Hi, my name is Tony Wakefield and I live in Australia these days arriving from England back in 1986.
I worked in the computer industry since 1967 some 40 years plus a bit. To define the industry I was originally in hardware design for a new computer company. I found my niche in post design and turning prototypes from what the sales person sold to what the customer wanted. My job took me to most European countries, USA & Australia working with high speed bank note production systems (note validation & document sorters). Then a few years working with OCR (Optical Character Systems) helping set up a new company in UK running the engineering side of the business.
When I decided to migrate (and return) to Australia I moved from Bank Notes to EFTPOS working as a consultant for 15 years with a very large organisation in Melbourne. So I say I have been in computer Industry but really it has been a career including Electronics, Software writing, Mechanics, Project Management, Design, Post Design, Innovation & debug. I may talk about some of these exploits in my blog.
Retirement what is that well to me it’s not having to be regimented and play politics. I think I was lucky when 9 years ago I was given a golden handshake when the company I worked for moved to a new location. I have so many interests and hobbies that time just fly’s. I keep up to date with technology as best I can. The industry is like a tree with more branches in all directions so it’s imposable to follow everything.
If you really want something you can make your dreams come true some times easily, but usually by persistence, hard work, Some cash, support from others and more dreams. In 1990 I decided to find my birth family and now have 2 half sisters and a half brother 3 years later after much searching I was able to meet my father a famous artist, before he died, unfortunately my mother had died in 1960 from cancer. I may talk about this in my blog.
In general I shall try to make this blog informative, light-hearted. Sometimes technical and sharing of some of the best times in my life. I am not the fastest keyboard operator and thanks to the spelling checker hopefully not to many typo’s! I can honestly say that I failed every English exam at school but did very well in technical & practical subjects. I just wish that some one had told me all about money & investment when I was young.
In 1972 with 11 others we all built our own homes in a self-build group working 32hrs a week on top of our full time job. I can blog about that as well.
You can also follow me on Twitter as oldtimeblogger or as Echoshack on my Ham Radio tweet.
Enjoy my blog and please comment where appropriate.
Oldtimer.