What is on Your Mind?

I think you guys might find this mildly interesting...

What made me do AudioScope apart from learning shell scripting.

This is all true and bear in mind that it was all centred around an A500 AMIGA...
Since then I have dome loads of similar things in differing languages for
differing platforms...
I have a natural gift of being able to help very young kids to understand and do
for themselves...
All below is during my AMIGA coding days and my A1200 is still on and working
and my last code upload to AMINET wad last November, 2013...
Here goes..........


The Criteria for the AMIGA TestGear? Projects.
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In 1998 my (then 7 year old) daughter's friend's brother was (is)
interested in tinkering with simple electrical and electronic projects.
When I asked him if he had any basic Test Gear to check and calibrate his
projects he replied "No none at all, but I have got my own ~Commodore
AMIGA~". On inspection I found he had an old A500 with 1MB of memory,
a Television set, an extra floppy drive and it was MISSING the mouse.
I then asked him if he would like his AMIGA to become his Test Gear, his
face showed much surprise and he said "Yes Please", he was at that time
8 years old. This young lad showed much promise and my help has gotten him
a good job in electrical engineering. Good luck Nathan...


This set the criteria for all of the projects as shown below:-
--------------------------------------------------------------

1) The projects MUST run on a standard A500 WITH an extra floppy drive.
Some projects may NOT be calibrated for this machine however as all
the developement work was/is done on an AMIGA A1200.
2) The projects MUST be Operating System friendly.
3) A 0.5MB memory expansion for the A500 is optional.
4) The initial projects MUST NOT require a mouse to work, this is
optional. The keyboard IS the required minimum.
5) The OCS graphics modes MUST be the required minimum display modes.
6) A Television Set MUST be the required minimum display medium.
7) Workbench 1.3x MUST be the required minimum Operating System.
8) The projects MUST work on both NTSC and PAL. This is so that everyone
in the world can use the software without modification.
9) The projects MUST be simple enough for a young child to build in a
VERY SHORT period of time, possibly under supervision. This is so as
to be able to keep the attention span of that young child.
10) All of the required components MUST be available to the general public
from any or a known source.
11) The projects MUST be VERY cheap to build in relation to their
commercial/professional cousins.
12) All external power supplies required for any of the projects MUST be
batteries. A young child should NOT have access to MAINS voltage
facilities or power sockets.
13) All Calibration Equipment MUST be batteries or cells also.
A young child has NOT got access to Professional Calibration Equipment
so therefore he/she has to start from somewhere.
14) The projects MUST NOT require special printed circuit boards to be made.
15) The projects MUST NOT require any special tools, the standard tools
should always be sufficient.
16) IF a special tool is required then a supplier MUST be available to
purchase that tool.
17) As a multimeter/multitester is virtually impossible on any computer
this MUST be a purchased item.
18) If MAINS IS required to power up a unit to be tested, then a MAINS
ISOLATING transformer WILL be required and MUST be used. This MUST be
under the supervision of an adult.
19) Any books required SHOULD be available from your local library.
20) NO special knowledge of electronics is needed or required to build
any of the projects.

This has given me so much pleasure over the years and if only ONE person, in this
case Nathan Shepherd, benefits from my help then it is all worth it...