It took a need and a Dream.
STAD Systems started after the need to make more money as a young kid who dreamed of racing motocross. Working through multiple late nights, tantrums and tears, I'm blessed with this life however I've worked, bled and filled the swear jar to get to this point.
Computers, Technology, Architecture and things you may have forgotten or never heard of. These are some of my favorite things.
Amstrad 166, Commodore 16 to 64. IDE, SCSI, Sata and more. Connected with coax, 4j45, Light and Wave. If you could make it, develop or tweak it. I'm that Guy.
One part at a time.
Servicing Computers and going through the impeding time of doom for the IT Industry, The Year 2000 was rapidly approaching and even your toaster was going to stop working. I was clocking and overclocking computers and mate's computers to get games to run faster and graphics and stats to look better. I quickly figured out that 90% of the rumor was propaganda and 10% was a legit problem.
I also found this to an astounding opportunity for development, learning and most of all commercially viable to invest some time looking into. Quickly establishing that my mothers toaster, kettle and even the analogue clock on the oven was not subject to this defect and panic rapidly turned to curiosity. I wonder what happens when a computer does this? So off I went to investigate and break stuff...
Working out quick mechanisms within the bios and getting both my boot-able floppy, USB key and serial port-converted USB DVD loaded with my scripts and tools, I quickly established an income stream testing and validating computers all through the local business districts. Change Management wasn't really a thing then it was more like; "The computer guy is here, go to lunch all the computers will be down for about 2 hours.. "
Completely oblivious to the age, risk and consequences of what would happen if one of these things doesn't turn back on, or does turn on but with it's brains a bit scrambled.
Thankfully, I had already experienced this in a small scale in my shed to prepare me for what is possible so I made most of these people sign a flakey agreement that they wont hurt me and that I'm doing this because the 'experts' told them that they needed to get tested. In today's terminology - Your stuff is working but we are changing things so you need to start fault finding so we don't really screw this up - Sincerely, The IT Industry and Government 'Experts'
I quickly established a client list and regular business people who called me for various help desk related activities. My fathers accounting firm also used me to clean computers both physically and digitally, reload, rebuild and restore. I progressed into software and how it worked, functioned, communicated and stored it's most valuable secrets. This was eye opening, the possibilities and improvements I can make. In current times, this would be declared as software piracy or hacking; but then, this was revolutionary. I could build what the customer wanted as they had already road-tested the concept.