Cesky: |
name: Miroslav Nemecek
born: 1/13/1963
hometown: Lanzhot
current residence: Most, Czech Republic
died: not yet in 2025 :-)
occupation: programmer, but from 2022 no longer working
retired
hobbies: programming
height: 186 cm
weight: 89 kg
mother: 1st grade teacher at primary school, now retired
father: clerk at Jednota Mikulov, no longer there
brother: tractor driver, plumber and roofer, now retired
I spent my youth in Lanzhot (Czech Republic), together with my brother Ladislav (5 years older, he was my "Big Brother"). From 1977 I studied at the grammar school in Breclav. I was very fond of electronics and basting. In 1978 I was in the national round of the Integra competition in Roznov pod Radhostem - I didn't win, but it made me more passionate about electronics, and it also caused me to go to Roznov to work later, as "the paradise of components". In 1981 I started studying at the Brno University of Technology - Faculty of Electrical Engineering, majoring in radio engineering.
I was rather drawn to digital electronics. And especially computers, which started to appear in 8-bit form. While still at university I started to build my first bus computer from components - based on Z80, with my own design of the display controller. Not much mechanical reliability in my processing, but I learned a lot.
After college in 1986, I joined Tesla Roznov as a Robotron computer technician. Immediately after that a year of military service in Strasice near Rokycany (with the communications - radios), where I met a Sharp MZ-821 computer and fell in love with it (I even bought it after the military). I spent hundreds of hours writing and disassembling ROM and Basic MZ800 interpreter. An invaluable source of information.
After returning from the military, I moved to Roznov with my wife Dasha (a building designer from Liberec), whom I met in college. In 1988 our son David was born, in 1991 our daughter Monika.
At Tesla in Roznov I was increasingly involved in the software side of computers, I met with CP/M and later DOS based computers. Again, this was followed by hours and hours of listing and analyzing operating system code, firmware and programs (a few years ago I used to throw away a stack of densely commented listings while cleaning).
The need for an easier-to-use DOS environment led me to create DOS Manager (modeled after Norton Commander), which attracted so much interest that I left Tesla in 1990, went into business, and sold DOS Manager in partnership with Golem of Roznov. It was a great success, and we participated in many exhibitions with it (especially Invexy).
All my programming was in assembler. I have always promoted the preference for more work from the programmer, when it then brings a better quality program to the user. There were other interesting things made at that time, like the game Train, which became a cult among people. Even today, years later, I'm often surprised how many people get back to me with thanks about how great and popular Train was.
The development of DOS Manager continued, and although it reached perfection in a few years in the form of version 2, interest declined rapidly - due to the advent of Windows.
So in 1996 I left DOS and started programming under Windows - first attempts in assembly language, then Delphi and finally C++. My son's need to also create something led me to the idea of creating a programming tool for children. That's how Peter Rabbit, icon programming, was born. And perhaps it is because of Peter that my son is a successful programmer today.
The original children's puzzle has grown into a powerful tool (including support for 3D graphics - many good 3D games have been created in Peter). Although the initial feedback and reviews in magazines were very favorable, the market interest eventually did not translate sufficiently to sustain a livelihood, and so I returned to the workforce in 2003.
The year 2003 was very full of changes for me - besides changing jobs I got divorced and moved from Roznov to Most (where I still live today). For 20 years I was employed at Income Praha, where I worked on the development of slot machines (working with microchips and graphics in OpenGL) and also programs for controlling large LED displays.
In 2022, I retired from my job to "retire" - 5 years pre-retirement and later full retirement. I continue to work in software engineering. For a long time I was involved in creating operating systems, but in the end I only completed an RTOS system for ARM, as a PC system proved to be beyond the capabilities of an individual. But mostly I'm now playing with microchips and creating retro computers - mainly ATmega and CH32 processors and the Raspberry Pico module (PicoVGA library and Picoino minicomputer).
