Computer technician reflects on a long career in same college

He writes: "As the start of the new teaching year fast approaches, it will be strange for me for the first time in many years in not having to get ready for school or college.

"That is because earlier in the summer I took early retirement as part of a Northern Ireland wide scheme approved by the Minister for the Economy after almost 40 years as a dedicated Computer Technician. The scheme saw 14 staff from my campus at Omagh leave with a total of 333 years’ service, I was the longest. My retirement has given me the chance to reflect on how special a career such as mine has been in the same college spanning all these years.

"Always interested in experimenting with electronics and computing, I bought my first computer in 1981, the revolutionary Sinclair ZX81, one of the world’s first successful low cost home computers priced at £49.95 in kit form or £69.95 fully assembled. Of course as I bought it from my pocket money savings I could just afford the kit version and assembled it myself, not a bad achievement at only 13 years old.

"With a massive 1 Kilobyte random access memory, a modern smart phone could easily have a million times more storage, I quickly became an expert in getting the best from its limited performance. Teachers at my school, Castlederg Secondary School noticed my talent for programming after I published a number of computer programmes in magazines and obtained work experience for me at my local tech or to give it its proper name, Omagh College of Further Education in May, 1984.

"I enjoyed this immensely, little knowing 40 years later I would still be working at the college a very rare achievement as computing has changed so much over the years. I undertook a BTEC in the college after which I was appointed as the Computer Technician in 1987 to support the embryonic IT provision as my studies continued.

"During my working career I have seen the advances in computing first hand as part of the information technology revolution with many personal achievements. I remember the college still using old mechanical typewriters when I started work. The small number of computer rooms being equipped with a few BBC Model A or B computers or Apple 2e computers, all of which you can now find in a computing museum. The college’s first true networked computers were a room of 18 IBM PC based Research Machines running Windows which I installed in 1988.

"As more computers were added in the college, I began the task of designing, installing and connecting the first campus wide networks and servers to the internet often working a 60 hour week to keep up with the needs of the job.

"The early 1990s saw a big expansion in computing in the college with mostly PC based desktops, many of them I would assemble from components as this was a cost effective method of maximising IT provision in the college. I became an expert in building them and as a part time lecturer, regularly ran much in demand classes in “Building your own PC”.

"As I think back other notable achievements included sending the first email from the college a big occasion at the time but now common place. Being involved in research and development in a number of areas with colleges and universities throughout the UK, including with the early World Wide Web, helping test source code for Sir Tim Berners-Lee who is now regarded as the father of the World Wide Web and programming the first college website in 1993, one of the first few in the world, today there are billions.

"The work in readiness for the Millennium Bug, the move to the new Omagh Campus and the college being merged into South West College are other important events as I continued the support of IT in the college.

"Some of the other standout events in my career included being involved in the prestigious MSc in computer-based learning that ran at the college under QUB. In 2006 my expertise in the support of video conferencing and computing technology allowed the people of Omagh to take part in the Omagh bomb trial on campus without having to travel to Belfast each day, the first time video conferencing in a trial had been used in Northern Ireland.

"In more recent years, continually evolving information technology has allowed for remote working/ teaching and social media but at the same time with ever increasing cyber security challenges.

"Over the years it has been an absolute pleasure working with fellow staff and generations of students while seeing them going on to achieve great things. The job has given me the opportunity to meet Royalty, Prime Ministers and Presidents but I will never forget meeting one of my all-time computing heroes, Sir Clive Sinclair who attended an awards ceremony in the college and whose company, Sinclair Research manufactured my first computer."