Hi everyone. I’m Alistair. I’m an IT architect working for the State of California. I live close to Sacramento, CA with my wife, Linda and our dog, Hogan. I was born and raised in Scotland and moved to the US in 1996.

I was in the UK at the time of the home computer boom (and subsequent bust) of the early to mid-80s. Microcomputers that non-hobbyists could relate to, were available at an affordable price for the first time. The ability to connect most of these computers to a standard TV allowed a computer to be introduced to many homes in much the same way that early “TV games” had started to be adopted only a few years earlier.

It was a tremendously exciting time, with amazing new hardware and boatloads of software being announced seemingly every other week. Many of the most successful products barely made a dent in the US market, so the UK story is very different. My hope is that this site will help tell a little bit of that story.

Many of the posts are inspired by (and liberally quote) from computer magazines of the time, of which there were many. Being able to read them again after nearly 40 years brought back so much of the excitement of the time that I decided to start writing about it.

In addition to this subject, I’m also a keen PC gamer and flight simmer, I dabble in iOS app development, and I’m a huge fan of prog rock.

I hope you enjoy the site.