What is this site for?

Sharing information

John Steele worked in IT from 1963 until he retired at the end of 2018. He initially worked as a hardware designer for Ferranti in their Industrial Process Control division. His initial task was to design the Argus 400 computer logic, one of the world’s first computers to use the then new Integrated Circuits also designed in-house. He then became the team lead for interfacing most of the peripheral devices including printers, magnetic tape decks, paper tape and punched card readers and punches as well as devices to read signals from, and to send controls to, industrial plants. He later joined another company and became team lead for the team that wrote the multi-user Operating System for a multi user data processing system. He designed an multi-user dealing system for banks to use to trade financial products which rapidly developed into a multi-million pound a year business and took him to Japan to support their trading partner there Later he broadened his expertise to include both local and wide area networking (LAN and WAN) with a specific interest and expertise in system security leading to many projects for industry and especially local and national government projects where system security was paramount. He had regular contact with the UK national security body.

Over many years he has collected many IT related programs and tutorials, of interest to himself and perhaps helpful to you, and which are shared on this website. Other items have been contributed by friends. All programs listed and all documents, hosted on this site, are (unless otherwise stated) free to access for non commercial use – see individual copyright notices. Suggestions and corrections are welcomed!

Many links to external sites for programs, and other technical information, have been collated under a number of categories and are accessed via the menus in the page header so they can easily be found. Most are free but where there is a charge this is noted (the information given was believed to be correct when the item was listed but may have changed). The content is reviewed and updated where necessary. The structure of these menus also is evolving so if you can’t find something it may have moved – just ask if you need help.

John has also created a number of technical support documents and given presentations over the years to interested local groups, mainly to GXCC members at their meetings. His most recent documents, and presentations given at GXCC meetings, are available on this site in the hope that they are useful to others. Further documents are regularly added and others are are planned. Other suggestions for guides (or even contributions) are welcomed and should be submitted to John for consideration.

John has also added links to his extensive experience, and to video interviews that have been recorded, that cover his career and some more technical issues on things he has worked on.

All documents, hosted on this site, are (unless otherwise stated) free to access for non commercial use – see individual copyright notices.

Please inform John if you find any out of date information or any errors.

How to use this site

The menus at the top of the page each contain pull-down lists leading to sub topics. It is hoped that these are self explanatory. They include links to:

Who is John Steele?

John has worked as a specialist in many areas, both as an employee and as a self employed contractor, starting in 1963. During this time he has acquired extensive professional expertise in many aspects of Information Technology. Initially he began as a hardware/logic design engineer at Ferranti Wythenshawe and designed one of the first integrated circuit computers in 1963. Later in 1971 at Computer Technology he led the software team writing the kernel for a UNIX like operating system. Still later while working at Data Logic he designed a financial services Dealing Room prior to the “big bang” conversion of banks and other financial institutions to electronic trading of currencies and stocks and shares and which rapidly became a £40 million pounds a year business. This led to a two year Technical support role in Japan to assist their partner company there. More recently he specialised into the design of complex high availability local and wide area network architectures with a need for strong inherent system security for important, and very security sensitive, systems. A CV and other personal history is provided via the menu item John Steele.

This website was originally created so that John could advertise his professional skills to clients but has now evolved into this resource listing many useful computer related guides and links to programs that can be shared with the world.

John can be contacted via email using the menu item -> John Steele/Contact John

Why Soroban Systems?

Why choose “Soroban” for the domain name for this site?

As part of his career (see his CV for more detail) John spent two years (from 1988 to 1990) working in Japan. Soroban is the Japanese name for their abacus which was still being widely used in Japan, even in the back offices of some banks, in 1990. John became self employed in 1992 and, when choosing a name for his Limited Company, Soroban Systems reminded him of his time working there.

John retained the company name for many years and created the UK domain soroban.co.uk when these became affordable and readily available. The initial limited company was closed down when he became a full time employee again but he later went back to a part time self employed role and Soroban Systems Limited was still available and so John grabbed the company name back again. Now he has retired the limited company has once again been closed.

John has always retained control of the soroban.co.uk domain since it was first created.

Page updated 09 Jan 2025