Computers And Me

The brief tail of my computer life from 1982 through 2002

I got into computers in 1982 while in the early part of High School. The computer classes were reserved for seniors but after school I used the computer lab and read a lot of books on the subject. I disected programs from other programmers. Many were quite sloppy and I couldn't make heads or tails of them. The ones that were written well and easy to read became my model for programming. I quickly learned BASIC then Assembler because BASIC wasn't fast enough to do much. I started writing little play toys and tools then games got my attention.

I tried my hand at text oriented games but wasn't very good at that so I went to graphic games. I wote for the TI, Atari, Tandy TRS-80 (and color) and the Commodore systems. I did the required clones of Pac-Man, Frogger, Q-Bert and a couple others. I then started working on some original concepts. In just a couple years I had gotten prety good at it considering the games that were out for the same systems. I became the hit of the neighborhood because I didn't just play games, I was creating them. (Follow this link for more details about these games.)

I created Karate Challenge and Mission Descruct some card games that I started marketing. I didn't have the funds to do it large scale so I started marketing them through others. I also had a couple other games on the drawing board but hadn't given them names. I don't name games until they are complete and played for a while. I found it easier to name them after than it was to name them first then try to make a game fit the name.

Writing game software really wasn't making much money so I also turned my skills to writing business software. I worte a couple specialized accounting programs, databasees, and many other useful programs. I found that I could make a good living writing custom software for local businesses. I really enjoyed the programming. Maybe too much as I was working 60-80 hours a week.

Thishis was killing my family. At that time I was married and had a couple kids and not spending much time at home. I got a letter one day with an offer to purchase my existing game software and anything that was in development. The catch, I couldn't write games for 2 years after that. I also couldn't write any commercial business software but the custom software was allowed. I throught this would be a good idea and I was starting to get a little burned out.

I took the money and stopped programming completely. I had enough money to live without working at all for almost a year. I took that time to enjoy my faminly and the kids and take small trips to the beach and mountains. It wasn't a huge amount of money really, but since I wasn't use to having a lot I was able to make it last. I didn't do anything crazy with it. Thinking back I probably should have only taken a month or two off and put the rest on a house. You see, many years later I ended up getting divorced anyway. The money worked as a patch on the family problems but didn't solve them. I guess I knew that would be the case but at the time I had to try it.

As the money started to run out I decided it was time to get back to work and I really didn't want to get back into computers. I went in to construction for a while. Ok almost six years then I got the programming bug again. I had used my computer for playing games and doing some artwork. I even got into BBSing. (More Info Below) I wrote a BBS for the TI and wanted to run one on my new computer too. It was fun. As I got back into computers I started doing custom software again. I now work for the State of Oregon as a programmer analyst IS6. I find this to be a much better fit for my needs. The pay is good, the work is challanging and the hours are great. I still write my own custome software, but now it is mainly for myself and my family and when it is good enough I give it away or sell it cheap on my web site. I do a little work on the side for local businesses as well. This is just for a little extra pocket money though. No more 60 hour plus work weeks for me.

My BBS history and how it turned into this web site

I didn't write a commercially released BBS. I wrote one for myself. It actually ran on the TI if you can believe it. It was small. It ran on 3 floppy drives and had speach any time someone logged on/off the system so I could monitor the system's action.

The BBS was called "The Friend Finder". Because I was running on floppy drives I didn't have a lot of room. BBS's were rather new to me. Heck, I had a 1200 baud modem and upgraded to one of the first 2400 bauds when they came out.

The system used three floppies as I said. #1 for the BBS system itself, #2 for the user files (up to 128 users max) I only reached 90 +/- users before moving away from the TI. #3 was for the message base. The system was little more than a message board and a "match maker" type of service. It was a kick and before writing it, I knew nothing about how to do it. I simply wanted to test my skills and learn about modem communications and file storage management. I was only planning on running it for a few months while learning but people were so upset when I said I was going to shut it down I kept it running. Strange, I never expected that.

I then went to the Amiga computer and ran Glenn's World (a friend came up with the name). The "Friend Finder" was re-written into a small section of the new BBS which had online games and messaging and email and FidoNet. Even some internet access for real email. I used a gateway program I wrote to cross from the BBS email to the InterNet email. A real kick!

At one point I had 8 phone lines into the house to keep up with the hundreds of users on the BBS. Then when the InterNet started to become a house hold item, the callers started dropping and I started scaling back the phone lines. Eventually I shut it all down and went to the web page.

The web page was originally called Glenn's World too. In August of 2001 I decided to bail out on that name and switch to The Schworak Site. It seemed to fit my personality more. Besides, I could get schworak.com and that really made me happy.

I am sure you can see from the scale of my site, it is a labor of love. I just have fun playing now. If others get use of it then great.