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and playing on a LED space video game by Mattel called Battlestar Galactica Space Alert.  I still have that video game in a cupboard somewhere. 



Later on I was given an Invaders video game (mine was coloured blue) for a birthday present, which I must admit was the easiest game to complete - within an hour of owning it.  But visually it was more fancier than Space Alert.  I still had a thirst to play more video games.  I didn't know then, that my parents were planning to buy a new Atari console!



By around 1980/81 I was given an Atari 2600 console, an amazing console for its day.  I really got addicted into playing video games now.  My parents bought a lot of cartridges for it over 3 years, which entertained me - and them.  I didn't need to go to the seaside arcades now the Atari gave me that experience at home.  One Christmas (I think it was 1981 or possibly 1982) I took the Atari to a family meet up.  My cousins and me played a lot on Pac Man and Defender. 



Here is a photo of me around 1983, playing on my Atari 2600.  This is one of only two photos I got of me playing video games throughout the whole of the 1980's and 1990's.  I'm sure if we had smartphones in those days, I would have a lot more photos.  The Atari would be the last console that I owned until I bought a Sony PS2 in 2001.



Around 1983, I did get a 3D tank game.  The illusion of 3D was captivating, inspired by the Disney film Tron.  I'm surprised that these games weren't more popular.



The first home computer I used (and first keyboard I remember typing on) was a BBC Micro (not sure which model) at Primary school back in 1984.  Christmas 1984, Santa gave me a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, my first home computer, where I learned to programming a bit in BASIC, plus playing a lot of video games.  This home computer did change me life to an extent that it looked like computers were going to be my future.



That same year I got my first Nintendo, a Game&Watch.  A nice LCD game, this type of game became popular for a few years.  I wouldn't buy anything Nintendo again until Teresa bought me a Nintendo DS from Hong Kong in 2004.  That really began my love for Nintendo, later on getting a Wii, 3DS, and recently a Switch.  I still have my eyes on a Switch 2, one day maybe.



My first year at Secondary school, I joined the school's Computer Club ran by my form teacher Mr Balden who taught Maths.  I used a RM Link 480Z computer at the club.  It was the first network computer I used that was linked to a server.  It was a small LAN setup, but it opened my eyes to what computers could do.  I also had access to the school's dot matrix printer.  I use to create word searches using a piece of software, then print them out and take them home.  I enjoyed using the school's printer so much, that I persuaded my parent to buy me a thermal printer for my ZX Spectrum, an Alphacom 32.  Decades later in 2023, I contacted Mr Balden to thank him for helping me get into computing.



One year later, Lord Sugar's Amstrad took over Sinclair and so I got a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128+2 for Christmas 1986 (I owned two of them by 1988, because one broke down).  I recall during School lunch time I would travel with friends to the local arcade in Hoxton, Shoreditch, to play arcade games like Outrun and Double Dragon.  But for me the

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128+2 still had the best video games, my collection grew.  Many decades later I did received a nice letter and signed photo from Lord Sugar.





At the end of the 1980's I did get a Commodore Amiga A500 (where I learned more BASIC).  Yes I went over to the dark side to Commodore's 16-bit revolution.  I nearly got an Atari ST instead, but a friend at school called Johor had just got his Amiga and rated it highly, so I opted for the Amiga.  I left behind 8-bit home computing sadly.  But the Amiga graphics and sound were a big improvement on what I had before in the 8-bit world.



In 1992, I bought my first PC, a second-hand Olivetti 386sx-16mhz off of a telecoms Engineer I knew.  It had a large HDD of 100MB which was a bonus, plus Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS.  He even threw in a dot matrix printer and 2 monitors which was nice.  The photo below is as closest looking to the PC I had, practically identical.  It was a brilliant first PC, seeing that I had already been using PC's at school and at an ITEC years before.  From 1992 onwards until today I would always own a PC, either desktop or laptop, it changed my way of computing for me forever.



Around this time I would still visit the arcades in London with friends to play the latest games.  There was a good arcade at the Trocadero in Piccadilly Circus I use to visit regularly, and another near Angel station in Islington.

Summer 1994 I joined University (UEL), a big step up in my education, to focus on a Degree in Computing.

I started learning HTML in 1994, hosting my first website on UEL's web server.

Between 1996-1998 I began playing video games online for the first time.  I was an online video gamer playing Duke Nukem 3D PvP over a 33.6kbps modem.  And also playing Quake on LAN at the University campus.  My video gaming name was Redeem.  I later joined a gaming clan the infamous 4Kings, playing Quake, although that was short-lived as I didn't have the free time.  It was my final year at University, I just got married, and exams were just weeks away.

I got to say that the early days of the Web and the Internet was a big factor for me in deciding to work in IT professionally.  My first IT job was as a Junior IT Administrator back in 1996 administrating Windows NT, UNIX and Novell servers.  My work lead me to mainly using and supporting Microsoft software. 

Around 2000 Teresa and I pre-ordered the new Sony PS2 at John Lewis before it was released here in UK, what a fab games console it was!  The PS2 with built-in DVD player became my first DVD player connected to my TV.

I worked as a Software Developer for a number of years, from Summer 2000 until 2015, when I quit, and reverted back to IT Support roles.

• My social media posts - hosted on BlueSky
• My blog - hosted on WordPress
• My YouTube channel - ZX Spectrum and Guitar demos.
  
• My software/websites - a selection hosted on GitHub
• The Spectrum - User Guide / FAQ - written by me

- Miscellaneous

• The National Museum of Computing - a good resource on computing
• BBC technology news - a good news page
• Amazon Kindle store - a good online book store
• Dan Dare/Eagle / 2000AD - great comic books
• Ncuk - entertaining page on wildlife by G. Wallis

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Other information

I can be contacted on email lee@leefriend.org.