OZ On Line — Colin Dixon's Journey

The 1970s: The Foundation

The journey began in the late 1970s during my Physics Degree. My first encounter with computing was with a true mainframe, a DEC PDP-10. Programming was a tactile, manual process involving card readers and clunky line editors on a terminal. To even get the machine started, one often had to manually type in a bootstrap routine. The new PDP-11, which was called a "mini computer," was physically much smaller but more powerful.

In my third year, that PDP-11 provided a moment of magic. It self-booted one day to reveal two games hidden on its massive 12-inch, low-capacity hard drive: the legendary text adventure Zork and the classic Moon Lander. This experience, moving beyond the pure calculation of my Fortran and Pascal studies to interactive entertainment, sparked a lifelong passion for technology’s vast potential.

The 1980s: Education and Entrepreneurship

My first teaching job at Rockhampton Grammar School in 1980 put me in charge of a classroom with a PDP-11 and eight terminals. After moving to Shepparton, and with no official computing curriculum in Victoria, the pioneering class I taught was officially designated as "typing," but in reality, I taught classes of up to 30 students the fundamentals of programming in BASIC. The eight Commodore 64s I won for the school were a huge boost, especially with their graphics capabilities. Personally, I owned a BBC Micro, which had a much more refined and structured version of BASIC.

This deep involvement in the personal computer boom, and my experience as a specialist consultant for BBC Microcomputer networks, culminated in launching my own business in 1986: Veritas Computers in Albury. The retail outlet thrived until the 'recession we had to have' in the early 1990s prompted a shift to solo consulting.

The 1990s: Pioneering the Australian Internet

Inspired by AOL, I registered OZ On Line and began hosting websites from a Compaq SystemPro 486 server over a 56k dial-up line with a dedicated IP. Before Google, we used AltaVista. Before social media, we had IRC, ICQ, and Bulletin Boards. I built early databases for real estate clients and created the first HTML pages by hand-coding with text editors, most notably the iconic Australian-made HotDog Editor. It was only later that WYSIWYG editors arrived. As business grew, the operation moved to Dragnet, an early Albury-based ISP, and connected to their T1 line. Boy, have we come a long way.

The 2000s: Evolution to Service Broker

The business evolved into a technology broker as ServiceBroker.com.au. Using tools like Microsoft FrontPage made WYSIWYG editing easier, and we built solutions with ASP databases and client portals. This was also an era of recognising the value of digital real estate; the domain `oze.com.au` once drew a $15,000 offer (I countered with $25k, but no sale). That domain, a valuable three-letter property, now powers new projects like music.oze.au.

The 2010s: A Decade of Mobile Consulting and Teaching

The decade began with a memorable year in the Kimberly. In 2010, I spent 10 months at Derby District High School (DDHS) as the ITAS (now ATAS), teaching Literacy and Numeracy to a group of 55 Year 10-12 Aboriginal students. With sporadic attendance, I had time to become the school's internal relief teacher, help with a full network upgrade, and raid the computer graveyard to return two dozen written-off computers to classrooms. This broke some rules and wasn't popular with admin once they discovered I was a system admin! It was a great year where I also started my first YouTube channel.

The rest of the decade was spent as a mobile consultant from a caravan, travelling Australia, following the weather for windsurfing, and taking casual maths teaching assignments. Staying connected from remote places like Ningaloo Reef was a constant challenge, as documented here.

The 2020s: Resilience, Reinvention, and the AI Frontier

After settling in Mallacoota in 2018, the major bushfires of 2020 became a pivotal moment. I started Dronecraft to document the recovery. The COVID shutdown that followed lasted effectively for two years. While it had a minimal effect on me personally, many small businesses were lost and many are still recovering. Now, with things looking up again, the AI explosion has reignited that original pioneering spirit. With new domains like `dixon.au`, `oze.au`, and `ozol.au` secured, it feels like the 90s all over again. Exciting times are ahead!