Alt Comp

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==== Hello World! ====
{{wiki:gb.jpg }}
Hi, this is me, Graham. 

And this is my Wiki or //Web Enabled Electronic Notepad// as I like to think about it. 
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For a long time I was using LionWiki as it was so light and simple but alas the author stopped maintaining it and has taken down the website. This was sad news indeed but when I recently upgraded my [[https://www.php.net|PHP]] version to 8.1 LionWiki created way to many issues causing me to want to jump ship asap!
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I only had two options in my sights https://www.pmwiki.org and https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki
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I tried out both but ended up leaning towards DokuWiki because of it's speed and easy to use [[wiki:syntax]] rules. I probably should of upgraded a long time ago but now I am I am pretty pleased I made the jump. My articles index is on the left as you can see.
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This is where I will be creating content from now on!
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[[https://dosdays.co.uk/computers/IBM%20PC%20(5150)/ibm5150.php|{{ wiki:ibm-pcxt.jpg}}]]
Alt Comp is a reference to the early [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet|Usenet Newsgroups]] of the 1980's although I only got access myself in the early 1990's. My first modem was a 4800 bps (yes, Bits Per Second) analogue device connected to a BT phone line in the UK, operated from an early [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT|DOS based computer]]. I accessed [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system|bulletin boards]] late at night as the rate was cheaper. In around 1991 I upgraded to a [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Dial_up_modem_noises.ogg|9600 bps modem]] and became a member of the Electric Dream Bulletin Board which acted as a BBS-to-Email gateway. [[https://www.uksaabs.co.uk/UKS//viewtopic.php?p=1558679|This]] is when I got my first email address.
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[[http://www.freetimeweb.nl/home/computer/cpc/web/Amstrad/fvempel/amstrad/metia/epc1512.html|{{wiki:amstrad-pc1512.jpg }}]]
The only other person I knew at the time that had an email address was a guy at my college [[https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/about-us/history/1970-1992-liverpool-polytechnic|Liverpool Poly]] so I sent a 'Hello World' email and was amazed when he replied. I then went round telling people enthusiastically I had sent my first email. By far the majority reaction to this was "Oh..." and a rather blank look as though I was speaking a foreign language - but to me on a late night terminal session using my [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT|IBM PC XT]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayes_Microcomputer_Products|9600 bps modem]] it was very exciting indeed. A year or so later I had an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512|Amstrad PC1512]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1|Windows 3.1]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_(web_browser)|Netscape v0.96]] with Peter Tattum's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpet_Winsock|Dial-Up Winsock]] on a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Line_Internet_Protocol|SLIP]] account to [[https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/|Liverpool Uni]] thanks to Jim Crank at Merseyside Business Link. Other software I used at the time included  [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_(email_client)|Eudora]] Email client as well as an  [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol|NNTP News Reader]] [[https://www.howtogeek.com/661871/the-web-before-the-web-a-look-back-at-gopher/|Gopher Client]] an [[https://www.mirc.co.uk/|IRC Client]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_(protocol)|Finger!]]
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One night I got onto the [[https://www.nasa.gov/|NASA]] website, controlled a radio [[https://worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/|telescope]] using submitted co-ordinates which then brought back a spectrum graph from space. The whole process took about 15 minutes - but it totally blew my mind! For the next 5 years or so I felt like I was one of the only people I knew who had any appreciation of what huge changes where going to happen in the world because of technology and inventions like the Internet.
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The Internet shrank the world there is no doubt. On the back of friends I made on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC|IRC Chat]] I ended up travelling to [[https://www.cpcnw.co.uk/travelog/2001-11-BERLIN|Berlin]] and [[https://www.cpcnw.co.uk/travelog/2006-03-SLOVENIA|Slovenia]] as well as keeping in touch with people I met at collage all over the world. You could say that the Internet change my life (and everyone else's) especially so because following studying electronics I went on to complete computer programming courses and consequently worked for several local computer companies, eventually breaking away to work freelance around 25 years ago. 
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Prior to the .co.uk derivative of this domain I owned the .com version which I dropped after a few years. [[https://www.cpcnw.co.uk|www.cpcnw.co.uk]] was first registered on: [[https://www.whois.com/whois/cpcnw.co.uk|2004-02-26]]
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To get a feel for what the Internet was like back in 1993 check out this Computer Chronicles video - click the image below.

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_o8gerare0|{{wiki:computer_chronicles_1993.jpg}}]]