User:TerrapinDundee

TerrapinDundee, aka Mike Hatch.

I got the nickname after catching 9 of the little blighters (Red Eared Terrapins, Red & Yellow Bellied Sliders) from a pond in a local park that I used to run with a group of volunteers. I also got quite a bit of leg pulling about "rubber gear", having donned waders and boots so many times in the efforts to catch them.

The group is The Friends of Brickfields Country Park, The Park - Brickfields Country Park - possibly the smallest Country Park in the U.K. at 7.5 acres. Website for the park is - www.brickfieldspark.org - have a look, and enjoy what is possibly the smallest country park in the UK.

I have recently started another |website for a very old electronic desktop calculator, the Soemtron ETR220 and derivatives, one of the first electronic calculators, which now has been expanded into a full engineering breakdown of this interesting piece of 1960's early electronic calculator history.

This site also has a section for what was for me my first introduction into computing, the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-7, the machine that UNIX was designed on. The DEC PDP-7 and 7A 18bit computers page is here and contains a list of the known 99 customers of the 120 systems ever built, detail of the four known PDP-7's in existence, links to other PDP-7 websites and manuals for the machine.

Data I have placed with Wikipedia from either websites are with my permission, and The Friends of Brickfields Country Park, for use under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Personal, if you’re interested (probably not). 74, retired design draughtsman in the motion control industry. Spent some years in jet engine research on electronic systems and engines for Concorde (Olympus 593), Harrier (Pegasus), SeaKing and others. I have used, repaired and maintained these now vintage computer systems - DEC PDP-7, DEC PDP-11, SDS9300, Elliot 803B and LEO III S#26. Have also designd electronic photographic systems and booths for passport photography, anti vandal coin mechanisms, many, many pcb's, a few microprocessor systems and been involved in their programming.

I now volunteer with the Rushmoor Repair Cafe (website) who are celebrating their third year of operation repairing your broken items. They meet once a month to repair a variety of items from textiles, bicycles, clocks, electrical items and furniture, in amongst a host of other items! Their team has a passion to get things working for you again - to save you money and avoid sending items to landfill – reducing carbon emissions and helping the environment.

Mike Hatch mike@soemtron.org or mike@brickfieldspark.org