{fb1000000Robin Watts of Warm Silence Software was born in Harlow, but escaped as soon as humanly possible. He did a Maths and Computation degree at Oxford University, and stayed on to do a PhD. He likes music, food, computers, books and films.
A brief review of his "!Larger" application appear- ed in Spectrum 2, though this will be expanded on at a later date as certain things were missed out! Sorry Robin!
{fb1C00000• What is your name and how can you be contacted?
{fb1C00000• What make and model of computer do you use/own?
{fb1000000Own: Acorn Archimedes A440/1, 25MHz Arm 3, HD floppy, SCSI board, 340Mb SCSI HD and CDROM. Psion 3a, 512k. Use: Sun Sparc station 5.
{fb1C00000• What job do you do?
{fb1000000PhD Student in computing.
{fb1C00000• What job would you like to do?
{fb1000000Freelance Computer work.
{fb1C00000• Did you use Acorn Computers at school/college?
{fb1000000At school we had BBCs, then Masters, then Arcs.
{fb1C00000• How did you first become involved with computers? (work or pleasure).
{fb1000000Pleasure - I used a friend's dad's business computer, then a friend's ZX81. We then bought a Spectrum [good choice - Ed] , and then a BBC, and finally an Arc.
{fb1C00000• How did you respond to the first computer you ever used?
{fb1000000A friend and I spent the afternoon fiddling with his dad's computer, trying to program in BASIC. Not exactly an earth shattering experience!
{fb1C00000• To what degree are you a programmer? (dabbler/ proficient/ paid/other)
{fb1000000I guess proficient, paid best suits me.
{fb1C00000• Do you use your machine for DTP/Graphics (please expand if 'yes')
{fb1000000Yup. All my art work is done on the Arc, and I do posters for various things too. I am by no means an artist though.
{fb1C00000• Do you transfer data from a PC to an Acorn/Mac? (or vice versa) How?
{fb1000000I transfer stuff from PCs via floppy, but more usually from Suns. I used to have my Arc linked to the internet via a serial link, so I used "Hearsay" a lot, but not any more (I moved rooms, and lost the link).
{fb1C00000• Do you own any of the following: modem, scanner, printer, digitiser?
{fb1000000I have a Citizen Swift 24 pin dot matrix. Good value, when I bought it, but no one buys dot matrixes these days. The LaserJet 4M+s at work are much nicer. I have the HCCS "HiVision" - it's OK. Cheap and cheerful price - cheap and cheerful quality.
{fb1C00000• What do you primarily usually use it/them for?
{fb1000000Printer - I rarely use it, and then only for listings - most of my artwork etc. is printed at work on the lasers. Digitiser - almost never use it - it was a waste of money for me.
{fb1C00000• Given the choice, which platform would you use and why?
{fb1000000Not Macs. Not PCs running DOS/ Windows/ Any-other- Microsoft-OS. PCs running Linux possibly, PCs running Warp/ NextStep more likely. Suns using Unix in preference to the PCs I guess (just). I still prefer the Risc PC over everything else, but there are some serious things that should really be done to make it better.
{fb1C00000• Where do you think Acorn Computers will be in 5 years time?
{fb1000000Cambridge :-). The Acorn Computer group will be doing well - Online Media is guaranteed to do good things for the group. As for Acorn Computers themselves, who knows? It all depends on the Risc PC taking off with more than just current Acorn enthusiasts. Also, their grip on education is slipping, so they really need to try to address some new markets.
{fb1C00000• Would you like to win a Risc PC?
{fb1000000Of course, but it looks vaguely like Acorn will be giving/loaning us a couple, to carry on developing AVIFS so this should be less of a problem.
