Hippy Version 3.0

hippy

hippy

Ex-Staff (retired)
Time for a reboot. So just a heads-up that beyond this week I will be enjoying an early retirement and putting my feet up, so don't be surprised when my status shows as "ex-staff" or whatever the forum software offers up.

I'm not unplugging the soldering iron, will still be continuing with PICAXE projects, will still be a member of the community, so not so much a goodbye as a change in direction.
 
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inglewoodpete

Senior Member
I am also at that stage of life, although I believe I'm a little older than you, hippy. Regardless of age, when you think you have enough resources to live a comfortable life with those most important to you, and you want to fill your time with other things, it is time to make changes. After a career in electronic engineering, which evolved into programming I took a change of direction into contemporary public sculptural art, often using PICAXEs for lighting effects: my v2.0.

Enjoy your v3.0 hippy - I'm looking forward to mine later this year and look forward to your future contributions.
 
radiosparks

radiosparks

Active member
I worked only a year longer before I hung-up the apron (IT 30+). Even years later I'm still called for solutions to system problems.

I'm only a newbie here using these great little chips, but I've always liked your code snippets and comments.

Good Luck and the best of health in the coming years.

I've never stopped learning...🤓... time will fly by faster than ever.
 
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pxgator

Senior Member
hippy said:
Time for a reboot. So just a heads-up that beyond this week I will be enjoying an early retirement and putting my feet up, so don't be surprised when my status shows as "ex-staff" or whatever the forum software offers up.

I'm not unplugging the soldering iron, will still be continuing with PICAXE projects, will still be a member of the community, so not so much a goodbye as a change in direction.
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Thank you for all you have done for us. Hope you have a enjoyable retirement.
 
Aries

Aries

New Member
My advice to anyone retiring has always been - find something you enjoy doing, and do it. DO NOT just put your feet up. In your case, with an inquiring mind and interest in solving problems, you would go mad with nothing to do. I have been retired (i.e. made redundant) for getting on for 20 years, and I'm still finding applications for Picaxe around the home. We all look forward to your continuing contributions.
 
erco

erco

Senior Member
We love Hippy in all versions! Enjoy retirement but don't stray too far Brother man! You have always been an inspiration to me and many others here. Hope to see you continue to weigh in and contribute mightily as the incredible resource you have always been.
 
lbenson

lbenson

Senior Member
Hippy--many thanks for all your contributions--concise code, insight and analysis about problems, and especially your effect on building the community here. It's a community where if I post that I'm stuck on something before going to bed in North America, there's a good chance that by the time I wake up, someone in the UK or New Zealand or Australia or elsewhere will have posted the solution.

Enjoy your retirement. I've been enjoying mine for 25+ years now. Still coding. Still wiring. Having added circuit board design to my hobbyist skill set.
 
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papaof2

Senior Member
Thank you for all the knowledge and experience you've shared with us.

Enjoy your reboot into a new lifestyle!

I've officially been retired for 25 years but I kept finding work (Maybe work kept finding me?) along the way. I enrolled in a local university to complete the degree I never finished and before that semester's classes started another division of the company I retired from called me about being a consultant. That lasted a little over a year and then the company that handled consultants for my original employer needed someone to handle the laptop & printer warehouse for their international consultant business. Then I was an independent consultant doing Palm software for a couple of start-up companies, then I discovered that I had a knack for writing "End of the World as We Know It" fiction and I've published 13 books on Amazon in the past 7 years. I think that was 4 "retirements" ;-) And I did complete my degree in the first three years of all that: Summa Cum Laude

May you have an equally interesting and enjoyable "retirement"!
 
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buzzlightyear

Member
Best of luck in your future endeavours Hippy! You have been extremely generous with your time and patience here, and on every occasion when I could not quite get my head around something it was always you who shed the light and often contributed code that I’d never have thought of. So a massive thanks from me, enjoy your retirement and I’m glad to hear you will still be around. I hope they got you a nice gold watch or equivalent :)
 
fernando_g

fernando_g

Senior Member
I join the congratulatory chorus, a well deserved one.
The instances when I requested assistance, you were one who answered quickly and with elegant snippets and routines.
I have also retired, and as others have previously mentioned, the key to maintain the physical and mental health is to keep oneself active.

Please, please, amongst your activities please continue to support this Forum. Just for the fun of it.
 
hippy

hippy

Ex-Staff (retired)
Many thanks for all the kind words and it's been a pleasure for me too. It definitely isn't going to be a 'numbed with boredom' future for me; I'm not sure how it could be with a love of electronics, programming and hacking. I have a lot thank to that Philips EE peg board for. And I guess I hit it right leaving school just as the first micros started to become mainstream.

'AI' is meant to be the next big thing so maybe I'll start on a 'PICAXE BS Generator' or 'Grumpy Old Man Sim' :)
 
hippy

hippy

Ex-Staff (retired)
I think it might have been an EE-08 but not exactly sure. It was probably pre 1970, had the green bowl for holding the light bulb, a couple of old fashioned pointer-knobs for pots, crystal earpiece, no speakers, if I remember right.
 
