The following profiles have been collected
from the Liberty Basic Mailing list. If you are not a member of the
list - you are missing out on a very valuable resource for learning more
(and helping others). You can subscribe to the list by visiting the
Liberty Basic home page.
This list is far from being complete.
There are over 4000 registered users of LB and possibly even more using
the shareware version.
To add your profile to the list - subscribe
to the mailing list and introduce yourself to the group. I promise
you that you will be welcomed - so dont be shy!
Here's the list (in the order received).
If the user has a Website - a link has been included. Email addresses
are NOT included. There are too many SPAM merchants around - and I'm not
going to give them a free mailing list!!!! (BTW if you want your entry
removed from this list - just drop me an email at: brosco@orac.net.au
Harlan - the man who started the introductions!
.....But first I would like to introduce myself. My name is Harlan.
I'm a retired gent, quite content, living in the burbs of beautiful St
Albert, just north of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I use an IPC 486 DX33,
16K ram, windows 3.1, with a whopping 170 meg hard drive:
Just started messing around with programming before Christmas and
received my Liberty Basic registration a couple of days ago. Been sitting
back in the weeds watching the mail list for a while now, learning everything
I could about Liberty Basic.
Tom and Alyce Watson - AKA - Clocker
I suppose I should also introduce myself? My 12-year-old
son, Thomas and I program together. We came to Wisconsin from Michigan
(GO BLUE!) eight years ago. When not in my right mind, I have been
known to teach high school English and math.
Well for the last 20 or so years, I have worked in a textile factory
making "Wrangler" shirts. I am a mechanic and have about 45 automatic machines
(read, run by computers) that I keep running. This plant, run by VF Corporation,
is closing in August. It is the last VF shirt factory in the U.S.A. I hate
NAFTA.
I have 3 girls and live in North Alabama. But enough rambling...Next?
Joseph M. Ferris
Well, I am a 21 year old CSE major. I've been married for
a little over a year now, and plan on moving to the Seattle area to find
better employment.
Liberty Basic is new to me, although I already program in C/C++,
Perl, Cobol, and about 3 other flavors of Basic. Currently I am working
on a Hotel system using Liberty Basic for my senior project in school,
which I hope to market at it's completion.
Sam Newson
I think is great all the work that is being done with API's. I
know I would love to help, but I can,t not due to want, but due to talent,
I'm pretty new at programming LB. The only other experience is with Amiga
Basic. I've been on this list about 4 months and think its the next best
thing to sliced bread. A couple of months before this I brought a $20 (NZ)
CD disk with about 2500 zipped shareware programs, and found a verson 1.2
Liberty Basic. After playing around with it for a while I was hooked. Sent
my reg. fee ($90 NZ) and one month later to my delight verson 1.4 arrived.
After seeing that it had a internet address, I brought a modem and joined
the internet. I work for a Building Company in Christchurch New Zealand.
I use to be the roof truss fabicator, but now design them on a program
could Mitek 2000. I also work with Excel quite alot.I feel like I,m the
only one in New Zealand that uses LB. I'm sure that many more would also
love LB. Just like to say thanks again to all your good work. By the way
New Zealand is a small country to the left of Austraila with about 4 million
people and 60 million sheep.
Doug Johnson - AKA - Dzzoner
I have been using LB for about a year. I also worked designing
roof trusses. I currently work for a company that makes truss plates, design
software (Like the Mitek 2000), and truss fabricating equipment.
Chris Robertson
Don't worry sam you're not alone. I am a 26 yr old ex-retail mgr,
now a management student in Auckland, NZ. I too would love to contribute
more (or at all) but I only discovered the joy of computers two years ago
(when I started my degree), and only started programming at all at xmas
97. I think I am getting somewhere but not far enough obviously. Despite
reports, Auckland does have power, but very few sheep.
