Did home computers in the 80s/90s influence your career choice?

[PeterJ]

This one for those of you who are old enough to have had a Sinclair Spectrum (or other retro programmable computer) in the 80s or 90s only please. I have always been interested if that introduction to computers influenced peoples career choices.

I got the list of careers from UCAS so hopefully you will find something suitable.

[RWAC]

I started off in general admin before working in accounts. Then I worked in a warehouse and now I'm a delivery driver. I didn't see an option for that though!

[PeterJ]

I started off in general admin before working in accounts. Then I worked in a warehouse and now I'm a delivery driver. I didn't see an option for that though!

There is always one person who breaks the system! I suggest you pick the one you spent the most time doing.

[stupidget]

When I left school and started work in '89 I was on a YTS Course doing control panel wiring. After a couple of years the Technical Director came up to me and said:

'You know about computers don't you?'

I said 'Well I used to have a Spectrum'

and his response was 'Well that's fine, you can use one of these' whilst pointing to a 386 PC Running AutoCAD 11 or 12!!!

After a few years doing CAD I got a job in a PC shop and then moved to a Systems Engineer and then finally to Pre-Sales and Sales Engineering, which is what I do now.

So in a way, my beloved Speccy did indeed shape my entire career!!

[5MinuteRetro]

This one for those of you who are old enough to have had a Sinclair Spectrum (or other retro programmable computer) in the 80s or 90s only please. I have always been interested if that introduction to computers influenced peoples career choices.

Perhaps not computers, per se, but my love of Crash magazine in particular inspired me to migrate from the sticks to London to chase the dream of becoming a writer/journalist. I did manage that in the end, and spent a few very happy years in the (print) publishing industry -- bailing out at some point during its transformation into the clickbait-led digital monster it has become today. Now, I'm reduced to writing marketing lies for money.

[Morkin]

For me the 80s was mostly about the games, though I dabbled in a bit of BASIC at the time.

Having an Amiga later on gave me some knowledge was useful in learning some basic PC DOS-type commands but I didn't get a PC for ages after that (mostly lived on consoles) so was a bit slow catching up to the IT world.

One thing I do remember was going for my first 'proper' office job (an admin job) through a temp agency. They gave me a typing test and were pretty surprised at my typing speed & accuracy... I was too embarrassed to admit that my 'training' was playing a lot of 80s text adventures...

[1024MAK]

I’m in maintenance, service and repair for the engineering section of a infrastructure transport company...

While looking, I was tempted by medieval technology until I realised i misread it and it was medical technology!

My interest in the past went Lego (with motors) > model railways (I liked crashing the trains) > computers (hence ZX Spectrum 48K rubber key in 1983) > computer studies > electronics > technical college (programmed 6502 at machine code level) > my current (and only full time) job.

The irony being that there were very few computers at my employer when I started in 1987. But now electronic communications mean that I’m issued with an iPad mini, and we are regularly using PC or laptop computers running diagnostics applications to check the health of embedded systems or to download and examine their logs.

Mark

[druellan]

I work on IT and web development, and the Spectrum was decisive on this choice without a doubt. When my father brought a Timex 1000 (american ZX81 clone) I was uttery amazed by it. He also brought a pirated game that never worked (well, I remember it loaded susesfully once), so, I decided to start messing with that thing called Basic.

When the time to choose a career arrived, I decided to follow industry design, but got bored on the first year: I missed the creativity and the self-discovery thrill of build a program, so I drop it and decided to start study that thing called the Internet.

In restrospect, if someone had mentioned robotics back in the day, I'll probably be into that. As Mark mentioned, I was also into motors and Rasti (a local version of Lego), and I was even experimenting with silly sensors connected to my 48k.

[catmeows]

Yes it did, to some degree. I was dreaming to be game developer but I have ended as test automation programmer in a big bank.

[PeterJ]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Really interesting reading.