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julianE

Senior Member
All the very best in retirement Hippy, I was very fortunate to retire very young and have never known a minute of boredom.
 
fernando_g

fernando_g

Senior Member
On this side of the pond, it was the Radio Shack Science Fair. It had 3 germanium transistors plus a detector diode.
 
kranenborg

kranenborg

Senior Member
hippy said:
I think it might have been an EE-08 but not exactly sure. It was probably pre 1970, had the green bowl for holding the light bulb, a couple of old fashioned pointer-knobs for pots, crystal earpiece, no speakers, if I remember right.
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Well Hippy, you are most welcome then to jump on the Philips EE boat again to return to familiar grounds ;), since both you and Philips EE have progressed from your EE8 childhood time and even right at this time there is an active community (including myself) around it (and Picaxe fits very well in Philips EE). But you will have different plans of course .. .

But returning to the topic: Thanks for the support and inspiration, apart from your technical competence ownership you are also an excellent tutor by often challenging us on our initial presumptions about the solution direction, hope you will be around in that same role in the future!

/Jurjen
 
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johnlong

Senior Member
Hope you have a long and happy retirement like many others on this forum a big thanks for your insites and tutelage.
ps will miss the #ollockings for been stupid
 
hippy

hippy

Ex-Staff (retired)
The AXE091 Developer Board has become my EE replacement board these days. Bread board which wasn't around in those days is much more flexible and easier to use.

One of the things one sometimes wonders, and perhaps more so as the years advance, is "what have I done in my life" ? Helping others has always been my measure of that so I am delighted I have done so and that others have taken on that task. And it's not all been one way; I have also been enlightened and helped as well. As I have said many times in the past; this has been the most enjoyable and friendly community I have encountered and I thank everyone who is, and has been, a member for that..
 
administrator

administrator

Technical Support
Staff member
On behalf of all the staff at Revolution Education we would like to wish Hippy all best wishes for his retirement. He has been a valued member of our staff for the last 20+ years and it’s true to say that both the PICAXE product range, and the PICAXE community, simply wouldn’t be the same without his past input.

Although you will know his wisdom mainly from within this forum’s support posts, Hippy has also been extensively involved with the development, testing and debugging of various generations of firmware and software - and his determination to always perfect a product before release has been invaluable.

On behalf of all the staff, customers and community, thank you.
 
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wapo54001

Senior Member
hippy, your announcement made me think back to "the beginning" for me with the Picaxe. I went to look and found that my earliest post was Dec 3, 2006. One sentence from the first paragraph of that first post says it all -- "Please forgive my lack of understanding, for I am a beginner with this kind of chip!" and boy, I wasn't kidding.

Back in that day I think there were three of you answering user questions -- one fellow who didn't have a deep understanding of the subject, then BeanieBots who could be quite acerbic if he felt the question wasn't an intelligent one, and then there was you. I always prayed that you would be the one to answer my naive questions because you were always not only extremely knowledgeable but also invariably kind and matter-of-fact no matter how outrageous the original query, and you've been that way without exception over all these years. Truly, I think you have set the tone for this entire forum pretty much since its inception. I hope things can continue as before, but in my humble opinion you will always be the guy who set the standard. Very best wishes.
 
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dennis

Member
Hippy thanks for all your help. back in 2010 you helped me understand how to direct drive a 4 digit 7 segment display - amazing softwater and a great explanation. I hope you have a great "semi" retirement and have lots of interesting things to do. Kind Regards Dennis
 
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Jeremy Leach

Senior Member
Wishing you all the best Hippy ! It's been a long time since I was an avid member on here, but it was great to be part of the initial PICAXE journey. It was really exciting and I learnt a lot, and you were a massive part of making it all so interesting and inspiring. I've got deeper into C and dsPIC in recent years, but really enjoyed the PICAXE experience, and have always seen the real value of higher level devices where it's a breeze from the user's point of view. I hope you enjoy whatever it is you want to do after such a rich contribution to this area.
 
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inglewoodpete

Senior Member
Jeremy Leach said:
Wishing you all the best Hippy ! It's been a long time since I was an avid member on here, but it was great to be part of the initial PICAXE journey. It was really exciting and I learnt a lot, and you were a massive part of making it all so interesting and inspiring. I've got deeper into C and dsPIC in recent years, but really enjoyed the PICAXE experience, and have always seen the real value of higher level devices where it's a breeze from the user's point of view. I hope you enjoy whatever it is you want to do after such a rich contribution to this area.
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Jeremy Leach - now there's a blast from the past! Someone who was not afaid to make PICAXE work hard.

Like you, I have also evolved into C and, slightly differently, PIC32s. However, if the task is simpler, I still use PICAXEs, with a stock of 08M2, 14M2, 20X2 and 28X2s to hand. I still love the fast development time for PICAXE projects.
 
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