About Me

• Vital Statistics
• Born 26th January, 1966
• I am engaged to my totally awesome and absolutely cute fiancee Karina. She's a lawyer (but I don't hold that against her!) Her favourite activities include Horse Riding, Skiing, playing her Kawai upright piano and giving me a hard time. She also thinks that I am the epitome of computer geeks. Go figure!?!
• Here's a picture of us at the top of Mt. Kosciuszko - the highest peak in Australia - on a mountain-biking weekend in Nov 2000.
• We live in a really nice unit together in Allawah.
  
• Professional Details
• B.App.Sci.(Computer Science) from UTS (Sydney, Australia)
• B.E.(Electrical) Majoring in Telecommunications also from UTS.
• My skills include:
  • Software; ranging from Assembler and C on a wide range of embedded micros (including PIC, 8051, Z80, 68K) to C++ on Windows/Linux, from kernel-level development (including Windows and Linux Device Drivers) to applications programming (including native Win32 API, MFC)
  • FPGA firmware development in VHDL and Verilog HDL
  • Hardware development; schematic capture, PCB layout in Protel/Altium DXP
• I'm currently an employee of Virtual Logic in Rockdale, Sydney NSW Australia, a contract R&D house.

• Interests
• Soccer which I played competitively for 19 years, and now playing my 7^th season back (24^th for Sans Souci) after a 12-year break!
• Motorcycles which I toyed with briefly (for a few years) until I was relieved of my 1993 model Kawasaki ZZR-600 by a !@#$% taxi making an illegal right-hand turn on an all-but-deserted, well-lit main road at 2am one summer morning. I hope to resume my riding when my finances (and more importantly, girlfriend) allows. :)
• Kyokushin-Kai Karate which I practised for 15 years. I briefly started back at a new dojo after 3 years off but even though I really do miss the training, I don't think my heart is really in it any more.
• Snow skiing - which I did for the first time in July '00 - what a buzz!!! Probably won't get down there this year which is really frustrating because it's the best season in a long time! Decided to try snow-boarding next year...
• Classic Video Arcade Machines. I own an old cocktail cabinet with an 18-pin harness and a relatively new upright JAMMA cabinet with 26" monitor. Working or almost-working PCBs which I own include 1942, 1943, Frogger, Juno First, Kung Fu Master, Magic Sword, Namco Classics Vol#1, Raiden Fighters, Sand Scorpion, Street Fight, Vulgus, Xevios (sic) and a 1-slot NeoGeo MVS board with a Fatal Fury Cart.. Non-working and/or untested PCBs include Galaga, Galaxians, Space Invaders, Pacman and Q*Bert.
• Classic Video Arcade Machine and Microcomputer emulation. I never dreamed I would be playing the actual Xevious arcade roms on my PC! Some time back I released my second driver for the MAME project. And too many hours misspent  in my youth on the TRS-80 to just let it all be forgotten
• Classic Nintendo consoles (ie. the NES, SNES & N64). It's all Karina's fault - I can prove it!!! When she bragged one day that she got all the way through Super Mario Bros. 1 & 2, well, that was throwing down the gauntlet, wasn't it? To conspire in events, there was a pretty decent flea market every Sunday near her old place. To cut a long story short, I now own several NES consoles, several SNES consoles, a couple of N64 consoles and a Dreamcast. Add games, guns, power gloves etc to all that and you've got a serious obsession, errr... hobby. Just *one* more cart, I swear...
• The guitar, for which I recently took up lessons (yet) again after a few years of neglect.
• Other Sports/Activities in which I have dabbled include Surfing, Cricket, Golf, Rollerblading & Abseiling/Canyoning. I would like to try Rock-Climbing, particularly in Yosemite National Park.
• Science Fiction (as opposed to Science Fantasy). Favourite authors include Douglas Adams, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournell, Isaac Asimov, James P. Hogan. I've read some fantasy at the bequest of others including Anne McCaffrey (which I quite liked) and Raymond E. Feist (still deciding).
• (Popular?) Science especially Astronomy and Astrophysics, (Quantum) Physics and Mathematics.

• Computers. As if you hadn't guessed. In a perfect world I would use Linux - in reality I grudgingly acknowledge that I can't (yet) give up Winblows.