WWW.laughinggravy.net - A bit about me and my website.

I've been interested in computers ever since I was a kid. In the late 60's my Mom signed me up for a computer class called, "Creative Play with the Computer" at the U.C. Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science. I got to see their mainframe, its giant disk platters, plotters and the first terminal-based computers. We worked on teletype machines connected to their mainframe. Back then there was not much we could do on them. We played games called, "Hunt the Wumpus", "Lunar Lander" and a program called, "Eliza" it was one of the first Artificial Intelligence programs that would carry on a conversation based on what you typed.

The first computer I ever owned was a Radio Shack TRS-80 handheld computer. It looked like a long calculator and could be programmed in Basic. It had a one-line 24-character screen. I bought the mini dot matrix printer module that the computer slid into. There really wasn't much you could do with it computer wise but it served as a very powerful and versatile calculator. Next, I bought a Timex Sinclair 1000. Although cheap ($99.99) and quite popular, the 1000 was, well, cheap. The keyboard was a 'touch sensitive membrane', a flexible plastic surface with the actual switches under the surface. While easy to clean and water resistant, it was exceedingly difficult and slow to type on, because you had to press hard and very deliberately to use the tiny, closely spaced keys. Touch-typing was impossible. It ran Basic but since it was so slow and ridiculously hard to use, I didn't keep it long.

When I was in my 20's and out on my own, I got my first real computer, a Commodore VIC 20. I was able to play games and learned how to program in BASIC. I bought the cassette drive for it so I could save my programs. These were the days when you bought, loaded and saved your data and programs on cassette tapes. Floppy disk drives didn't come into common use until years later. Even then, they were awfully expensive, costing hundreds of dollars. I mainly used it for playing games, they came on cartridges that plugged into the back of the computer. I got addicted to Scott Adam's text-based games. They were a lot of fun and I spent quite a bit of time playing them. They are still available on the internet for free. Just search for Scott Adams text adventures. I'm still stuck on the beginning of, "Mystery Fun House".

A few years after I bought my VIC 20, I was in a Radio Shack and they had one of the first laptop computers, a Tandy 1400, it was on sale for only $2500.00 dollars. That seemed like a great deal to me, so I opened a Radio Shack charge account and bought one. It was heavy, had a small pop up screen with blue text on a white background, two floppy drives, 640K RAM and ran its own DOS based operating system called, "Deskmate" that came on three 3.5-inch disks. I was able to delete some files and get the operating system down to two disks. The computer had an output you could connect to a TV and the display was in color. I bought one of the first games for it called, "Starflight" (it's still available on GOG.COM) and ended up playing it all night the day I bought it. After that I bought a 300 baud modem and started using Bulletin Board Systems or BBS's as they were called at the time. They were an early kind of internet, but the computers were not linked together. People would set them up at their homes and you would dial in with your modem. They had games and programs you could download. Most only had one phone line so only one person at a time could use the system, if they had two phone lines and there was another user online you were able to chat with them and sometimes the System Operator. After BBS's came the first commercial online services like Genie, CompuServe and AOL. I used them all. That portable was my main computer and served me well for a long time.

A few years later I bought a PC, I do not remember the specs, but I remember buying a 500 MB hard drive for $500.00. It was a great price at that time I thought. Soon after I bought one of the first HP inkjet printers (an HP Inkjet 500) for about the same price. It was a great little printer and was much faster than a Dot Matrix printer. My computer ran DOS and I had a lot of fun with it. Then Windows 3.1 came out and changed everything, now I could multitask. No more shutting down one program to open another. By then I had upgraded to a 56K modem (amazingly fast at that time) and was still using the commercial online services. I ended up selling that computer and was computer less for a few years.

I would spend the next 30 years working with computers, first doing computerized inventory control and payroll at a retail store. Then I moved on to an Environmental Lab, I started in the Data Entry department and did Data entry and printed out reports. I did that for a few years, then moved to the IT department. There I learned how to troubleshoot and repair computers, printers and do some simple programming. It was there that I was introduced to the Internet. I was amazed, anything I wanted to know about was right at my fingertips. I worked there for eight years then moved on to another company and worked as an IT technician. For ten years. I installed and troubleshooted PC and software issues, built and installed Windows servers, desktop computers, learned to run network cable and worked the Help Desk. During that time, I saved up and bought an HP Desktop, a Color Monitor, an internal 56K modem and dial-up Internet service, and we later moved to DSL when it became available. I have owned many computers since then, PC's, Macs, iPads and Android tablets. The Tech job was fun, but it included too much traveling. So, when a spot opened on the Networking team I applied and got the job. It was there I was introduced to Cisco hardware. I learned how to program and install switches, routers, firewalls and troubleshoot network issues. It was fun and challenging and I really liked it. After doing that for about 5 years I became disabled and could no longer work or drive.

For the last six years I have been at home playing video games (Diablo III and U-boat are my favorites), napping, browsing the internet, reading and spending time with my Grandkids and my dog. Last year I discovered Raspberry PI computers and bought a few (six to be exact). I put together a gaming system on one that runs old fashioned coin operated video games like Asteroids and Donkey Kong and some of the original Nintendo games. I built a custom joystick and controller for it with the help of my son-in-law, he built the case for me and I installed the electronic parts. I set up the buttons so I could play Asteroids just like the original game. Then I set up a webserver on one and a Linux Desktop on another. They are a lot of fun to play with and you can set them up to do just about anything.

2020 rolled around and then COVID-19 hit, I have a compromised immune system and could no longer go out and my Grandkids could not come over. I got depressed and needed something more to occupy my time. I'd always wanted to build a computer from scratch so I bought a case with a plexiglass window so you can see the inner workings and a power supply from a local computer store. On Amazon I bought an Asus ROG Motherboard, an AMD Ryzen 3600 six core, 12 thread processor, 16 Gb of memory and an 8 GB video card. I wanted it to boot fast, so I bought a one terabyte M.2 SSD drive direct from Western Digital. Once the parts arrived, I assembled everything together, installed Window 10, fired it up and it amazingly it worked. I decided to jazz it up a bit, so I replaced the cooling fans with colored LED fans and LED light strips, now the inside is bathed in a rainbow of colors.

Once that was done, I needed something else to do so I bought some courses from Udemy.com, then signed up for a class called, "Beginning Python for Everybody" from the University of Michigan on edX.org. I always wanted to learn HTML, so I found a resource on the internet and started writing code, first on a text editor, then on an HTML editor which allowed me to code faster, easier and I could preview my pages as I went along. Once I learned basic HTML, I decided to try and build a web site. I found a web hosting service, searched the internet for things I found interesting and some things the Grandkids might like and started building my site. I found webcams, music, videos and added what I could. The website is a work in progress, so please check back from time to time. I am always adding new content. I hope you enjoy what I have created. Thanks for stopping by.

Wiley