Mike Stewart
I'm a freshman in a High School near Spokane, WA. I started programming
when I discovered QuickBASIC about 2 years ago. I have been programming
since. I've used FirstBASIC, QB, GW-BASIC. About 5 months ago I moved to
LB. Haven't Done Much, but I like programming in Windows. I am ver knowledgeable
with the HTML format, and I will have a page out soon. I use a 386 with
8 MG RAM, and a 210 MG Hard Drive. My OS is Windows 95.
This is one of the aspects of Liberty Basic you don't, and won't
find anywhere else on the net... LB has some of the greatest Users, and
it's such a refreshing deal to have such an easy programming language,
and Users who treat you like family. :-) I don't think you can even get
that at McDonalds.. ;-) Hello, I'm Garrett, and I should be in a Rehabilitation
Program for my Addiction to Liberty Basic.. heheheheheheheeeee I'm 30 something,
going on 18, and that's because LB makes me feel like a kid again. Been
married for 10 years now, and have 3 Kool Kids to go with it. :-) I have
over 3 years of HTML under my belt, and it's because of HTML that I found
LB. I really got tired of not finding an HTML editor that had just what
I wanted in it, so I decided to make my own HTML editor. Well, I must have
spent 3 months looking for the right Programming language.. And if you
think that there isn't that many out there, your dead wrong. I must have
sifted through about 50 languages, and I even didn't touch the tip of it
all. I finally came across Liberty Basic just as I was about to give up
the search, and have been addicted ever since. That was about a year ago,
and I still haven't made my HTML editor yet.. :-( Lets just say I got a
wee bit carried away making programs in LB.. :-) I didn't have any other
programming experience with the exception of the HTML, and I don't really
consider that programming... HTML is more like DOS Batch files to me. You
can see some of the programs that I have made at my Puffin Works site located
at: http://www.in-syte.com/PuffinWorks
And what you see there is not all LB produced programs.. so don't get upset
if you figure out that one of the programs isn't a LB program. And of the
LB programs I do have there, they are only a small list of the actual programs
that I have made in LB. Yes... Other languages.. LB gave me the abilities
and knowledge I needed to learn a few other languages.. but I'll never
leave LB. :-) I've spent the last 5 years Self/Unemployed by fixing PC's,
Desktop Publishing and Web Site Design. The reason I added Unemployed,
is because it's not always constant work. Before that, I spent 5 nice and
quiet years in the US Army... The nice and quiet is a joke folks.. heheheheheeeee
I live in University Place, Washington, USA... which I don't expect people
to know where that is, so I'll give you a landmark to identify by.. I'm
about 20 miles south of Seattle Washington, and I can see MT Rainier as
big as life.. Some of you might be able to realate to MT Saint Helens,
which blew it's stack about a couple of decades ago. I'm north of there.
Oh, BTW, I was just about 60 miles north of it when it went off.. I was
fishing (sleeping!) in the middle of a lake when it went off, and didn't
even notice it. I thought it was just getting foggy out.. ;-) And yes!
I do have Webbed Feet! And I don't tan, I rust. Also, with all this talk
about Sheep, I hope we don't start getting a bunch of B-a-a-a-a-d jokes
going now.. I mean it now, No "Bull" about it.. If Euw even think about
it, We'll grab you by the horns, and put the shears to Euw. So don't even
try to pull the wool over our eyes on this now. heheheheheheeeee ;-) Oh,
and we don't have any Sheep here, nor Bulls.. Just Seagulls, Crows, Salmon
and Microsoft Jokes. If you go to Spokane where Mike is, you might pick
up a Rattle Snake or two.. ;-) And who ever that was who is thinking about
moving to Seattle for Employment, send me an email at: garrett@in-syte.com
Maybe I can help you from here.. I can send you a Seattle News Paper or
something. I don't know about MS hiring, but I know Boeing is on a massive
hiring spree right now. Well, I think this is enough bandwidth hogging
for today. Next introduction please.......
