Who Am I?

I am an electronic engineer and a microcomputer enthusiast with over 30 years of experience in computer hardware and software, both at work and at home.

I live with my beautiful wife (my opinion, and I'm sticking to it!) in a semi-rural area near Houghton^*, a lovely country village (but still a suburb) just 22km from the heart of Adelaide, South Australia.

Click to make us grow!

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Kangaroos in the Street?

You may have heard the rumour that kangaroos hop down the streets in Australia. Is it true?

Well, if you live where I do, then the answer is an emphatic YES! When they stand taller than a car, it is prudent slow down and give them right of way. That's not all: watch out for echidnas, wombats, koalas and the odd 6ft. brown snake crossing the road.

Kangaroo

Echidna

Wombat

Koala

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My Hobbies?

I built my first computer (Pluter1) in 1976: an S100-based 8080 with 8Kbytes of EPROM and 8Kbytes of RAM! This was when the term "Microcomputer" was a little misleading, and when the only option was to design and build your own system! It was big, and heavy enough to be a boat anchor. By 1978 it had two 8" disk drives, costing AUS$750 each, and was running CPM V2.2 and later a personalised version (CP/M V2.3).

In the early 1980s I graduated to CP/M Plus (aka CP/M V3.0).
I knew that I was not doing something quite right when, in 1985, I found myself using a newly purchased PC/XT clone (Pluter2) as a terminal emulator for Pluter1, so I finally closed the chapter on the old anchor. Even so, Pluter1 found at least two more homes over the years, and may still be in use, possibly as a boat anchor.

In 1992 I replaced the aging PC/XT with a 386DX33 (Pluter3), which grew in time with added memory, several changes in HDD size and just about every version of DRDOS/NWDOS from V3.41 onwards, as well as Win3.1. I started with Win95 using the Preview Program and installed the real thing at day zero (August 24th, 1995). Pluter3 suffered from a mouse - the four legged variety, when it got into the case and caused undesirable etching of the motherboard! Exit one computer.
Lesson: make sure you fill any unused extension card slots with blank plates.

Then, in 1996, I bought a Pentium-120 (Pluter4), and immediately created an ethernet microsoft network. Pluter4 has had extensive additions to both its RAM and HDD space, and a new motherboard to lift its capability to K6-2/333 standard, to keep up with the ever hungry bloatware.

Pluter5 came along as a Duron 700, but was reborn as an Athlon 1800+ with plenty memory, disk space, DVD-ROM and CD burner.

Time has taken its toll, so now Pluter4 and Pluter5 are retired to a worthy cause.

Pluter7 is an Acer 3002LC Laptop and Pluter10 is an Asus PC1000H Netbook, for when we are "on the road".
Notice Pluter6 missing? It was my first Laptop which got jealous when Pluter10 came along, so it was given to the family.

Pluter8 is my experimental desktop machine, dual-booting for Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows-7 RC.

Pluter9 is a backup desktop machine, mainly used by She for internet use, and Me for file archiving.

The newest kid on the block is Pluter11, my present desktop box. It is an Athlon-64x2 with 4GB memory, 750GB and 1.5TB disks, DVD burners and TV card. Right now it is sticking to Windows XP until Windows-7 is available.

With three printers, ADSL-modem/router/wireless-port and a scanner, I do a fair bit of system development and employment-related documentation and programming.

For almost 40 years I have written applications, utilities and operating systems using a wide range of assembly languages (including SC/MP, Nova, 8048, 8051, 8080, Z80, 68000, 80x86, and several mainframes) and higher level languages (Fortran, PL/M, PL/I, Fort80, Pascal, Ada, Modula 2). Right now I'm enjoying the ease of using Delphi 7 (a great way to produce Windows Applications), and trying to find time to convert to Delphi-2007.

Gardening?

In my spare (???) time I think about home maintenance, computers, keeping our cars running, computers, adding more Australian native plants to Our Garden, computers, watching TV, computers, reading, computers . . .

Included on our garden page is an Australian native flora dictionary - for FREE!

Looking for a Native Plant?

Now available to you. A comprehensive Australian Native Plants selector program. Go to Australian Native Plants Selector to get it FREE!

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Work?

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Why the name Pluter?

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Do YOU use Delphi?

Want some nifty WIN95/98/NT/XP/Win-7 Applications?

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	You can contact me at hjharvey@tpg.com.au

This page has been accessed times since 16th September 2009