About John Honniball
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I was born in
Colchester
(yes, that means I'm an Essex man)
and went to the
Boy's High School
there.
I then went on to the
Colchester Royal Grammar School, where I spent many happy
hours with the glowing valves in the school radio station,
Radio Lexden.
At the
Colchester Institute,
I passed an A-level in Computer Science with a BASIC program
for a Commodore PET.
This helped me
to go on to Westfield College, University of London (long since merged with
Queen Mary College),
where BASIC was frowned upon and the Coffee Bar
became the best place to get advice on your Algol-68 programs.
Westfield's refectory, halls of residence and science block, Queen's Building, have now
been demolished and replaced by flats.
My first job was with the
London Software Studio,
which subsequently became part of
Sapphire International.
I spent a lot of time there working on a presentation graphics package
called the Enhanced Personal Presentation System
(EPPS —
anybody remember using it?).
It was mostly written in compiled BASIC,
but I managed to sneak in quite a bit of
8086
assembler code, too.
I moved on to
Time Manager International
where I actually learned something about business, as well
as getting an introduction to making programs useable.
The outcome was a program called
TMI Key Results,
written in Turbo Pascal.
At INMOS (now part of SGS-Thomson),
I worked on the transputer and Unix.
Part of that work resulted in a hardware and
software
package that could run the
X Windows
server on a transputer-based
graphics board (the B020) in an IBM-compatible PC.
I then continued to work with transputers and Unix at
Submetrix,
where the goal was to build a
sonar
without letting salt water into the high-voltage parts.
I did some work towards a PhD at the
University of the West of England.
My research was in the field of metadata for image databases
(in particular problems of user interface and usability) at the
now-defunct Centre for Personal Information Management.
I also did some teaching on the Human-Computer Interaction
course (UQI120S2), mostly in the practical sessions.
Back in the commercial world, I joined
Eurologic's software
division (now a separate company called
Elipsan), building a
Linux-based network appliance for
Storage Area Networks (SANs).
Moving on from there, I worked for
Hewlett-Packard, at the
HP Labs
in Stoke Gifford.
The job (a one-year contract) involved looking after some
HP Jornada handheld computers that belong to a wearable and
mobile computing research project,
Mobile Bristol.
I also developed new hardware and software for the wearables,
and went on to work for the
University of Bristol
to carry on with the project.
After that research ended, I went to Hambrook to work for
Adelix, once again
using Linux.
I worked for a while at
Tektronix in Bristol,
where I wrote C++ software for digital TV quality-control.
I went back to
UWE, studying for a
postgraduate degree in Robotics.
Back at work, I designed a time-lapse camera controller around an Atmel AVR microcontroller.
Moving on, I did some firmware work on a traffic light controller based on the
Microchip PIC32.
That must have done me some good, because my next job was also based on the PIC32,
this time in a video-game robot.
But the good luck didn't last and I'm now back to a 16-bit dsPIC in a gadget that
steers the drilling bit of an oil rig.
I used to drive a
Suzuki SC100,
which everybody referred to as the motorised roller-skate.
I liked that little car, but sadly it's now "resting".
Or should that be rusting...
My next motor was a
Lancia Y10,
a Fila special edition with the funky bright-blue interior.
After driving two unusual cars, I had a go with something mundane but
practical, a VW Polo.
However, the urge to get back to a
K-class
was just too strong, and I acquired another Suzuki,
this time the two-seater, convertible, turbocharged, fuel-injected
Cappuccino.
The Cappucino was a great little car, but it's not really a bubble-car;
nor is it electric.
For that, I had a
CityCom City-El,
which is pictured
here.
What could I go for after a Cappuccino?
A white
Nissan Cube
was less than successful, and too big for my liking.
K-class wins again with my present car, a yellow
Daihatsu Copen.
I wrote my first BASIC program in 1978 on a
Commodore PET 2001.
Soon after this, I built a
UK101 from a kit and learned
6502
assembler programming.
I can still remember the 6502 opcodes, in hex, and I've been
told that there's no cure.
I have since written code on all sorts of machines, notably the
Prime P750
and
PDP-11/44
at Westfield,
the
IBM PC,
the
Atari ST,
the
INMOS transputer
and
Sun workstations.
Most of it worked, too.
I've never quite made up my mind whether I should work on hardware
or software, and most of my computing work has involved a bit
of both.
I put together an
Acorn System One
in 1979 (for my school electronics lab) and of course the
UK101
in 1980.
At Westfield, I built a
Z80
project as part of my degree work, as
well as several add-ons for the
UK101.
In later years, I've done
transputer
designs for
Submetrix
and even dabbled in analog electronics.
For a while, I built wearable computers around the
PICmicro
chips.
But nowadays, my microcontroller of choice is the
Atmel
AVR chip.
These are some of the technological things (apart from computers)
that I get enthusiastic about:
- Favourite Pizza
- Ham and Pineapple
- Favourite Coffee
-
Decaffeinated (I like to sleep at night)
- Favourite Band
-
ZZ Top
- Favourite War Films
- Kelly's Heroes
Das Boot
- Favourite French Film
- Diva
- Favourite TV Programmes
- Time Team
Scrapheap Challenge
Salvage Squad
Tim Hunkin's
Secret Life of Machines
and
Hunkin's Experiments
- TV Programmes of my Youth
- The Goodies
The Hair Bear Bunch
Hong Kong Phooey
Josie and the Pussycats
The Banana Splits
Joe 90
Blake's 7
- Favourite 8-bit CPU
-
Motorola MC6809