(NOTE from the Webmaster - After you have
been to the Liberty Basic
Home Page to get your copy of LB - Garrett's LB4ALL
site is the number 1 place to go for the most comprehensive compilation
of LB resources. Additionally, he hosts a message board for posting questions
and a Chat facility where we try to get together every few weeks.)
Marc E. Mosher
My name is Marc, I'm 31, single but in a relationship for 8 years.
Have been programming in one language or another since I was 15 or 16.
Mostly BASIC, though, 'cause it's easy! I've found Liberty BASIC to be
the best yet. I've worked in electronics, radio, and computers since I
got out of school and currently do free lance work in all three of the
above fields, including graphics and HTML. Check out my Webpage.
My interests include radios and scanner, electronics, computers, cars,
science fiction, flight simulators (my Flight Simulator 5 disks got corrupted
- a great loss), some card collecting, reading, mountain biking and trail
hiking (have webpages up for 6 of the above, including maps for all mountain
biking and hiking trails around here!). I also run a mailing list for the
local area. I live in upper New York state, near Watertown, about 30 miles
south of the Canadian border. Watertown is home of the the Paddock Arcade
- the oldest covered shopping mall in continuous operation in the country,
Jefferson County is the birthplace of chloroform (Doctor Samuel Guthrie
of Sackets Harbor used it for anesthesia), the brown paper bag, shredded
wheat, the Hitchcock lamp, the railroad sleeping car (invented by Woodruff),
bedsprings, Car Freshener, Croghan Bologna, Philadelphia Cream Cheese (from
the Philadelphia here in NY, not in PA), and of course Thousand Islands
Dressing (mayonnaise with chili sauce and seasonings - chopped pimentos,
green peppers, and onion). Famous people who have lived in the Jefferson
County area include Melville Dewey of the Dewey Decimal System, Secretaries
of State John Foster Dulles (Watertown's Dulles Office Building is named
after him) and Robert Lansing (a street is named after Lansing), NY State
Governor Roswell P. Flower (the Flower Memorial Library is named after
the governor), famous author Marietta Holley (who lived in the Adams area),
Waldorf Astoria owner George Boldt (who built the fabulous castle which
is on Heart Island), Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte is rumored to
have lived in Cape Vincent for a time, actors Richard Grieco and Viggo
Moretsen (the Master Cheif from G.I. Jane), Mary Margaret Humes (a runner-up
for Miss America and actress), stage actress Eugenie Besserer (born December
25, 1868 in Watertown died May 30, 1934 in Los Angeles, California), and
Scotty Mattraw (who had a place called Scotty's Eatable Eats in Watertown
and later left for Hollywood and became an actor). Fort Drum, near by Watertown,
is one of the largest military reservations in the U.S. I don't post much
because I'm still learning the ins and outs of Liberty BASIC and just plain
haven't had time to come up with much of interest to others. I ran across
Liberty BASIC while looking for some way to compile Qbasic programs and
also searching for utilities for BASICBASIC. I downloaded Liberty BASIC,
converted a program I use in BASICBASIC all the time to Liberty BASIC,
and was hooked. I got back on the webpage and looked for other utilities
and more info about the language and that was when I ran across the message
from the author of Liberty BASIC offering a free registered copy to anyone
who made a webpage up concerning it. So I did so, posted the address to
all the search engines I could get my hands on to, and put a couple programs
on to download. Check
it out . I am currently working on two Liberty BASIC projects. One
is a database system for my girlfriend's serial killer database, complete
with pictures (yes, a strange hobby but she likes it). And the other one
is a modification of a screensaver techniques that were posted a little
while ago. The program calls the Internet using my dialer and runs a weather
data and forecast gathering program (WinWeather) as well as Yahoo Newsticker,
it then logs off, processes this data from the respective files where the
data is stored, blanks the screen, and then scrolls this across for a screensaver.
