Date : 30th June 1993 Time 02:00 Bio for Tim Lloyd (6:700/267.69, 6:730/9.64, 1:106/365.69, 1:3612/42.69) Well where do I start..... I suppose my background is as good a place as any. Well I'm from Middlesbrough in the North East of England, it's a rough industrial town, it's situated on the coast just outside of the Yorkshire Moors (Remember the film "An American Warewolf in London" that was filmed on the Yorkshire Moors). I moved from England to Hong Kong twice once in 1972 (and then leaving in 1974) and again in 1979 (and have lived here ever since), all this moving about was due to my fathers work as a Senior Engineer in the Hong Kong Telephone Company (made getting extra phone lines easy....;) ). My father is now retired and back in the UK where he spends his afternoons watching cricket, and sipping tea (and playing Tetris... no kidding ! he gets 400,000+ all the time on his gameboy). I'm the youngest in the family, at the tender age of 26... I have a brother (31) and two sisters (30 & 32). I'm still single... mainly due to my intense 15 hours a day work days ! although I have recently started cutting back to give myself some time off. I'm into Heavy Metal in a big way - the louder and heavier the better (groups like Metallica... which I have followed since their first album, I'm not one of those that have jumped on the band wagon after hearing the latest album, I also like Pantera, Pro Pain, Motorhead, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Skid Row... etc, etc - I could go on for ever). I'm also heavly into Blues (I have something like 150 Blues Cd's, so this isn't just a passing fancy). Favourites here being Johnny Winter, Gary Moore, Rory Gallagher, John Lee Hooker. Living here in Hong Kong means a great night out when you want to go on a pub crawl ;-) The pubs are all packed in very close together, so you just stagger from one to the next (I'm a typical Englishman in this respect... I love my beer), best place to go is a place called the Wanch which is believe it or not down in Wanchai (Suzy Wong territory) This place puts on great live bands on Friday's. After finishing my "A" Level exams out here I joined the police force, I went into Special Branch (which is similar to the CIA), spent three years doing that before joining my brother in our own business supplying Hotels & Airlines around the world with Amenities. Ok enough of me, now my computer experience.... ;) I started many moons ago in 1979 with Apple II's and the TRS-80 (Yippee)! after a couple of years our school upgraded to IIe's and we even got Floppy Drives !!! (until someone stole them). Because I lived here in Hong Kong I could easily purchase those fake Apple IIe's, which I did. I thought it was sooooooo expensive back then (about 1982/3) the computer itself cost be about US$100 ! (don't forget I was on pocket money back then). I still had the Apple IIe up until I started work in Special Branch.... it is there I discovered the Amiga, through a fellow workmate (and sometime Echo poster, Sean Clarke). I took one look at his half meg 1.2 WB 500 and fell in love with it ! .... I sold my Apple IIe to another Workmate within a week (poor sod, I still don't know if he has forgiven me... althouh I did get him to buy a 500 at a later date), I then went out and got myself a spanking new 500... which had just been upgraded to WB 1.3, First thing I did was get the half meg expansion & clock ... which cost me something like US$150 !!! (look at how cheap they are now). I was amazed at the extra sounds you would get in Falcon with the extra memory. I stuck with my 500 long enough to get the official 20meg Hardrive & memory expansion.... I thought to myself "this is IT" the ultimate... nine megs in total I had. At this point I still wasn't into Comms, but was into all the Euro Demo's (I used to order hundreds from 17bit software in the UK) and games. My next big step came about nine months later, where I decided to cut my losses and get the 2000. I needed the extra slots & bays. It was this time I started into Comms as well, I had a fully loaded 2000, with a GVP 030/33 with 12megs of fast RAM, I had three HD's and a flicker fixer with a NEC 3d monitor.... I had several modems when I had my 2000. I started with a 2400 GVC, I also bought a Abaton 2400/9600 fax modem (Remember Clickfax by Blackbelt) and also had a Supra 9600..... I then went to the ultimate.... the DS HST (this thing looks like a stealth bomber). I also can't forget the IV24 I also purchased, to give me all access to 24 bit graphics. Ok then last September I went for the big one.... the 3000T. I was fast expanding my computer system and just needed all the extra bays. So my current system looks like this : 3000T 030/25 with 12 megs of fast ram & 2 megs of chip 120 meg Maxtor (main drive) 210 meg Maxtor (data drive) 88 meg syquest (general drive) 600 meg Ricoh Optical drive (LOTS of storage & backups) Texel Dual speed CD Rom drive (external) HP laserjet IIIp printer Epson GT-6000 24 bit flatbed scanner IV24 24bit graphics card with VIU - all connected to my NEC 3d monitor Zyxel U-1496+ LCD Modem (19200 data/ 14400 fax + Voice) DS HST modem (I think everyone knows this one !) Multi Face 2 - 2 extra serial ports & 2 extra Parallel ports (high speed) UPS power backup/surge protection I also have the usual extra's like an external floppy, Naksha mouse (best mouse I have ever used), joysticks. For sound I have the computer hooked up to it's own Technics 150 watt AMP, with two bloody big JVC 150 watt speakers !!! (lets just say when I play a shoot em' up people take notice) ! plus I have stacks of assorted Software I still have my 2000 which I have set up with 8 megs of Ram & a 40 meg HD, and as I still have the Flicker Free video installed, then I have a cheapo VGA monitor hooked up to it. (If you are wondering where the 030 went, I sold it). My main interest in computing has changed over the years... as I've mentioned before, when I got my 500 I was a games player and liked demo's. Now nearly all my time is spent doing Comms. I'm a point off four systems. one here in Hong Kong, one in Japan, and two in the States. My other main interests are with using my Amiga as a photographic Studio. I used to have a proper darkroom setup. But now, all my work is scanned into the computer, and I touch it up & alter it from there. I also use it for DTP work, mainly for designing forms for use at work, the only other use is really wordprocessing. So whats my plans for the future..... well as you can see I already have a pretty good setup, so there is little else for me to get. I doubt I will upgrade to the current 4000 series as they just don't offer me any great advantage. I think I will wait until the next series of computers come out, with the next generation chips. My dream machine around then I think would have to be a full 24 bit chip set for the graphics, onboard DSP, and with an 060... when this sort of a beast comes out, then I will upgrade (unless for some freak of nature my machine blows up... THEN, I will have to upgrade to a 4000). Well thats about it for me, by the way the mug shot of me was taken in a photographic studio, where I was taking the shots for our company catalogue, this picture is about the best one I have ever had taken of me, and isn't too out of date (taken about 2 years ago), the only thing that has changed has been my hair.... it's much longer now, it now goes down to the small in my back. I scanned the picture in from a standard postcard sized picture, and saved it in 24 bit format, I then converted it into HAM which although not the sharpest of modes does allow you to see me in full colour :) (I would have prefered it to be in full 24 bit, but there was no way I was going to UL a 800K picture !, even when Jpeged it came out to 230K.... so a nice Lores HAM picture was the best trade off). Tim