John Was One Of The First 'Hackers'?

Little did John think, when he joined the British Institute of Management's 'Computer Study Group' in 1964 what the future might bring. In those days, computers were massive installations taking up as much room as a football field or more.

Hobby Computer Pioneer

But, only twelve years later, in 1976, John was putting the electronic components together to make his own desk-top micro-computer. 

Building and operating micro-computers was a very new hobby for a small group of enthusiast - mostly engineers, like John. In those days if you wanted to type words in upper and lower case, you had to make your own 'modification'. If you wanted a numeric keypad, you had to make your own.

Qualified As A Systems Analyst and Computer Programmer Too...

By that time, in addition to his other professional qualifications and experience, John had become a qualified systems analyst and had learned to program computers in a variety of languages, including machine code.

He sought out and was trained by computer manufacturers Honeywell, IBM, ICL, Olivetti, General Electric and The National Computing Centre.

In turn, he was also teaching courses on computing and programming.

Computer Audit Pioneer

He was asked by ITT/STC to pioneer the Computer Audit function for them This led to him writing a Top Secret 'close circulation' manual on how to test (break into or 'hack' into) their main-frame computer installations. These had to be secure to Ministry of Defence standards because of the 'hush-hush' work the Company was contracted to do.

One of John's tests (for example) revealed some major loop-holes which meant that a vast number of programs had to be revised and re-compiled by the computer deparment, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. But the important thing was that the Company was informed first and could 'close their defences' before anybody could take advantage.

Trained A 'New Breed' Of Computer Auditors

As a direct result of writing the Manual, John was then asked to train other ITT Computer Auditors from around the World. He ran two of training courses, one in Brussels and one just outside London.

Before John developed his computer audit methodologies, the standard audit approach to computers was known as 'the black box' method. In other words, the auditors carried their checks up to the computer (the black box) and then carried on with the output from the computer. What went on within the computer was ignored.

John's approach was different. John followed the processes through the computer. Of course that meant he had to learn binary, octal and hexadecimal programming languages as well as a whole bunch of 'higher level' programming languages (e.g. Cobol, Fortran, Algol, etc.) But then he codified much of the programming code into tools that other computer auditors could use - and he gave them his 'toolbox' when he ran the training courses. 

Spreading the Word

In the mean time, John founded one of the very first hobby computer clubs, and in 1978 started a PR campaign to bring public awareness of the 'micro-computer revolution' and to attract new members to the club.

John's PR campaign also brought him enquiries from people all over the World on how to go about setting up their own computer clubs.

Of course, John had created a Constititution and an Operating Manual for his own Club. He freely distributed copies of these to everyone who enquired.

The result was that new Hobby Computer Clubs started springing up all around the World.

Not Just A Hobby... Business Applications Too...

Although it started out as a hobby, because you couldn't do very much practically with the earliest do-it-yourself computers, John very soon turned it to practical use.

He helped many Club Members who were business owners to create systems and write the computer programs which integrated with those new systems. These included just about every business application you could think of, from credit control, purchase and sales ledgers, general ledgers, inventory control, planning, etc.,

In fact, John and another engineer friend created probably one of the first, if not the first, integrated software package combining a spreadsheet, word-processor and database. They actually created if for their own use, and in order to put it together quickly they 'bought in' and integrated some 'utilities' (sort/merge, etc.) written by other people. Although John wrote the database program, they needed the other utilities to make the integrated package work. The result was a highly satisfactory tool, but it couldn't be marketed without clearing a lot of copyright issues, and neither John nor his friend could be bothered.

A Business Building Strategy...

The PR Campaign marked John out as a 'thought leader' in small business computing.

This attracted many new clients to John's computer consultancy and dealership business - a business which he started in 1976 and closed in 2002 - a very healthy 26 year life.

Now... Right Up To Date...

And now, John is powering forward still, not only staying abreast of the latest technologies - building websites, blogs, membership sites, forums, support desks, etc. - but also still helping and coaching others.

In fact, in 2007, John was co-leading Michael Port's and Mitch Meyerson's "Traffic School", with 'traffic-meister' Jeff Johnston. Great fun, wonderful people.

The Exhibits Below...

Just for your interest and amusement, appended below are a couple of the newspaper articles which John's 1978 PR campaign generated for the Club.

And, as you can see, John - always a 'thought leader' and 'pioneer' - was also lecturing the British Computer Society on this new face and the future of computing.