found out I was short-sighted. My other problem was that…

2. I appear to be what is known as cross-dominant. No not a Tranny Whip Fetishist but I mix use of left and right. I’m not ambidextrous but I write right-handed, am left footed, left eyed and hurl left handed (the twice a year when I hurl). I think I’d be more comfortable golfing left-handed too, if I ever golfed. I switched to using my left hand for the mouse last year and find it more natural than using the right. For fun I’ve starting writing like a 3 year old with my left hand on occasion too. So in archery, holding a bow right-handedly but using my left eye meant that I couldn’t get the “sight” out far enough to the left to line it up correctly, so I always had to aim off centre. I cudda been a contenda otherwise.

3. I have the worlds most awesome wife with whom I am still having a fling 16 years later. “Ah go on, let me stay on your couch” after a night in Kiely’s Bar led to marriage and five loudly opinionated children.

4. I was a thespian for a few short weeks in 1985 in the St Kieran’s College school play. I played the allegedly batty mother, Sybil Walling. It was a pretty dire farce built around a body up a chimney. Still seems to be popular. Personally I thought I was awesome and basically did a cross-dressing take off of Margaret Rutherford playing Miss Marple. And Emmet Cooney still has my copy of the goddammed video of it. I want it back Emmet! This short career diversion was mainly caused by my involvement in Irish and English debating in school (and the No Name Club). I completely dropped debating in college until 4th year when some class-mates decided to properly resurrect Forum, the UCD Engineer’s Debating Society. Not as famous as the L&H but ten times funnier and we whipped their asses in any cross-society debate. Ah fond memories of Jabba The Baby Eater and “Did DoWaDiddy DUM DiddyDoo and did he do so on three separate occasions, twice with a banana?”. Mark Connolly where are you now?

5. I’ve just had a vasectomy. Ouch. Essay coming soon.

Oops, forgot to tag others. So who can I annoy? Emmm: Walter, Curly K (good excuse to start blogging again woman!), Anthony, Kieran and Neal.

Technorati Tags: Five+Things, Archery, Brush+With+A+Body, Vasectomy, Forum, Engineers+Debating+Society

This gave me goosebumps:

Microdrives

You have no idea, none, how much I wanted a microdrive as a teenage geek. I would have happily chopped off my little finger yakuza-style to get one. And this guy, the luckiest man alive, has 8 of them!

And what is it about rose tinted spectacles that I would be happier now to be given a ZX Spectrum +2 with a Kempston joystick than a fully loaded Dell XPS?

I automatically deride anything that Nicholas Negroponte is involved in as snake-oil (Media Lab Dublin, I laughed when they announced it, I laughed when they closed it). But the $100 laptop has the potential to create a whole new generation of programmers from places you would never have dreamed, just like the Spectrum, BBC Micro and C-64 did for us as kids. Let’s hope he doesn’t screw it up.

I think maybe we’ve all forgotten the impact those machines, and “The Computer Programme” on the BBC had on a multitude of British and Irish kids. I shudder to think what I would be working at now if my parents hadn’t had the foresight to get me a Spectrum when I badgered them incessantly for it. And I know I’ve blogged this before, but it is still the funniest thing on the whole damned internet.

[tags]ZX Spectrum, microdrive, Geoff Wearmouth, comp.sys.sinclair, The Computer Programme, OLPC, Hey Hey 16K[/tags]

Nick Humphries has done it again.The 1986 edition of “The Your Sinclair Rock n Roll Years TV Show” was released for download recently. All nostalgic ZX Spectrum fans should grab it and watch 8 minutes of great memories. Non-Speccy fans can listen to the music and Apprentice fans can laugh at how young Alan Sugar looks in it.

1986 was simultaneously the peak of my Spectrum involvement and also my last year. It’s all been downhill technically since then. Will I ever need to re-flex my Forth muscles and will I ever finish my Irish-themed Jet Set Willy clone which if memory serves, had “humorous” references to Big Ed Loves Mona? I got to over 20K of Z80 assembler, all on paper and never a line tested. Agile schmagile.

[tags]YSRnRY, ZX Spectrum, Sinclair, 1986[/tags]

One of the business blogs I read is Fred Wilson over at “A VC“. He regularly recommends music worth listening to. The other day he mentioned Black Sabbath Vol 4. Apart from watching Ozzy on the TV and thinking that “Paranoid” is one of the top twenty best songs of all time, I have never listened to any Black Sabbath.

I headed on over to my fave music site at the minute “AllofMp3.com” to see what they had. This is a very controversial site based in Russia which provides MP3 versions of almost any album possible for rock bottom prices. People like the RIAA in the US claim that they cannot be doing this legally and can’t be giving the correct level of royalties to the performers. I dunno. The only worry I had was handing my credit card details over to a site in Russia. I wondered if I would soon be getting charges on my card for beluga caviar. But it appears to be all above board and I’ve had no problems. Most of the albums come in at about $1.30 (Kill Bill Vol 1 Soundtrack, Garden State soundtrack) but for some reason “The Best of Black Sabbath” was $4.50.

I’m listening to it now. Oh it’s good. Don’t like “Black Sabbath” the song – too like Led Zeppelin at their most bloated, But “The Wizard” is a fabulous song.

Growing up, I really wasn’t in to music. My first ever record was bought for me by my Auntie Lena in (I think) Dolphin Discs. It was “Jailhouse Rock” re-released when The King died. Still a great song! But I remember being in sixth class in primary school and kids talking about Sid Vicious and how cool he was. I had no idea what they were talking about. I think Sid Coyne and Sid Byrne both re-named themselves after the aforementioned Pistol.

Then first year in Secondary School was very confusing. Why would people be engraving electricity symbols on their desks with their biros? Why did people like a German band which I pronounced “Muterhod”. And why did Neil Young in third year have a sleeveless denis jacket with his name in studs on the back? And Brendan wondered why Neil never replied to “hey Neil”!

I spent most of my teens listening to synth pop like Depeche Mode (before they were cool), Howard Jones (who was never cool) and Duran Duran (who I still like, go on flame me). But this deeply offended the music sensibilities of my friend Dermot who started giving me tapes of Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen, Stefan Grapelli, Pink Floyd and The Doors. It kinda worked, I became a Doors fanatic and a Cohen fan (still am in both cases).

Of course every girl I ever dated (or married!) thought the Doors were ok but all the rest of em were rubbish. I was force fed a diet of The Smiths, U2 and cool Depeche Mode with the odd foray over to The Pixies, NIN and Smashing Pumpkins. Ok, it worked, I now think “Debaser”, “Girlfriend in a Coma” and “Personal Jesus” are fab songs.

Back in a sec, “Paranoid” has just started………..Back again. Not top twenty, top ten.

I did an exchange trip to Germany when I was 14 where the guy I was exchanging with was a heavy metal fanatic. I spent night after night listening to his AC/DC and (far more importantly to him) Scorpions. I was like an old man: “it all sounds like noise to me, where’s the melody?”. And that was it for nearly twenty years.

It is probably a bit sad that I only started buying heavy metal in my 30′s and even then it was usually “Best Of’s” like AC/DC, Motorhead etc. But I’m with Twenty Major – at least I’m not buying c****ing Damien Rice.

I think Fred’s recommended “Vol 4″ may be my next purchase.

[tags]Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osborne, Fred Wilson, A VC, AllOfMP3, St Kieran’s College[/tags]