At a glance
- Freelance author, translator, web publisher …
Main topics:
- Android and iOS
- Windows (in all shades)
- Linux (SuSE Linux)
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Access)
- Internet (general, HTML, XML and more)
… and here are a few ‘hard’ facts:
Born in 1955 in the Eifel, grew up in the immediate vicinity of a US military base. From this period came the first findings on the importance of at least basic knowledge of a foreign language: ‘Hey man, gimme chocolate. Hello, do you have bubble gum?’ (Well, the French barracks were a good 20 kilometers away, otherwise it might not haper with French today).
Everything that no one wants to know
Actually, the way to secondary school and teaching was marked: Craftsman or farmer on their own farm. But somehow I couldn't get excited about both (although I appreciate the craft). After the main school and an apprenticeship we went back to the school bench (say: the Ochsentour via the second educational path began). After completing his second education and military service (the only highlight of which was training in Holland), he went to Jülich to study physical technology. There, my craft experience in financing my studies was gold
Worth it (nights and weekends were fully booked from garden maintenance to the welding of exhaust gas turbines and cooling towers to the installation of electrical systems).
This was followed by the first job in aircraft construction. There, the programming of computers (Digital PDP 11) for testing aircraft parts was on the program. (You can see your holiday flyer with completely different eyes when the outer skin of a machine has been checked by hand for faults and defects …).
This was followed by 12 years in large-scale chemistry. First as a software developer (here some CPU registers for registers were conquered by assembler, debugger tuned and mini operating systems written), later as a project engineer (i.e. often get hot coals for others out of the fire) and head of a software development group for
Automation and application software – some packages have been deployed worldwide.
In addition to marketing and acquisition, the work as a project manager also included consulting (others say consulting because it sounds better) and the creation of specifications or user documentation. Plant commissioning also meant user training, and for four years prospective Mathematical Technical Assistants (MATA) were trained in Technical Informatics.
Among the highlights of my time as a project manager, I remembered several stays in Japan and Thailand for project acquisition and plant commissioning. There, not only the (not so rudimentary) English skills in the creation of the project documentation and in the user training could be improved. The project management across continents and the handling of foreign cultures were also certainly formative. (Well, raw fish for breakfast, or water beetles in the food are certainly worth an experience.)
In the first professional years, several semesters of computer science, electrical engineering and economics were also studied. (So that it is not quite so
It was boring and you understood what some computer scientists had to say about …). As the topic became a bit too dry after some time – I simply could not understand the practical nutritional value of theoretical informatics for day-to-day business – new challenges dedicated.
So in 1987 I started writing books and articles as a hobby. Since the information factor is becoming more and more important, good manuals are still in short supply and few people like to deal with documentation, I turned this hobby into a profession a few years ago. Now I work as a freelancer in the largest village in the world, the Internet. In addition to writing and translating books for various international publishers and working as a publisher, I am also involved in the creation of technical documentation, the design of web pages and the compilation of CD-ROMs. Occasionally, the creation of programs is added.
How to get into programming …
The first contact with technology I had in 1977 as a student, in the context of a
FORTRAN course. This was intensified when calculations for different subject areas were to be made more frequently in later semesters. Since the money for a programmable calculator was missing, but I was too lazy, the tasks of
At the time, the solution algorithms were programmed on an IBM 370 machine. This meant punching punched cards and waiting for the printout the next day (but the paper of the misprints was highly welcome, as the reverse side could be used to write the lecture). I also remember obscurely scouring some libraries for useful computer literature last summer semester. But apart from illustrations of the obligatory punch card punches and the explanation of the function of the Zuse Z1, there was not much to learn – many libraries were already lagging behind for years. In 1979, in a diploma thesis, I examined the properties of a photo-line diode (an electronic component that is now incorporated into every digital camera; At that time, however, only a few copies were available worldwide, e.g. at NASA and as a single piece in the KFA-Jülich). As part of this project, I was then in contact with a Digital PDP 8 and a PDP 11 – with big eyes I had to find out at the time that not all computers used punch cards. Rather, there was a button for switching on and off, for booting the PDP 8 the first machine commands were to be entered by hand via a series of toggle switches, the program loaded the computer via perforated strips. The PDP 11, on the other hand, was already quite modern, using floppy drives (at that time still 8 inches in size) to load the operating system and store the (measurement) data. To operate it, one had to know the commands of the operating system such as DIR, PIP, SQUEEZE etc.
However, this crash course benefited me later. As a development engineer, many processors, from the Digital PDP 11 to various INTEL CPUs to the Digital VAX
programmed. And it was always necessary to accept the challenge of a new machine or a new operating system. The first IBM PC/XT with MS-DOS 1.0/2.0 delivered by IBM to Europe went through my hands, for example.
… and how to get rid of it.
At some point, the realization was in the room that 24 hours a day plus lunch break
Not enough to realize all the wishes of the users and my own ideas personally. In addition, you sink into the details too quickly when programming and lose the overview.
