Eric Doyle - Freelance Journalist

 

Based in the UK, I specialise in all aspects of information technology - although I have also been known to write for music and photography magazines. 
I became a journalist during the home computer boom 1984. My first job was as an editorial assistant on MSX User: a title dedicated to Japanese computers that were going to flood the world market - needless to say, they didn't. The magazine closed after I'd only been there for nine months. Over the next two years I had my first taste of the industry and of freelancing. I worked for Microsoft (four weeks as a marketing manager, before boredom set in, and then two weeks trying to find someone to accept my resignation) and then became editor of a games magazine. 

Since 1986 I've been freelance to keep my father guessing as to when I'll get a "proper" job. During this time I've been a freelance editor, a software and hardware reviewer, I've written countless case studies and outlined company strategies, product strategies and market strategies. I've seen architectures change to marketectures and I've also been around long enough to have witnessed the development of a standard or two from start to finish.

I love writing about IT subjects because the technology keeps on moving. This stops me from getting bored because before I found my current vocation I just drifted from one thing to another: export clerk shipping paint pigment around the world, teacher training, Kit-Kat constructor, and an audio-visual technician at an agriculture and horticulture college just outside the city of York. It was during this last job that my strange career path started to form. I was mainly in charge of the arty side of AV work but that did not stop me from going for an Ordinary National Certificate in Electrical Engineering. When I left York in 1980 it was to read for a Degree in Photography, Film and Television at what is now the Harrow branch of the University of Westminster.

While studying scientific and industrial photography, I became more and more fascinated with computer technology and even took time out to become more familiar with these strange, new machines. The problem was that I gained my degree but lost all interest in starting a photographic career. Computers had become the fuel that fired my imagination but the industry seemed pretty dull and academic. Home computers were the happening things so I applied for a job on a computer magazine and, to my great surprise, I was accepted: not for the job I went for but who cares? 

Titles I have worked for include: A&B Computing, Amstrad User, Commodore Disk User, Computer & Video Games, Computer Gamer, Computer Retail News, Computer Systems Europe, Computer Trade Weekly, Computing, Connexion, Dealer News, DEC Computing, DEC User, Desktop Publishing, Games Computing, Home Computer Weekly, IBM System User, Infomatics, Integration, Internet World, Mac User, Microscope, MSX User, Music and Musicians, Network, Network News, Network Reseller, PC Direct, PC Lan, PC Magazine, PC User, PC Week, Personal Computer Magazine, Personal Computer World, Photography, Sinclair User, The Room, What Personal Computer, Windows Magazine, Your Amiga, Your Commodore. 

Email: eric @ ericdoyle co uk

 

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