Page with information and data about the web site and the maintainer.
Nickname: drHirudo - This nickname I use since 1997! It is a Latin word learned during the studies.
Real Name: Ventzislav Tzvetkov - Yep, that is me and my approved name.
Birth-date: 25-Jan-1979 - Late 1970-ies, when the technology became really interesting.
Degree: Masters degree - Graduated from "University of Forestry" - Sofia in 2002.
E-mail: - Feel free to contact me on this address.
Love to read: Science fiction - Like old stories which tell us that anybody will be able to fly in Space by 2001.
Listen to: All kinds of melodic sound - Music is the best drug and Amiga remixes rule.
Favorite movie: Trainspotting - Because I prefer to choose than being passive.
Cult series: Sledge Hammer - If all the cops were like him, the crime would be history by now.
Favorite series: My Name is Earl, Lost, War of the Worlds and Futurama - I can watch them over and over again.
Preferred cartoon: Cow and Chicken - Fun to watch, easy to understand, fine for relax and good for a laugh.
Best book: Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverburg - nice read and very stylish.
Most used slogan: Trust me, I know what I am doing- And it is true when programming.
Programming languages: Assembler, BASIC, C, HTML, Pascal, REXX - the coding is like driving a car. Once you study it, the brand doesn't matter.
Sports: Biking, Swimming, Karate, Tennis - I even acquired yellow belt in Shotokan.
Sexual orientation: Heterosexual - But I have nothing against the others.
Some machines with which I had touch for longer time:
Pravetz 8D - Bulgarian Oric Atmos clone was my first home computer. Purchased on 25-Jan-1990, only a keyboard at first without any peripheral devices, I was forced to type programs from
magazines and when switched off I had to retype them again, because for some reason the tape did not work at all and I never used it with tapes.
Later I purchased disk controller and bought 5 1/4 inch disk drive. It gave me first touches to the coding, from the included book with the machine, to the magazines and programming books which had
descriptions of the program flow. In 1994 I traded it for about 50 Amiga disks, when I did not have much time for it and the emulators of older machines began to appear.
Pravetz 8C - Bulgarian Apple //e clone with 128K memory. The Pravetz 8D even with good graphic and sound capabilities, lacked the wide software base of the
Apple II compatibles, which were present at school as Pravetz 82 and Pravetz 8M. That is why in 1991 a Pravetz 8C along with monochrome monitor and 5 1/4 inch disk drive came to my home.
Later other peripherals were attached to it - Analog Joystick for games, additional Z80 card (CP/M). This computer gave me some more programming experience also English knowledge, because of the many
text adventure games on it. Also introduced me to the CP/M and the BBS world and the first C compiler (Aztec C). In 1993 I took its PSU to use it for my IBM XT clone and settled it along with 200
disks on the basement, from where it was stolen.
Turbo XT - Taiwanese IBM XT clone with two speed modes - Normal (4.77MHz) and Turbo (8MHz) and monochrome monitor. This was my first machine with more than 128KB memory, which I bought second hand. It had 640KB memory, 5 1/4 inch 360KB floppy drive and CGA card. I learned DOS very deeply on it and also some script programming, and even games even if slow. I had this only for about 3 months (Aug-Oct 1993), when I moved to the Amiga and sold the PC with all the disks.
Commodore 64 - Original grey C64 with the old SID sound chip. I aqcuired the computer in 1995. First I used with tape, later with 1541 Floppy drive. This computer have very big software base, but they are not the quality of the Amiga games and programs, so in 1997 it slowly faded away from my home and I sold it. In 2008 it was given to me again, but only with tape and no monitor.
Amiga 500 - Commodore Amiga 500 with 512KB Chip and 512KB Fast (Slow) memory (1MB total). This was my first serious computer. I used it with external floppy drives, sampler, printer,
Kickstart 2.04. Awesome sound, great graphics and nice software were the reasons I used it till 1999, when I upgraded to later Amiga models.
Amiga
600 - Commodore Amiga 600 but upgraded with CD1200 PCMCIA controller, M-Tec 630-42 Turboboard (68030/42MHz) 2MB Chip Memory and 8MB Fast, Kickstart 3.0. It was heating too fast. I used it from Aug 1999 till Nov 1999 when I sold it and ordered brand new Amiga 1200 Magic.
Amiga 1200 - Escom Amiga 1200 Magic, with Blizzard 1220/4 with 6MB Total RAM, and the CD controller from the A600. Later upgraded with FPU - 68881 and then Viper 1230/28MHz Turboboard + 68882 FPU, additional 4 way IDE adapter.
Amiga 1000 -
Commodore Amiga 1000, the first Amiga model ever released, with 256KB expansion, 512KB total RAM and Kickstart loaded from disk. It's still on my Desktop and works flawlessly. The keyboard nest under it, makes it not taking much space.