At the time, I had the opportunity to bring together some young engineers to form a development team and to dedicate myself to the development of new concepts and their implementation. This included the creation of manuals, marketing documents and documentation. (However, I am currently experiencing occasional relapses, such as translating programming language books, programming in VBA under Microsoft Office, in HTML pages in JavaScript, or programming in VBScript/JScript under the Windows Script Host.)
After I had invested a lot of time and money to work as a part-time computer scientist
In 1986/87 it was decided: It's time to get rich and famous! As part of my professional activities, I occasionally had to publish specialist articles on projects carried out, for which there was then a small salary. But it should really be possible to make money with contributions in the computer magazines that were becoming popular at the time …
At that time I had just for fun It was an 8080/Z80 diaphragm. Unfortunately, it was
This was stupidly implemented in BASIC, and no ‘Schw…’, pardon, no editor was interested in my article.
But difficulties have always irritated me and are there to be mastered. At that time I wanted to get to know PASCAL more intensively. So I borrowed an old IBM PC/XT computer with MS-DOS and the recently released Turbo Pascal compiler …
After a weekend, the disassembler was ported to Pascal, and the same post was suddenly published with great success (although I still ask myself today how useful an 8085/Z80 disassembler on an 8086 machine is …).
The first book was written to finally finance a ‘real’ computer with a hard drive and MS-DOS. Well, then there was the computer, but the printer had to be paid for from other sources. Despite these ‘misadventures’, there was no reason to abandon the letter. This was followed by numerous articles ranging from assembler courses and a PostScript tutorial to special articles (including in US journals – and also
PostScript is now available in the US as a CD-ROM). Books on programming, such as the title published by Microsoft Press MS-DOS 6.2 - Programming Manual, Introductions to BASIC, Pascal or
PostScript are certainly still known to older insiders. This Reference manual File formats has also established itself as a standard in the English and Russian editions.
In the meantime, some things also found their way to Microsoft in the USA and were then printed worldwide in various languages. My 1996 Microsoft Press USA title on Windows Registry was so compelling that I was selected by Microsoft for Windows 98 as Technical Contributor for the Windows 98 Resource Kit (The Technical Reference). The chapter about the registration in this English-speaking shopper comes from my pen.
In the meantime, I have given up counting the titles I have written – with an inch stick, the occupied shelf space can be determined more quickly – but it should already be about 250 books and CD-ROMs. The spectrum ranges from computer books for children or seniors to titles for application programs and Windows to hard-core programming literature for professionals.
Unfortunately, this activity also results in the experience that a lot of work abroad
It's much easier to run. While titles such as Inside the Microsoft Windows 95 Registry (Microsoft Press, Redmond) or The Fileformats Handbook (International Thomson Publishing, Boston) were published largely without problems in the English-speaking world, some publishers in Germany still try to explain to me what a book or article should look like. Journal articles, revised three times in the German version and then never published, were published in the English version without corrections within a very short time. (Apparently, not only German politicians are incapable of acting …)
Well, I'm still not rich or famous …
…, therefore, I am writing more titles with high pressure. There are still a thousand ideas.
and a lot of "wood in the pipe" – let's tackle …
What would you do if you had time?
Relax with a surfboard under the soles in the Mediterranean, or drink a glass of wine in the shade of a pine tree and maybe write a novel. But instead, I would have to clean up the hard drive urgently, and my wife wants to have the hallway repainted long ago …
… perhaps I will first publish my experiences as a ‘gaijin’ instead of the novel
in the land of the rising sun my web page. From ‘breakfast in Japanese at the ryokan’ to ‘adventure at the Ofuru’ – this is the Japanese bath’s a lot of experiences that can happen to you as a foreigner among foreigners – and often amuse both sides.
Free time, or anything else that belongs to life
Free time? I turned my hobby into a profession! Man, what do you want more …
But fun on the side. In good weather, I take many walks in the Taunus – usually when others are still working in the office.
Since I started working as a freelancer, I also take more time to read (in the first
In the summer, the 52 volumes of the Perry Rhodan series were available in the city library). Otherwise, it can also be crime stories – with some titles I hang around for a whole night until the book is read. If you want to slow down a bit, I'll go back to the original English version. And while reading you can also listen to music …
Not quite for leisure, but very close to life belong food and drink. spaetzle,
Maultaschen, onion and flame cakes as well as various wines are always an incentive for a detour to Alsace or Baden. Well, sometimes I can persuade my wife to do things like that myself (as a bad cook but a granny eater).
I am dependent on support – as an immediate measure, I took some cooking courses a year ago that are already effective).
Since my time in Bremen I am also enthusiastic about fish in any edible form. (I especially enjoyed in Thailand and Japan, where raw fish was already available for breakfast.) I don't have any favorite cuisine. During my previous stays abroad, one thing became clear to me at some point between chestnut puree, sweet potatoes, raw squid, etc.: The main thing is to taste it!
Copyright © 1997-2024 Günter Born