Every hour it re-logs on and updates the data. I have this pretty much
finished except for a nagging little problem I've run into to. Whew! Enough
about me! Next.
Robin Twombly
It has been great hearing from so many on the list about where
they live and What they do. I fear my life is not so interesting. My name
is Robin, I am a male. This sometimes get confused with my name. I am married
and have 3 great kids. Just had the 3rd a daughter on Feb. 14th. Beautiful
girl. I ran in Liberty Basic on ZDnet and love it. I grew up with a Ex-Navy
Father Techie who could program anything. He works for a company making
hardware and software for remote controlled mining machinery. I have 2
jobs. I work as a Pastor in a small church here in Maine. I also work for
BlueCross of Maine as a Specification design Analyst. (big title for System
tester). Basically I test our systems to see if they break, It is a great
job. I love to program and have been using LibBasic since November 1997.
I have made 2 programs for my department, mostly PC Network programs to
track how much time we spend on individual projects so we can bill our
time and keep track for each others projects. I also have programmed in
PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, QBasic, and Borlands Paradox using Object Pal.
I find programming a great break from Pastoring, but being a Minister is
where my heart is. I will do my best to Contribute as well as confiscate
from this Mail list. I do love the sharing of Code and Ideas with this
list. It is surpassed by none.
Cliff Bros - AKA - Brosco
I've programmed - proffessionally and as a hobby - for 30 years
on everthing from IBM mainframes down to PCs and have used around a dozen
computer languages - but I had never programmed with MsWindows until I
got a copy of LB in Dec 97. (I did give Delphi and Visual Basic a try -
but they were just to complicated and confusing). My computer career has
been very good to me - giving me the oportunity to travel all over the
world (something over 20 countries I've visited, most of them many times)
plus live in 3 other countries (England - 1 year, Singapore 10 years and
Thailand 2 years). But the lifestyle also provided two broken marriages
- which produced 3 children and 2 grandchildren. I live a much quieter
life now running my own business - Brosco's Home Computer Services - which
provides Training, Installation, Upgrades, Repairs and Internet services
to the home computer market. Like Garrett, the workload varies - and so
I end up with a lot of time on my hands - most of which I use to develop
LB programs. The reason that the workload is small, is that when I returned
to Australia to live I chose to locate to Canberra (Australia's Capital).
90% of the population here are public servants and have PCs on their desk
and access to Helpdesks - hardly in need of my services for their home
computer. I will probably relocate to another city in the near future.
ANY ozzies out there interested in a joint venture?????
My name is Johan van Uffelen and I live in Maassluis, a small city
near Rotterdam in The Netherlands. My age is 53 years. I worked for IBM
for 32 years. I started as Unit Record operator, after that I was a programmer
for a couple of years on IBM's 360/20 (RPG) followed by PL/I on the mainframe.
I can read Cobol and Assemble because I had to do the maintenance of some
standard programs. After 3-4 years working as programmer a worked as Systems
Engeneer for the IBM Global Network. So I was responsable for the connecting
of PC's, AS/400 and mainframes, mostly in an international project. In
that time a sometimes wrote some PL/I programs or DOS-Basic programs for
customers. One year ago I left IBM to start working for one of my large
customers "Kadaster" (= Land Registry). I am installing the software on
PC's and do trouble shooting. Because a part of the programs are DOS-based
I was searching an easy way to replace the DOS-Basic-programs in Windows-
programs. End last year I found Liberty Basic. I wrote the program I wanted
in LB. I had not much time to do it. I was surprised how quick I created
something that works. If couse I had some trouble. I was very glad that
people like Brosco helped me. I hope my customer will accept my program
(without profitt for me, I did it as hobby) . If so the program will be
installed at near 2.000 sides. (I am crossing my fingers my programm will
be bug-free.) Best regards to all and I hope my English looks like English.(Often
it is difficult for me to understand the messages of real English speaking
LB-friends).
