"May the Forth be with you!"
I am a hacker in the early 80s sense of the word: a guy who goes as deep as possible into the mysteries of computing. Not happy with the ways things are, I created the Merlin Project in 1984 inspired by the work of the Smalltalk group at the Xerox Palo Alto Research center. Neat developments like Linux, the Mac and Windows have brought information technology to the 70s level. Isn't it time we moved on beyond that?
I got a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Escola Politecnica of the University of Sao Paulo in 1990, with a specialization in "Microelectronics" (integrated circuit design).
Interests include object oriented programming, distributed operating systems, computer graphics, IC design, kart racing and scuba diving.
Ada, APL, assembler ( 2650, 6502, Z80, 6809, 680X0, 80X86, 8048, ARM, SPARC, MIPS, i860, Transputer, PowerPC ), BASIC, Beta, C ( and object oriented variations like C++ ), COBOL, Forth, FORTRAN, FP, LISP, Logo, Occam, Pascal, Perl, Postscript, Prolog, Python, Smalltalk, Self, xBase
To the very left
you can see the tired hacker himself. Right in front of him is Gandalf,
a 166MHz MMX Pentium machine with 32 MB of RAM running Debian 1.3.1 Linux.
This is the main development computer and runs the DNS server, the Apache
web server and so on. It is not easy to see in the picture, but it has
a SCSI ZIP drive, a quad-speed CD-ROM drive and a SoundBlaster 32 card.
It is connected to the Trellis 14.4K external modem (right above Gandalf
and under the phone) and to a generic 17 inch monitor.
While Gandalf's monitor is showing off Squeak Smalltalk, this software is actually running on Galadriel, the Ultra 5 Sun Sparcstation on the upper left. The monitor seen above Galadriel is an old black and white SVGA one and isn't currently connected to anything. Thanks to Ethernet and X Window we don't need to hook up a separate monitor for each machine (except when configuring them - then it still isn't really needed but helps a lot). Galadriel's single mission in life is running Self 4.0, though it sometimes is used for testing other things like Squeak.
At the very right (almost entirely out of the picture) is Bilbo, the 33 MHz 486 with 24 MB of RAM. It has the nasty internal EPROM programmer card as well as the old interface for the black and white Logitech Scanman hand held scanner. Most software for this stuff is still DOS based, so that (and Win3.1) is what Bilbo normally runs. It is much happier when it can boot Linux over the Ethernet instead, of course.
On the right table we start with two no-breaks at the very bottom (only one is visible) and can see a nameless 40 MHz 386 machine. It isn't mine at all, but while it is with me it has the pleasure of running Native Oberon 3 for the PC. Right above it, the second Merlin IV prototype, called Frodo, can be seen and it was the computer connected to the 14 inch monitor when the picture was taken. It was just running a simple "paint" program meant to test the hardware. Above it there is nothing but various types of disks.
The Unitron Mac 512 clone is in another room, while the old TI 99/4A is stored away in the closet. If you are wondering about the color of the wall - my secret laboratory used to be my sister's bedroom...
| ms8702 | | sinde |
