~$ cat /etc/motd
       ....             .                   ..                     .x+=:.      .                              
   .xH888888Hx.        @88>               dF                      z`    ^%    @88>                            
 .H8888888888888:      %8P          u.   '88bu.                      .   <k   %8P                  u.    u.   
 888*"""?""*88888X      .     ...ue888b  '*88888bu        .u       .@8Ned8"    .         uL      x@88k u@88c. 
'f     d8x.   ^%88k   .@88u   888R Y888r   ^"*8888N    ud8888.   .@^%8888"   .@88u   .ue888Nc.. ^"8888""8888" 
'>    <88888X   '?8  ''888E`  888R I888>  beWE "888L :888'8888. x88:  `)8b. ''888E` d88E`"888E`   8888  888R  
 `:..:`888888>    8>   888E   888R I888>  888E  888E d888 '88%" 8888N=*8888   888E  888E  888E    8888  888R  
        `"*88     X    888E   888R I888>  888E  888E 8888.+"     %8"    R88   888E  888E  888E    8888  888R  
   .xHHhx.."      !    888E  u8888cJ888   888E  888F 8888L        @8Wou 9%    888E  888E  888E    8888  888R  
  X88888888hx. ..!     888&   "*888*P"   .888N..888  '8888c. .+ .888888P`     888&  888& .888E   "*88*" 8888" 
 !   "*888888888"      R888"    'Y"       `"888*""    "88888%   `   ^"F       R888" *888" 888&     ""   'Y"   
        ^"***"`         ""                   ""         "YP'                   ""    `"   "888E               
                                                                                    .dWi   `88E               
 Last update: 2013-06-08, 00:21 GMT (updated link to El Reg articles)               4888~  J8%                
                                                                                     ^"===*"`
~$ ./showtime.sh
blinking cursor
Who am I?

Hello. I'm Chris Williams: a British engineer who became a journalist. I bagged a master's degree in electronic engineering at the University of Warwick, but after one or two sleepless nights I decided that wasn't the career for me. So I landed a job as a newspaper reporter and didn't look back. I later became a sub-editor and an assistant production editor.

Then I went fully online to edit articles and write rude headlines for IT tabloid The Register and its 7,300,000 readers.

Among various personal projects, I help run the film review website Alternate Takes and poured thousands of hours into retro tech site Drobe.

Articles I've written

You can find a list of articles I've recently written here.

Diosix microkernel project

By day I juggle words and news, but by night I toy with my own microkernel operating system diosix. The plan is to develop low-level programming skills and make something cool: the ultimate goal is to provide a personal distributed computing system that configures itself on the fly to match demand and available resources.

It's POSIX compatible, open source, commented and provides memory protection, preemptive multitasking, demand paging and synchronous/asynchronous message passing on ia32 (PC) systems. A half-finished 32bit ARM port also exists. The big push right now is to get it running on 64bit Intel and ARM systems - if you want to help, please get in touch!

Get in contact

You're more than welcome to drop me an email to diodesign@diodesign.co.uk. My public key is here if you wish to send me an encrypted email or request a cryptographically signed message. Alternatively, you can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn. I can also be found hanging around Freenode IRC using the nickname diodesign.