Verano111
Hello gang, I am a retired aerospace worker and 1st got invovled
with computers when our metal cutting machines went from manual to CNC
operated. My main focus is getting math formulas into a program, mostly
for fun, but sometimes for a REAL JOB. The 1st CNC I worked on had a bunch
of wires in a grid for it's CPU, read 25 blocks of info ahead and that
was it. If we would have a power surge or a ground spike in power supply
it was every man for himself, as the machine would drop bytes of info and
start doing some crazy things, like move a tool into the work piece 4 inchs
instead of .004 inches. That was good prove of 1 of the laws of physics,
2 things cannot be in same place at the same time. I live in western N.Y.state,USA
Good Luck to all of you and nice belonging to such a great group
Brian McKiernan
Guess I'll ante up on introductions. I'm 41 and live in Kansas
City, Kansas. I've been married 18 years and have 3 children (12, 9, 5).
For the past 10 years I've taught physical therapy at the University of
Kansas Medical Center here in Kansas City. I'm also trying to finish my
PhD in physiology (in my spare time). ;-) I starting playing with GW-BASIC
about 12 years ago. Moved to QuickBASIC about 7 years ago. Actually put
a program on the shareware market in '93. It was a "Minesweeper" clone
called "Bomb Squad" that ran under DOS. Thousands of downloads from CompuServe
and various BBS's. A couple of complimentary e-mails. Not a single registration.
I used QuickBASIC to write all the task control programs for the lab I'm
getting my PhD (six different programs in all). Got a lot of experience
using QuickBASIC to communicate with A/D boards and touch screen monitors.
However, I got very sick of spending the majority of my time writing a
mousable GUI interface for my programs. I bought and tried VB---yuk! Then
I found LB (I think through ZD Net). What a neat program! I'm using LB
mainly to write small utilities for the office, data analysis programs
for my students at the university and educational programs for my kids.
I also keep up the web pages for our department and the state physical
therapy association. It's not LB related, but you can visit me on the web
at: www.kumc.edu/SAH/pted I think the
LB community is absolutely great. Keep up the good work everyone. I'll
try to pitch in with what I can.
Tom Record
age: crotchety 60
sex: not in 20 yrs (male)
physically impared - heart (91) & got run over by a 40 mph
car Feb 97.
Electronics design & repair (did the flight control panels
in the Lunar Landers & the trainer for the landings. Donno if my space
potty survived into the shuttle or not. Still have instruments operating
in foreign oil fields & had a hamburger joint in Baghdad before the
1958 revolution). Have tried VB2, MSVC, VC++ 6 & 7, LayWin3, QB, QB45,
& looked at about a dozen or so others. Started w/ LB11 in 1994 &
got a workable window the first try. Been battling the shortcomings ever
since because I never wanna do "just" what's allowed. Took nearly 3 yrs
to get something other than just *.bmp into LB, what w/ misunderstandings
& difficult communications. Am presently learning GFA-W (compiles *.exe
& *.dll). For a month or 2, the AOl site will remain up but once I
get Crosswinds operational, am moving. http://members.aol.com/trecore/program/program.htm
Many of the files asked about recently are on AOL. http://www.crosswinds.net/tulsa/~tomrecord/
Will replace AOL soon. I hope.
Taylor Stearns
Well, I guess you rightfully deserve my intro., so here goes. I
share two things in common with Robin. 1) I don't have an interesting life.
2) I am a male, which not everybody knows by my name. I'm a 12 year old
kid living in Canterbury Connecticut. I lived in Augusta County in Virginia
until I was 6. That's right, I didn't live in a town, I lived in a county
(really weird, isn't it). QBasic used to be what I programmed with until
that period of time when I realized that I wanted to compile my programs.
