This abbreviated history of Sector Software is here to demonstrate that we are not one of the computer companies who set up yesterday, put Millennium or Year 2000 in their title or advertising literature, trade on the skill of being able to install a few programs and are gone tomorrow. Don't be put off by our depth and breadth of computer experience, we are often told that we charge far too little for our services, our excuse is that we are driven by the love of computers rather than money, being innovative and solving problems that others have avoided, or quoted silly prices to work on, are far more interesting, our bank manager does not share this view though.

Sector Software was founded in 1985 by myself David Batty, to provide software for the Sinclair QL computer. I originally bought a ZX81 computer on 8th November 1982 and played the breakout game I bought with it, I then read the manual that came with the computer and was hooked, I taught myself programming from the ZX81 manual. I did not know of anyone in the area who even owned a computer or knew what they could do, so I had nobody to discuss computers with, computers were a bit of a specialist subject in those days. I started working flat out learning how to write software I graduated to the Sinclair Spectrum and then to the Sinclair QL.

In 1985 I went in to WH Smiths in Preston where I saw a typing tutor for sale for £29.95. I told the shop assistant who I regularly chatted to, that the software was over priced and that I could write better myself. He challenged me and I set about writing Touch Typist to prove my claim.
Two weeks later after working solidly on the project, I took a program in to show him and said that he was amazed that, after only two weeks, it was better than the one he was selling, he said that I should market it. I then set about writing new features and expanding the software until it was ready for sale. I managed to get an Enterprise Allowance grant of £40 per week for one year to start up self employed writing software, later on that year I attended a computer show in London as an exhibitor selling my one product. I sold about 19 copies on the first day. The latest version of this software for windows can be found at www.typingtutor.co.uk
Within two years Sector Software had attracted other programmers to the fold, and achieved a turnover of £90,000+ PA with programs such as Touch Typist, Taskmaster, Spellbound, Flashback, Ferret, Page Designer 2, Writeturn and QZ ( A QL to Z88 file transfer and link package).

Back in the 80's, before Microsoft wrote Windows we had our own multitasking/task switching front end for the Sinclair QL called Taskmaster, this gave you multiple programs running in their own windows, all the programs multitasked, this meant that they all ran at the same time, you could set your database printing out labels and still use your wordprocessor or any other programs at the same time. Also included in the Taskmaster package was a file handling program similar to Windows File Manager, a pop up notepad and pop up calculator which when closed with a two key combination transferred the text out of the notepad or the result from the calculator to the underlying program. This allowed, for example, the ability to be working in your accounts package and, with a simple keypress up popped up the calculator, you could perform your calculations and then by pressing two keys the calculator closed down, as it disappeared it typed the result to the input box on your accounts package, the notepad worked the same way. This software also gave you a macro recorder and player language which could operate ANY program running in your machine thus automating common tasks. A software based printer buffer which was configurable to use spare ram saved our customers the cost of buying the only other alternative at the time which was hardware printer buffers which were expensive. When you switched on your QL, Taskmaster remembered what programs you were using when you closed it down, they were automatically loaded up ready to go.

In 1987 we released a spelling checker for the Sinclair QL by the name of Spellbound, this checked your spelling in real time as you typed, this is a feature that many thought that Microsoft invented in their recent Microsoft Office software, we were doing this ten years earlier than Microsoft. Our spelling checker did not only work within a wordprocessor though, by linking itself in to the keyboard input queue it worked exactly the same in ANY program running in the computer, for example you could be in your accounts package, spreadsheet or even a game and still turn on the spell checking by simply pressing a two key combination, all your spelling from that point onwards being checked as you type, pressing two keys switched it off.

We noticed an increase in the demand for tuition from people wanting to learn to write their own programs this became an integral part of the services provided by Sector Software.

After realising that many people were experiencing difficulty programming databases we released Flashback, this was a pop up database which could be called up at any time with two key presses, it was very simple to use and configure. When it was closed down, Flashback would either simply disappear, or it would transfer the current record in to the underlying program at the programs cursor position. One feature of Flashback which was a major departure from standard databases and something that most people still cannot come to terms with was the fact that records did not need to have all the available fields in them, some records in Flashback might use 20 fields while others use only three. The other 17 fields were not empty or filled with a null value, they were simply not there! Adding them later when needed required only a keypress or two. Many customers found it difficult to visualise a database with variable numbers of fields in each record according to need, this was an advanced concept which saved valuable RAM which at the time was expensive. This feature could save acres of memory, a database structure could include fields which were not needed for all records and records did not need to contain all the available fields or even the same fields as other records!

In 1987 we started our own Bulletin Board. For those who do not know the term, this is a system where our computers answered the phone after 6pm through to 9am the following morning. This allowed people to use their computers and a modem to log on to our computers, leave messages, talk to others and download software. It was an online meeting place for computer users with modems to dial up in a similar way to the way the Internet is used nowadays with the restriction that normal modem speeds at that time were 1200/75 Baud.