Hewlett Packard Vectra VL - Ordinary IBM-PC clone with Pentium III processor clocked at 550 MHz, 256 MB RAM, Soundcard, 3Com Lan ethernet card, 8 MB Video memory, HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-4160B, One 8 GB Maxtor HD (FAT32) and one 80 GB SeaGate HD (NTFS) - all this is integrated in a tiny (little bigger than the A1000's) desktop case. It was the machine I used to connect to the Internet via local network, when I had no LAN Card on the Amigas. It was connected to the Amiga 4000 via 4-Wire LapLink cable through the parallel ports.
Amiga 4000 - Commodore Amiga 4000/040 - 25MHz with 16MB RAM on the motherboard and 52Xspeed Teac CD Writer. Internal HD disk drive and external disk drive, external 56Kbps Atrie modem, 40GB HD, Axelen Mouse, Sega controller pad, NewTek Digi-View Gold Video Digitizer.
microAmigaOne-C - PPC 750GX/800MHz powered machine with 256MB RAM, two DVD-Writers, 500 GB Seagate Barracuda hard drive and 80 GB Hitachi HDS72808 hard drive. My main machine since February
2005, when I bought it along with AmigaOS 4.0 online from Vesalia (Germany). The first PPC only machine I have touch with and the shown was overwhelming. In 2007 its onboard LAN adapter was hit by
flash, but its still connected to the Internet with PCI 3-Com Lan card. Currently connected to LG FlatTron M228 WA flat screen with PS/2 optical mouse and standard Cyrillic keyboard, 2 Speedlink USB Joysticks and Chronos USB Memory card reader.
Nokia N-Gage - My first mobile phone. It has many great games but sadly the battery is not that great.
Before having any computer at home I was mostly interested in handheld games. Literally hundreds passed my hands back then. I had only several, but was a handhelds trader, which allowed me to check and play so many. Most noticeable games of which I still remember the names are SOS Titanic, Funny Waiter, Nu Pogodi, Hunting, Oktopod, Monkey Kong, Avtoslalom.
I used to have various hobbies, but my main hobby since 1988 is developing games and utilities for various platforms, but mostly Amiga. Of course my gaming experience reflects during developing and anyone can see that I mostly focus on the gameplay than doing graphically impressive effects or enjoyable sounds. For the utilities I try to implement more usability, easier user interface and descriptive manual, than trying to add useless options, random features or buggy code.
During the last twenty years I played so many sport, computer, video, console, handheld, card and pinball games so I probably don't even remember some of them, that's why I will have to skip my favorite games list, because of several reasons, most significant of which are:
1) Some of the favorites are available for different platforms, but I mostly prefer one particular version.
2) For sure there always will be some missing.
3) The list would be pretty big.
Cars I have driven: Volvo 144, Moskvitch 412, Mercedes 190D, VolksWagen Polo, Peugeot Partner, Ford Tourneo, Mazda 323F, UAZ-452, UAZ-469, Peugeot 308, Peugeot 208, Peugeot 301, Peugeot 308 SW, and many other, all of them with stick shift.
For the creation of this site I used various software, and mostly Amiga hardware.
This site was established in autumn 2001 even if the concept dates some years before. It was as request of people wanting to learn more about me, my works or both. Firstly it was hosted on DalNet
servers, where they gave 5 MB webspace for the members and I used to be a regular on the IRC. After the departure of the webhosting services on DalNet, it was moved to Tripod servers. The Tripod interface sucked a lot, so in August 2002 it was moved to Techno-Link servers, where they
gave 1 gigabyte webspace, but it was a complete disaster, since this big hosting servers were accessable only locally. In September 2002 it was moved to the Brinkster servers. While doing military
services, I wasn't able to update it for six months, and it was deleted. Some files were lost. In April 2003, most of the files were restored from other sources (not all) and the site was
reuploaded to Brinkster. In October 2003 it was moved to Hit servers. In the middle of November, same year, the Hit servers were for upgrade and the site wasn't updated for more than a month,
although the new design was ready. Later problems with access to these servers made in January 2004 the site to move again, to the web1000 servers. Since the middle of March 2004, I was unable to
update the web1000 hosted pages, so I was back to the Hit servers, until to the beggining of August 2004 when I moved to the Edula hosting. As of November 2004 I returned to Hit.bg again and planned
to not move anymore, but later Kojote offered me host on his servers at PDROMs.de, so I accepted and since January 2005 to September 2008 it was hosted on a friends site and the Hit.bg was used only for
redirecting. Since 23-September-2008 the site have its own host and domain at http://hirudov.com
During these years, it turned to be more software titles, reviews and information providing site, than just personal page, like in it's current state. It even have potential for personal blog site, and depending
on my own motivation it may turn into a blog some time in the future.
The about section still stays, keeping the site complete. I will work to stay here more long years - providing worth substance to many people.
More history is available at Older news
I am intersted in everything technical, cool, and good looking and it shows on the pages.