While looking at a list of QBasic compilers I saw a "QBasic compiler" called
Liberty BASIC. This obviously didn't compile QB programs, but I didn't
know it at that time. I downloaded LB and got hooked. I have an evil 16
year old brother brother who won't stop hurting and annoying me, and a
pretty nice 19 year old sister who goes to the University of Pennsylvania
(UPenn) which, for those of you who didn't know, is ivy league. I would
be VERY surpised if my brother got excepted somewhere like that. Now you've
all heard pretty much all there is to know about me, which probably didn't
interest you at all.
Allen Norris
I'm older than some and younger than others! (Yeah!!) OK, OK...I'm
47. I'm a consultant in our area of Idaho. I have written several programs
for local business' in PowerBASIC. I also develope and compile spreadsheets
for both DOS and Windows (3.x and 95). I have dabbled in pascal; asm; modula-2
and java. Hopefully, I'll soon have time to actually try LB...I tried VB
a bit and thought it wasn't much more than a scripting language, similar
to REXX. (this is not to belittle Rexx, btw!)
Phillip Harris
I am Phillip and 47. I had LB for two Months and it is great. I
have used Qbasic in the past. I am having problems reading a file and printing
it to the screen, say in a textbox. I live in North Carolina, married 27
Years, with two children and two grandchildren. I am enjoying the maillist,
and Bronco, You may add me to the list if you like.
Dean Hodgson
Another Introduction...long winded (what else?) Dean Hodgson. I
currently live and work near Adelaide, South Australia. I am employed by
the state government's education department (known as DETE and prounced
-- wait for it -- 'det'). I am the manager of a very successful school
library automation system known as BookMark. It is used by over 1400 schools
in Australia (and a few other countries but not the U.S. or Canada or New
Zealand) and ranks officially as the second most commonly used software
of its type in schools in this country. I am also the project's dogsbody:
I wrote the software, maintain it, make sure everything happens, do some
support, training and promotion. There are others working for me. BookMark
is currently a Dos program written in ZBasic. Databases are commonly 5
to 15Mb in size with over 100 relational files. Prior to this, back in
the 1980's, I worked for the Department's now-defunct curriculum computing
agency writing classroom software on Commodore 64, Amstrad 6128 and PC
machines. I have lost track of how many programs I have written and published
but it must be several dozen. Before that, while being a primary school
teacher and deputy principal, I moonlighted by writing programs on the
Tandy Color Computer & TRS-80-I and the Sega 8-bit computer. My programs
were purchased and sold by Tandy Australia and John Sands Electronics (pre
1985). In 1983-4, my Maths Invaders program was Tandy's #1 selling piece
of software in Australia. Beside LB, I have worked with over 20 other dialects
of Basic on quite a range of computers including the above plus the Apple
II, Microbee, Atari ST, Amiga, an HP 7830 desktop computer and the Mac.
I have a nodding acquaintance with several other languages -- I used to
write in assembler on the C64 (6502) and Amstrad (Z80) machines. Wrote
a whole word processor for the C64 in 1985 with only a monitor and a few
good resource books. I have spent and wasted an unbelieveable amount of
money and time researching languages for the PC. At the moment I am using
Liberty Basic and GFA-Basic. My initial dabbling with computers goes back
to 1969 when I learned to write Fortran programs via punchcard using an
IBM 1401 mainframe. I grew up north of Seattle in Edmonds, Washington and
moved to Australia in 1974 when I was offered a teaching position. I am
an avid science fiction fan (sorry, not Star Trek, real SF) and have a
very large book collection. I also have a long-held interest in astronautics
and astronomy dating back to when I was 3 year old before Sputnik 1 (or
so Mom says). I know the basic mathematics of orbital mechanics and rocketry,
and I am a past secretary of the Adelaide chapter of the National Space
Society. I used to run the planetarium at Western Washington State College.
My first computer program written on an 8-bit machine simulated the formation
of planets around a sun-type star. My second projected the future growth
of human population, resource usage, living standards, etc, until 2100
(Limits to Growth model) and included space power supply. I am 46 and have
four children -- 2 from the first marriage who are now 24 and 21 and two
now aged 6 and 2. I don't feel old enough to be a grandfather but I am.
