COMPUTING ...

CONTENTS


Beginnings

Though my formal education in computing didn't start until 1992, I'd been exposed to computers all my life. My late father, Sidney Benjamin, was an actuary; his first paper for the Institute of Actuaries back in 1962 was "The Use of Computers in Actuarial Work", an interest he brought with him to his chosen profession from Ferranti. I grew up around computers, from the vast halls of Atlas at London University, to the first large corporate mainframes, and inevitably, the arrival of an Apple 2E at home, sometime around 1978. I scoffed, but soon learned to polish scripts in Wordstar.

My first PC was an Amstrad wordprocessor, a uniquely English little machine, running CPM on a Z80 microprocessor, 512k of s-l-o-w memory and very non-standard 3" floppy disks. The Amstrad was primitive, but sure beat cutting up scripts, re-arranging the pieces, then gluing them back together for photocopying. The Amstrad was enough of a taster to start me on the terrible path to PCs and Planet Upgrade - and to teach me to Back Up My Data...


Formal Training

In 1991, the year before my father died, I reviewed Howard Rheingold's book Virtual Reality, which led me to Brenda Laurel's marvellous Computers As Theatre. I decided on a career move, and took myself out of the theatre world for the winter. I went to Brooklands College in Weybridge, Surrey, where the Department of Business Computing ran an external course for the National Computer Council (NCC)- a Certificate in Systems Analysis & Design. I figured if I couldn't hack it, I'd go back to the theatre. My father died whilst I was studying, but I passed. What was more, I thoroughly enjoyed the sudden surge of left-brain activity.

In September, I went on to take an MSc in Business Systems Analysis and Design, at City University, London UK, which I passed with distinction in November 1993. It was a wide-ranging and packed course. The following were crammed into the six months from October to May:


Core Components


Specialist Components

After the exams, I settled down to the MSc dissertation, which became titled:

The Application of System Design Methods to the Construction of Interactive Fiction

As getting the thesis up on the Web is a non-trivial exercise, I'll summarise it for now.

After examining the nature of interactive fiction in terms of human-computer interaction, I took three examples of types of interactive fiction:

and applied four analysis methods to each one. The four methods were:

The results showed up the various strengths and weaknesses of the methods, and the particular strength of SOMA frames in describing the components of a "drama", which has led directly to the initial work on my PhD.

This is covered in more detail in Research Area.

I started work on the PhD with 3-year funding from the Science and Engineering Research Council in October 1993 and expect to submit sometime in late 1996 / early 1997. I've also become involved in teaching at City, and in some external lecturing and consultancy.


Teaching

I have been teaching at City University in the following subject areas.

I've also co-authored a study Guide for the London University External Programme with my supervisor Dr. Maggie Cooper. CIS 315 - Human-Computer Interaction (Bsc Computing & Information Systems)
The study guide has led to overseas contacts and in 1995, 1996 and 1997 I've set and marked external degree examinations in HCI and given revision classes for the Singapore Institute of Management and the Informatics School of Singapore.


Consultancies

I have been engaged for the following consultancies.