This is a clip from the Lancashire Evening Post reporting on the fifth computer show, when I get time to dig them out I will include scans of the newspapers reporting on the first show which is more of a milestone.

Sector Software had one of the first Z88's in the country when I was asked by Clive Sinclairs' company Cambridge Computers to beta test their machine. After a trip down to Cambridge to sign the non disclosure agreement and take possession of a Z88 I set about testing the machine and wrote the first QL to Z88 link kit, this was followed by an Amiga to Z88 link kit. These were file transfer and print spooling programs which allowed you to transfer your data to and from your laptop computer or send data to your printer through your desk based computer.

After obtaining a licence from British Telecom, Sector Software released STD Index on the QL, Amiga and IBM PC, this was British Telecom's dialling code database of UK and foreign numbers on computer disk with our own search engine, this was very useful for reverse searching numbers.

Demands for formalising the computer skills of our students led to Sector Software becoming an RSA (Royal Society of Arts) registered Test Centre. This allowed us to deliver courses run by RSA, the CLAIT (Computer Literacy and Information Technology) course was ideal as a starter course in computing and was adopted for our students.

Our next software release was Wordsmith on the Amiga, this was a crossword, anagram and puzzle solver for crossword and competition addicts. This was also used in some schools to help children find rhyming words or words on a particular theme as I later found out.

Because of a personal need for an instant reference to the contents of technical articles Shopper Index was written. This was a database of Amiga Shopper magazines contents in a very fast stand alone search engine. This gave readers of this magazine instant access to years of Amiga Shopper magazine articles, letters, reviews and tutorials all wrapped up in our very fast search program. The editor of the magazine used the software to keep track of past reviews and the staff used my software to research advice given in previous articles and letters.

Tandy's educational arm Intertan then contacted us to arrange for us to write a link to their WP2 computer. This worked in a similar fashion to our Z88 link, allowing up and downloading of data contained in the WP2 for archiving on a home computer or spooling the documents to the printer.

After being sent a digital camera by Fuji in 1997 and one from Sanyo in the same year I set about writing software to link these to a computer.

One project which has been written but is currently being fine tuned is our software to calculate prisoner's sentences. This software calculates a prisoner's release dates for either consecutive, concurrent or mixed consecutive and concurrent sentences. This takes into account time spent in custody (police or otherwise), ADA's(additional days awarded) ADAp's and a host of other variables. Data entry is simple and fast, the calculations are even faster taking no more than a few seconds to calculate a complicated record which could take a person 20 minutes to work out.

This program was originally designed and written on the Commodore Amiga before being converted to run on IBM compatible machines. This software knows all the rules and the amendments to the rules issued over the years. Output is to the standard sentence calculation white/pink/or blue forms complete with sentence chart. The software is currently being rewritten to take in to account the latest rules and procedures for sentence calculation.

Our best selling Touch Typist software has now been converted from it's Amiga incarnation, to run under Microsoft Windows. Touch Typist is a typing tutor which was sold on the Commodore Amiga as well as the Sinclair QL, Atari St and Acorn Archimedes. Touch Typist is not a trivial program, apart from the graphics, instructions and lessons, there are 3500+ multistatement lines of source code to handle the logic of the program which needed converting. One reviewer said that "compared to Intellitype® and Mavis Beacon® (it's closest rivals) Touch Typist is a lot more straightforward and rewarding to use", need we say more. Further details of this software can be found at www.typingtutor.co.uk.

During this time we have written various custom software packages for local businesses to handle customer details, invoicing and data conversion. Over the past few years there has been a new market created for Internet website design which we now offer as one of our services although this is not one of our main aims.

One piece of software that was popular was our electronic catalogue which replaced traditional colour brochures with a CD ROM and our custom software to handle images and pricelists as well as providing maps to the customers shop or premises. Unlike traditional catalogues, users of our catalogue software could update the images or prices themselves on a 'per CD' basis, this allows changes to be made daily to the catalogue if required as well as custom pricing to be set or one off CD's with foreign currency price lists to be produced by companies without having to ask us rewrite the software. Just as the CD ROM replaced the colour catalogue, the rise in popularity of broadband made reduced the need for sending out CD ROM versions and so a decline in this type of job.

In recent years the concentration has been on research and development, mainly in the fields of business and educational software. We are currently developing a number of asp driven websites and a number of projects involving software as a service over the Internet. We have a number of educational software projects under development for possible release this year, further details will appear on this site.

One new technology we are involved in is developing and building in Second Life. Second Life is an online virtual world where we are scripting (writing software) and also developing products and services. We were the first in the UK to offer a course about Second Life. See www.skillsacademy.co.uk for details of this or our other courses.

That's a potted history to date, I am sorry that we cannot give you details of our current computer research because then would stop us obtaining patents which we expect to be applying for in the future.

One of our current research projects concerning advanced data compression WILL revolutionise computing if we get it working . Watch this space...........