Hardly any grey hairs! My wife is Australian but was born in England. She's
a teacher, too.
David681
My name is david681. I am lower management at one of the big 3
telecom companies. I am a process supervisor since I developed on-line
flowcharts for use by our troubleshooters. I am a 38 year old left handed
pisces musician. I am incorporating hlp files with LB and other executable
programs and htm files on the pc, everything run out of an hlp file. I
just love the international flavor here. I live in Ohio. I was stationed
in Germany and spent 3 months in Cairo.
Allan W. Jones
Some of you may remember a sheepish (no reference to New Zealand)
introduction some months back by a VB-scarred refugee from a high-power,
low tolerance, database programming list where "friendly" was a subject
and lifestyle unknown to the participants. I remember being worried (thinking
like the last list I'd subscribed to) that I'd be flamed into ashes for
the "un-kewl" and unheard of interruption of oh-so-serious power users
just to say "hello". Well, that didn't happen - the response from many
of you was refreshingly human and much appreciated. I'm afraid I've been
not much more than a 'lurker' but it's mostly due to time constraints.
I have to work for a living...need I say more? As for the intro - My name's
Allan, I'm 45 years old or young (I'm measuring the glass right now to
see if it's half-empty or half-full...). I've got 3 girls ages 18,20, and
22 all are in college and I'm usually broke. I've been divorced for 14
years and technically, according to the IRS, that makes me single. I write
post-processors for various CADCAM systems and have spent most of my life
in areas dealing with motion control and CNC machine-tool programming.
I have my own business and provide consulting and post-processing services
to many businesses here in the state of Oregon where we have rust problems
too! I specialize in exotic machinery (5 axis and above) and actually enjoy
it most of the time. I've written three utilities in LB now that make my
job a little easier and I'm starting a fourth that may make the job go
away. It will be a serious project that may be marketable and will certainly
be fun - If I had to characterize my experience with LB that's what I'd
call it - FUN. Working in C++ and wierd internal scripting languages leaves
me feeling about as creative as Bill Gates' barber and LB seems to let
me relax enough to enjoy coding for it's own reward. And you guys on this
list are the best! I look forward to participating more this year and I've
got a HUGE folder of LB mail to draw resources from. I may be a lurker
but I'm a religious reader and saver of all interesting and useful postings.
I look forward to this list like that first cup of coffee in the morning
- it's the friendly nature of it that appeals - and I'd re-register my
copy of LB once a month just for the mail! Maybe I need to get a life...
PS - I lived in The Netherlands (Breda) for two years between 1966
and 1968. Though I attended a Dutch school and spoke the language somewhat
fluently, I can't speak it or read it anymore. Nice to hear from those
of you across the pond.
Todd
I'm 34, live near Toronto, Canada and program strictly for entertainment.
I started off with an Atari 16K around 1980 programming with a flavor of
basic that was a cartridge plugged into the top of the machine. It could
actually display on a color TV (didn't have a monitor back then). I'm still
amazed at how compact and powerful the programs that ran on that machine
were. I actually did touch on some machine language at the time but I'm
sure I've completely forgotten all of it. I then never touched a computer
again until 1995. Things had changed just a tad by then. I worked for 14
years in a family business as an interior contractor. The company never
used a computer for anything. I am talking trogledytes here. I once tried
to talk them into buying an estimating program, then later wrote one, but
to no avail. Eventually, they (well into their 70's) decided to retire,
and take the company with them. Hence, I am currently self-employed and
back to learning anything computer/web oriented. I have designed a couple
of web sites for various companies, and am learning a few programming languages.
In Dec. of 1997 Santa gave me VB5. It is a nifty program, let me assure
you. The first thing I did was run back to Liberty Basic to actually write
a program. It is not that VB5 is not robust and powerful, it is simply
that for the first time I was actually made aware of how robust and powerful
LB is, not to mention simple to use. Try playing a *.wav in VB sometime!