[llewelyn]

I got my first Spectrum from my college - Middlesex Poly as it used to be - after complaining about the limited time slots on the mainframe with which we were supposed to learn Basic. I'd also been struggling with the mandatory Statistics class but learning to program on the Speccy gave me insight into how to use it to help solve the statistics exercises. After that I used the Spectrum to help with my CDT final project, using UDG's to create animated titles on the video I made of a model making exercise and the Speccy drove the model motors too. This story is up on the early pages of my blog.

What really opened doors for me though was the animations I did on my Amiga 1000, I had one of the first models and for the creativity side of things I've never found a better machine plus software package. PCs now have far more power and the software is, must be, far better in its capabilities but thats not the whole point, is it? What the Amiga had in spades was 'user friendliness' and I don't think it'll ever be beaten in that regard. Unless some ace designers and programmers work together on making another machine that uses all the technical advances but does so in a way that makes it easy and intuitive for the user.

[DouglasReynholm]

Only in that when I saw the careers officer I said I wanted to be a graphics designer.

"Any good at it?"

"No, but I really enjoy it"

"Well, a lot of people want to do that. I see you work part time in a computer shop, why not go and do electronics?"

So I did, and regretted it. Left the industry entirely 10 years ago after 14 years and became a house husband.

[DouglasReynholm]

I got my first Spectrum from my college - Middlesex Poly as it used to be

Ha. I grew up on Cat Hill about 5 minutes from the Southgate campus, in fact the shop I mentioned above was in Southgate. Did you ever go to Logic Sales?

[AndyC]

Yes, definitely. The fascination I had with that magical box that made the telly controllable as a child stuck with me. It lead to a computing degree, which ultimately lead me on the path I am still on, developing software and (mostly) still enjoying it.

[PeterJ]

I got my first Spectrum from my college - Middlesex Poly as it used to be

Ha. I grew up on Cat Hill about 5 minutes from the Southgate campus, in fact the shop I mentioned above was in Southgate. Did you ever go to Logic Sales?

I think I purchased an add-on music keyboard for the C64 from them.

Don't tell anyone but a few months after getting my Spectrum, I sold it and got a C64 after going round to a friend's house and seeing & hearing Raid Over Moscow. Anyway, I loved type ins, and found them completely impossible with the C64, so went back to my Spectrum and never left it again! I had learnt the error of my ways.

[akeley]

For a brief moment, yes. I was obsessed with micros, then PCs, but I was always a gamer - not much of a creative & too dumb/lazy for coding. I did a couple of BASIC adventure games on Spectrum and it was fun, but maths was never my strong suit and I never ventured any further.

But when I went looking for work (late 90s) it was still time when you still were considered a computer wiz if you could change a card in a PC or install Windows so I ended up working in a few shops. It wasn't too bad for a while, basically building Quake rigs and playing early MP in between selling/servicing, but eventually I thought it'd be crazy to have a job which is also my hobby. Spending 16-18 hours a day in front of a monitor was just too much for me, and I went on to have more crazy jobs than Jack London/Mark Twain combined (could probably tick 7-9 fields in this poll)

Somewhere during the noughties I had a stint working as a techie/cameraman/producer in the early digital-TV London broadcasting studio, and pitched an idea for a computer games show. The old ones were long dead, there was a niche of sorts available, I had some contacts and we could knock out stuff cheap - but I wasn't good at office politics/meeting-fu and couldn't get it off the ground. Ended up putting utube clips on late obscure digi channels instead. Oh, well

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Don't tell anyone but a few months after getting my Spectrum, I sold it and got a C64 after going round to a friend's house and seeing & hearing Raid Over Moscow.

[PeterJ]

My interest in home computers definitely impacted my career choice. My late father and I used to build crystal sets, and sit in the downstairs toilet (we were middle class LOL) where was the best place to get an earth on the radiator. We then built a ZX81 from a kit and started playing with the Maplin interface card.

After school I went to college and did a BTEC in electronic engineering, than Business Information Technology and went on to become a computer technician, then went into funding and finance, and finally went self employed helping Colleges. I think I owe it all to that initial grounding from my dad. I do a bit of programming in my roles, but nothing more than a bit of SQL and Access.

