I started out as an accountant from 1970 to 1984.
The arrival of the IBM XT computer was to change the face of computing and the direction I would head in
The accounting industry relied on computer bureaus because the cost of owning a computer was initially prohibitive, as was the space required to house a mainframe.
As technology advanced the cost of computers decreased, making it affordable for accountants to own a computer.
At the cost of $65,000 plus you could buy a DEC PDP-11/23 plus the cost of the software.
The market changed as accountants then became the Bureau for processing clients accounts receivables/payables plus payrolls.
It was during this time, my involvement shifted from accounting to software development, as the software I was using needed some improvements.
My desire for a better accounting system led to my involvement as a contract software developer for a firm called ‘BCL’ who provided accounting software for most of the Chartered Accountants in New Zealand.
One of the projects I led was the development of a module for GST as New Zealand prepared for this new indirect method of collecting a tax.
Many years later, I find that the software is still in use today.
The arrival of the IBM XT computer was to change the face of computing and the direction I would head in
In these formative years of porting software from DEC PDP-11’s to the IBM DOS platform for accountants, my direction would change.
Developing software was no easy task, as a lot of the modules on the PDP-11 were written in MACRO assembler, being a low-level language that I ported to a higher-level language for portability.
In the mid-1980s, IBM released a desktop computer known as the XT based on a DOS operating system.
IBM never thought this would rival its larger computers until Bill Gates came along and saw a future for this market.
Through my involvement with DEC PDP-11 computers, I became involved in porting software to this new platform.
My skills in this area led to something I never imagined.
In 1986 PSI launched a PC clone onto the market for a cost of $5,500 slashing $9,500 off the IBM XT cost.
IBM never imagined this low-powered computer with twin floppy drives would compete with the hardware market.
At a cost of around $15,000, the IBM XT was destined for the home market. The advent of Software like Supercalc made it possible for accountants to use XTs effectively.
Then the cloning of the XT began an economic transformation in the computer industry shifting the market from accountants to the end-user.
In 1986 PSI launched a PC clone onto the market for a cost of $5,500 slashing $9,500 off the IBM XT cost.
The price was a major factor; demand for these clones drove PSI’s rapid growth, with sales exceeding $5M per year.
Instead of importing built-up units, we assembled computers which meant carrying high stock volumes.
The goalposts always changed with the new computers released onto the market.
As people saw the opportunity for a quick dollar, the market became saturated.
The New Zealand market wasn’t large enough to sustain the volumes selling on price, creating a big shakeout in the market, including PSI back in 1995.
The computer industry became a commodity market, shifting to the whiteware market where it mainly remains today.
There is a lot of parallel importing happening within NZ as it’s cheaper to avoid the expensive middle man in NZ and buy directly from overseas suppliers.
The downside to parallel importing is often at the expense of support
After PSI, I became interested in the fledgling Internet industry, when many doubted the web’s viability.
At first I started a venture called Compumedia
There were only dial-up connections with connection costs ranging from $5.00 per hour or less.
Web hosting was not cheap costing $100.00 per month for 1MB of disk quota.
The web was initially primitive and not very fast.
I cut my teeth on HTML progressing to a language widely used on the web called ‘PHP’
Simon Weller shared my vision, so it wasn’t long before we formed NZServers to cater to this emerging market.
This was something I fell into as the result of frustration with the limitations of the accounting software I was using.
I attended conferences raising ideas for better solutions. I was always knocked back with the answer ‘That’s not possible”
Not possible was never part of my vocabulary.
With a lot of hard work, I mastered the software language Dibol and soon came up with solutions for the impossible.
- High-Level Languages
Dibol, Cobol, Sibol, Pascal, Basic, PHP - Low-Level Language
Macro Assembler II - Operating Systems
RT-11, TSX Plus, DOS, Windows, Linux, Android, IPAD IOS 7 - Database – MYSQL, CTS300
- CMS
Fastpage, GetSimple CMS, WordPress - E-Commerce
Oscommerce, OpenCart
I also have a broad range of skills across Microsoft and CorelDRAW products, versioning systems, and other software.
Mike Wilkinson Photographer
1975 – 1982
I loved the thought of manipulating light, expressing myself through photography.
At first, it was a hobby where I experimented with pinhole cameras, developing film to printing photographs using a contact printing method.
My first real camera was a 35mm Ashai Pentax SP500 known today as a ‘Full Frame Camera’.
The quality of Kodachrome or Ilford Pan F films allowed my imagination to run wild.
I loved photography and soon found the need for a larger format camera.
This lead to my dream camera called a Hasselblad 500cm
(A Hasselblad camera described as the one used on the moon by Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin was auctioned March 22, 2014 by the WestLicht Gallery in Austria for almost $1 million)
Hasselblad cameras were not cheap but not $1 million to buy.
A hobby turned into a part-time job to pay for it, which, in the end, became a chore.
Today I enjoy photography once again as a hobby. With the digital age, I love the new technology but still find myself using manual techniques to achieve the results I want.
My photography career:-
- Part-time business specialising in wedding photography.
- Traded under the names ‘Mikonie Photographics’, ‘Harrod and Chambers’ and ‘Mike Wilkinson Photographer’
- Involved originally with large format cameras (6x6cm), Hasselblad Cameras.
- Developed negatives including the printing of colour prints.
- Embraced the new digital cameras when 2 megapixels was seen as huge but I knew then this was the end of the negative film.
I have used my photographic skills on some websites.