I am not much of a contributer to this list, or to the message board simply
because I don't feel that I have written anything that hasn't already come
up in a discussion. I almost finished a help file writing program once,
but well, Brosco beat me to it. I do, however, appreciate the community
LB affords through this list and the sites. I like that experienced programmers
are willing to help newbies. I am also amazed at the age/experience range
of the various participants. I am actually feeling almost young again!
Lee Tanner
Time to take the plunge with my intro ! Hello one and all. My name
is Lee Tanner. I'm 37 years old, married to Joanna and live in Caterham-on-the-Hill
in Surrey, England. I work for a company called First Choice CTI as a technical
support engineer for Voice Mail and CTI products. I previously worked for
Crane Telecom in a similar possition and for BT (British Telecom) for 14
years before that. I had a couple of dead end jobs before BT but none worth
comenting on. I became interested in computing in 1980 when I bought and
built a Sinclair ZX80. No colour, no sound, no hard disk and a whole 1k
of memory. Just imagine it, 1024 bytes (well only about 700 bytes user
memory but still alot). When I managed to save up enough money, I expanded
it to 4k. I also added a real keyboard, a shift lock key and a switch to
change from black text on a white screen to white text on black. Believe
it or not, I finally outgrew the ZX80 and bought a much more powerfull
Sinclair ZX81 (Good name eh?). As I was earning more money by then, I purchased
it complete with a 16k ram pack. I was in the big league now. I taught
myself BASIC, Z80 machine code and FORTH on these two computers and wrote
about 500,000 programs on them. (OK, ok, a hundred at least) A new era
dawned when I moved up to a Commodore VIC20. This had colour, sound, a
real keyboard and 5k as standard. Things really took off then. I learnt
6502 machine code. wrote more progs, upgraded to a Commodore 64, had a
number of my programs published in listing form in a weekly computer mag
called Personal Computing Weekly (I still have them dated 1983 - 1985.
Almost antiques) and generally had a fun time. Life changed dramatically
when I bought a Commodore Amiga 500. Sixteen bit computing, half a meg
of ram, floppy disk, sounds aplenty amd more colours than you could shake
a stick at. I looked at my best programming efforts against the worst commercial
ones and thought, I can't go on. I could spend my whole life trying to
achive the sort of programs sixteen and thirty-two bit computers just throw
at you for free. I managed to carry on and eventually downgraded to a Commodore
Plus/4. (It would take too long to explain). This was a mear baby by comparison.
I could take it on and win (sometimes). Time came for another change of
pace. I discovered IBM PC compatibles. (I knew they existed but just tried
to ignore them). First an Amstrad PC1512 with 512k ram and twin 5 1/4"
floppies, followed by an Amstrad PC7386 with 1 Mb ram and a 40 Mb hard
disk. ( I would never fill that. Would I ?). I now have a Tiny 75MHz Pentium
PC with 16 Mb ram, a 1Gb hard disk and a Scantak 3C colour flatbed scanner.
(great fun to be had). I got into Liberty BASIC after a couple of false
starts about a year ago. When I finally gave myself time to check it out
properly, I discovered that I loved it to bits. It's deffinitely one of
the most compact, friendly, easy and fun versions of BASIC I've used. (I've
used a few). I've uploaded a few of my progs to Liberty BASIC 4 All. I'm
currently working on a new game but I don't want to say too much about
it because I'm not even sure that the basic concept of it will work. It
may seem daft, but I'll have to finish first before I can finallise the
rules. (Strange !!!!). Well, if anyone is still reading this, I've probably
bored the pants off you, so I better finish. Best wishes to all and long
live LB. P.S. I can't be bothered to proof-read my ramblings, so I apolagees
fer eny speeling mastooks.