[llewelyn]

I got my first Spectrum from my college - Middlesex Poly as it used to be

Ha. I grew up on Cat Hill about 5 minutes from the Southgate campus, in fact the shop I mentioned above was in Southgate. Did you ever go to Logic Sales?

No Douglas, I was at the Trent Park, Enfield campus. I lived in Hertford used to cycle from Sele Farm to Trent Park so didn't have the freedom to go off checking out other places.

[DouglasReynholm]

Ha. I grew up on Cat Hill about 5 minutes from the Southgate campus, in fact the shop I mentioned above was in Southgate. Did you ever go to Logic Sales?

No Douglas, I was at the Trent Park, Enfield campus. I lived in Hertford used to cycle from Sele Farm to Trent Park so didn't have the freedom to go off checking out other places.

They are one and the same place, just so long back I couldn't remember the given name at the time. Cockfosters/Trent park/Southgate/Enfield are all geographically within a mile or so of each other. Still worth an ask! At least Peter J seems to remember the place I worked. Sometimes I think it was a fever dream.

The pond on the corner of the roundabout (part of the campus at the time) was the top of Cat Hill. Anyway, realised I'm getting a bit off topic here..

[Cosmium]

Definitely! Saw a school friend's ZX80, then saved up for the ZX81 the moment I realised it could display moving graphics (without the flicker), then saved up for the Spectrum 16K. The huge pull was being able to program/play those captivating arcade games of the era.

This lead to freelance game programming, working for fruit/amusement machine companies and onto console development at games companies in the UK and then USA. Enjoyable stuff, and it all started with those flexible, creativity-enabling little 8 bit machines from the 1980s

[Firefox]

In a round-about sort of a way...

When I was ten I saved all my birthday money and put it towards my Xmas present - a ZX81!

I practically barricaded myself in my room and worked through the BASIC programming manual over the two-week Xmas holiday - it seemed amazing that a kid could have a computer, which up to then had been the sort of thing that only government institutions and major corporations had.

I had a borrowed 12" black and white telly (the sort with a dial on the front you used to tune it), but I couldn't find a tape recorder that would work with the ZX81. So I wrote my programs down in little spiral-bound notebooks and re-typed them each time. Larger programs I developed in separate sections, then one weekend I'd integrate all the bits, carefully back-annotate the listings, and then leave the ZX81 powered up all weekend so I could enjoy the fruits of my labours. (Meanwhile, my maths improved so much as a side-effect that I was bumped up to the top maths set.)

After nearly a year I sold my ZX81 (still a bit sad about that ) and put the proceeds towards my next Xmas present - a Spectrum!

So anyway, I learnt machine code (hand-assembled on sheets of squared paper!), eventually saved up for a Radio Shack datacorder, and years later a Rototronics Wafadrive, and generally got a lot of use out of my Spectrum right through my A-levels.

Then I did a stupidly hard degree in electronics and control engineering, because it seemed more interesting than computer science. (But it still had a lot of computer content, both hardware and software). With the savings from my summer programming job after A-levels I bought myself an Atari 1040STE to use during my degree, which seemed completely flipping incredible! 1024k of RAM! Amazing graphics and sound! Blue plastic squares that you jammed into the side with a satisfying clunk that cost a few pounds each and could store 800k pretty reliably! To be honest, I spent a lot of time that should've spent on my studies exploring all kinds of software development.

When I graduated I was dead set on being an electronics engineer, but there weren't many jobs around. So I picked up some agency work fixing minicomputer motherboards, and then calibrating control systems for gas pipelines. When I was there one of my colleagues said, "You can program in C? Why the hell are you doing this?!?" So I applied for two C programming jobs, got two interviews and then two offers, and went and did the most interesting of the two.

So that's how I ended up being a embedded software engineer. Home computers were a big influence, in a round-about sort of way.

[Robel67]

Yes, I failed all my O levels cos I was faffing about on my 80/81. Went on a YTS, got placed at a business who had a BT Cheetah computerised telex, they then bought two apricot ms-dos machines, and I was the only person who knew how to do anything with them, that was 1983, I’ve worked in IT ever since, now just the drudgery of team management which is why I’ve just bought a 48k spectrum