Just some info about me and how do I got addicted to playing with electronics

The early days

I was born in the early 80s in the near of Frankfurt Germany and I soon have discovered that it is very interesting to disassemble things to more or less (more less than more) understand how they are working.

I guess I was 10 as I got my first own IBM compatible PC. This device laid the foundation stone for my later life.

The youth / I survived the 90s

It was a hard time. At the beginning of the 90s there was no Internet, no smart phones and even no cell phone. (OK, there were cell phones but they where not affordable to common people, you also have needed a briefcase or a car to transport them) We have used phones which where connected with a cable to a special outlet on the wall in our house.

At the mid of the 90s I gained access to the Internet. At this time the Internet looked like an LSD trip. Especially under some enthusiasts which have created their own private pages. There where some unwritten rules to design private web pages. I just want to point out some of these rules here:

1. Use as many different colors as possible. There where 16 different colors. With some patience and training you where able to implement all of them into one page.
2. Try to bring some harmony into your page. E.g. Blue text on green background. Yellow text on blue background was also very popular.
3. Use frames, at least three.
4. Use plenty of animated GIFs which do not belong to the topic of the page. (If there was a topic) 
5. The last but also one of the most important point was to upload a lot of large pictures to show the visitor that you either have a lot of patience to upload the pictures or to blame all your visitors which where visiting your page with an 28.8kbps modem which was pretty slow.

During this time I also played a lot of computer games and also played with some electronic kits.

The first decade of the new century

School was finished and I had to start with working / learning a job. I my case I have learned electrician at construction sites. I general I would say that working is a nice activity but you definitely loose to much leisure time.

I've done this job until the mid of this decade. Then I have decided to go back to school for two years to improve my skills and to rise my value to the job marked.

One of the teachers has developed the PICee development and learning platform for PIC microcontrollers. This was also part of the lessons, so I got the first contact to C and the world of programmable micro controllers. I was interested in electronics for a long time but I have not got the final push into this topic until the beginning of this lessons.

And today its a hobby for me which is inevitable.

Until today

Since this time I'm playing with micro controllers. The first time I used the PIC16Fxxx from Microchip but then I switched to Atmel because they have full support for Linux. And about a year ago I have discovered the Arduino plattform which makes my life a lot easier.

Here is a short list about my skills (or things which I believe I'm skilled at)

German, English, Perl, C, HTML, Linux, Arduino, Electronics (More the digital part, for the analog stuff I would need better math skills), Eagle CAD Software, Beckhoff PLC, CNC-Programming (DIN code)


Hope that was enough info about me