My personal history:

I was born 1956.02.21, went to school for the mandatory 9 years starting at age 7, but skipped a class during midterm of the second year, so that I was free as a bird in the woods by 1971. (And as free of having any money...)

So, after trying my hand at various jobs I didn't really like, I decided to join the Royal Swedish Navy, and did so on 1972.10.12, when I started as a non-com trainee (equivalent to a recruit private). One reason I chose this path was that Sweden still practiced general conscription then, with the minimum term being 9 months for most services except for the navy, which had a minimum term of 12 months.

Recruits were only paid 7 SEK per day then, barely enough for a packet of cigarettes and a small bottle of beer, so that was not something anyone looked forward to. It seemed better to me to be paid a slightly more normal wage (1272 SEK per month) for studying some things that were actually quite interesting, such as Ergonomy, technical Math, Radio technology etc., in addition to some specialized skills (eg: telegraphy) and the general weapons training. These were things that seemed quite fun in themselves too ! And then, who could know ? I might even find a career... (or so I thought)

After a couple of years however, I got rather bored with having about 87% land duties, with prospects of even more such. That was *not* why I chose the navy. Still, someone had to give recruits basic training, and newly hatched non-coms are the obvious choice for most of that work. I realized that I could expect to be doing just that for several years to come, so I decided that I might as well quit.

So in january 1975 I was again a civilian, working at various odd jobs, while spending most of my free time in sharpening my skills at electronics, having been taught the basics as a navy radio telegraphist (is that good english?) and then taking it up as a hobby.

That was the year when the very first microcomputer kits were being advertized to the general public in hobbyist magazines (Popular Electronics etc). So I soon found myself coding 8080 bootstrap loaders in machine language, while wondering when I could actually lay my hands on a computer of my own.

One thing led to another, and in 1978 I took my first job as a computer consultant, my first task being to design (and program) the control circuitry for a simple matrix printer, based on the then brand new Intel 8748 processor. I left that company in 1980, again to try various jobs (now related to electronics) but didn't find anything really interesting to stay with.

It was during this time that I finally bought my first own computer, a Rockwell AIM 65 singleboard computer. This was very primitive as delivered, so I had a real ball trying to raise its capabilities both with software and hardware add-ons. In early 1981 this led to employment by the main retailers of that computer in Sweden, the (now defunct) company "LSI Electronics Sweden AB".

At first I was intended mainly to work on the hard and soft stuff I had developed for the AIM 65, and some that we developed later, but after a while our customers needed consultancy services, so we then started to branch out with such work too. And naturally, one doesn't want to turn down a customer just because he uses other systems, so we soon found ourselves involved in various projects with very little connection with our original business, a computer/electronics shop.

We closed that shop in mid-1982, because it no longer represented any major part of our income but did cost quite a lot to keep going. Not just money, but effort we could use better for other things. But we didn't do it fast enough, and couldn't unload the stock economically, so in late 1983 there was little to be done to save the company from going into bankruptcy...

It is in emergencies that friendships are tested, and I found some unpleasant truths about my employers during the last months before 'the end', so when they spoke of starting over I had lost interest in working for them. Instead I started a company of my own (a one-man company), working as a freelance computer consultant. (The company was named "Munin Datakonsult", in case you wonder.)

This worked fine for a couple of years, but I was not as good at drawing new clients as I had thought, so as I gradually fulfilled the consultancy needs of the few I did 'hook', my business started failing...

Eventually this led me into a conflict with the swedish IRS, who absolutely refused to accept my statements about lowered income, and demanded that I continue paying taxes according to the income I had had in the best years, plus heavy fines for the later periods when I had not paid that much. As I did not have that money there was nothing I could do, since swedish law always places the entire burden of proof on the citizen in any conflict with the government or its agencies. It is not possible to prove that one has not had unreported customers paying 'grey money' for work, unless one can prove being busy at documented projects, which I had not been.

So they declared me bankrupt and told me I owed them around half a million SEK in back taxes and fines. By law I was now reduced to living on an 'existential minimum' provided by the social services (yes, welfare checks), since I was no longer 'employable' to any serious employer. They obviously do not want personnel that they know are impossible to motivate in the normal ways, which would not be possible since the swedish IRS would remove all but the 'existential minimum' from my salary account even before I saw the money.

I have often wondered what the IRS people thought they would gain by placing me in this situation. They *knew* I had no money, which I would have had if I had cheated the way they claimed. The proof that they knew it lies in that they never pressed charges in court. So they knew, and also knew that doing what they did would make me a longterm liability, rather than gain them anything.

Ah well, that is history now and I have gotten used to the situation, so waste no pity on me. I don't really need it. My personal self-confidence and self-esteem were never based on money anyway, so they are still intact.

Since those incidents I have continued to live with a 'minimal' economy, and have found that even on that I am able to save up some money for an occasional upgrade of my computer equipment, or some other minor luxury. It is rather fortunate for me that second-hand Atari equipment is rated at zero value by the swedish IRS. Else they would have taken my stuff and sold it to raise money for my (by them invented) 'debt'.

It is also fortunate that I have experience of both hardware and software debugging. I could never have aquired all the stuff shown in my system specifications if I had had to pay normal prices for it all. Buying stuff in broken condition is lots cheaper..., and some of the stuff was given to me instead of payment for repairs. Like when a guy brings me some broken hard disks or monitors (or whatever) and I fix one for each of us. A good deal for us both !

I bought my first ST 520 (the one with no internal floppy), around 1988 but nothing much happened until I got a modem (1200 bps ;-) and started browsing Atari BBSs, about a year later. That is how I got to know some other Atarians and found most of the system-specific information that is needed for coding most kinds of software that I like to work with. Over the years my Atari systems have grown and 'multiplied' to the extent described on my other pages, where you can also find download archives for some of my major software projects.

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