So here are five things about me that most people don't know:

1. I got my first computer at 13, in 1983, and it was a Texas Instruments TI/99-4A. Soon replaced by a Commodore Vic-20 and later by a Commodore 64. At 15 I wrote a complete macro-assembler for the C64 coding the 6510 code-machine bit by bit. I started earning from developing software in 1986.
2. From 1992 to 1995 I wrote a C++ -based flight simulator for MS-DOS. It was named FGFLY and allowed you to play with US Navy carriers, the F-14 Tomcat and the F/A-18. It always stayed at prototype stage, but a bit playable (I got up to the simulation of a massive attack to a USN carrier by former-USSR Bears and Badgers). I started writing it because I was a big fan of realistic flight simulation (at the time most of the existing games were too simple) and so FGFLY included a realistic cockpit, flight model and weapon behaviour - it also featured Gouraud shading, textures and digital sounds including doppler effect when airplanes passed by. It was pretty advanced for the time. As it was also a big programming exercise for me, I did everything on my own, from scratch - I remember that the first routine I wrote was drawLine(). It was written entirely in C/C++, compiled with Watcom C++ (a professional compiler that included a 32-bit memory model extender for MS-DOS). After the FGFLY experience, I decided that I didn't like C++ at all.
3. Even though it's something shameful for an italian, until a few years ago I didn't drink either alcoholics or coffee. In recent years I've started with wine, but just a bit, merely for gastronomic / cultural reasons. Still I don't drink coffee, I'm more on the tea side. Forgot to say: I hate beer, even the smell of it (I suppose that this will break any existing or future relationship with NetBeans and JavaPolis guys).
4. Once upon a time I liked soccer (and I was a supporter of Genoa Cricket and Football Club, the oldest soccer team in Italy), but I've been pissed off by scandals and the too-much-talk about it around ten years ago - so now I hate it. And yes, I still hate it in spite of Italy being World Champion.
5. I don't like noisy and crowded places and generally speaking city life. My target is to move to a small and quite village in the countryside when that lifestyle will be compatible with my job.

I tag Emmanuele Sordini, Robin Mulkers, Cristian Colonello, Ugo Landini and Marcello Teodori.

Technorati tags: blog-tag, Fabrizio Giudici, fgfly