About me
A little bit about myself. Some (boring) personal history, work experience, hobbies, and how I ended up where I am.
A little bit about myself. Some (boring) personal history, work experience, hobbies, and how I ended up where I am.
I was born in Barcelona (Catalonia) on April 4th, 1975 (fun fact: Microsoft and I were born the same day). I moved to Japan in 2002, and I've been living here since then.
My uncle Jose brought me my first computer in 1985, a first-generation MSX (a Sanyo MPC-200, to be specific). It came with several games, but also a couple of programming books. This got me started with MSX-BASIC programming.
After this, I was hooked.
A few years later I bought a modem, which allowed my computer (by that time, a second-generation MSX with a floppy disk drive) to connect to other computers (BBSs) via the telephone line.
Some time later I upgraded again to a more powerful MSX2 computer (a Philips NMS 8280), and also bought a Commodore Amiga 500.
Through the BBSs I became friends with Àngel Cortés, who helped me get started in the world of communications.
In 1995 I bought my first PC (an i486 DX4 running at 100 MHz, with 4 MB of RAM and a 540 MB hard drive). I used it to play around with Linux, and some time later I ran my own BBS (LuzNET 2 BBS) and became a FidoNet node. This was a bit before the Internet became mainstream in Spain.
I started studying Japanese in the mid-90s because of my interest in MSX computers. By then, the era of 16-bit processors had begun, and almost no new software was being produced for the MSX (an 8-bit system) in Europe. The same was true for printed materials like books and magazines.
In contrast, Japan still had a thriving MSX scene, with plenty of software (mostly games) and publications coming out regularly. That’s what led me to start taking Japanese lessons.
I visited Japan for the first time in August 2000 to attend an MSX event in Akihabara: MSX Den-yu Land 2000 (MSX電遊ランド2000). During this trip I met Kazuhiko Nishi for the first time at the ASCII Corp. offices in Hatsudai, Tokyo, and we talked about the future of MSX computers. By then I had been running a popular MSX news site in Spain for some time (aamsx.org).
Mr. Nishi helped me find my first job in Japan through an acquaintance of his, and I moved to Japan in May 2002. I became a permanent resident (永住者) in 2013.
These are the companies I've worked for, not including a couple of non-IT part time jobs before 1996 while I was still in high school.
Staff Security Operations Engineer
Tokyo, Japan
IT manager
Tokyo, Japan
Specialist / Genius
Tokyo, Japan
Systems Specialist
Tokyo, Japan
Technical Manager
Tokyo, Japan
Systems Administrator
Barcelona, Catalonia
Systems Administrator
Barcelona, Catalonia
Helpdesk / Systems Administrator
Barcelona, Catalonia
Some of the things I enjoy. At least the ones that come to mind right now.
I have been using these computers since 1985.
What I enjoy is coding command-line applications in Z80 assembler. The CPU is very limited, and I enjoy the challenge of implementing tools such as (de)compressors and cryptographic algorithms.
I own several MSX computers, including a Sony HB-F1XV and a Panasonic FS-A1GT. However, I do most of my development using a software emulator (openMSX) and an FPGA-based emulation board (SX-E).
Racing simulators are probably my favorite kind of game. This fueled my interest in sports cars long before I moved to Japan.
My car is a Lotus Emira. I bought it in April 2024.
I wanted a Lotus Elise for many, many years. After saving for several years I was able to afford one, but by then it was no longer being produced. I ended up buying the Emira. I've taken the car to the track a couple times, but I'm still a novice driver.
During the colder months I enjoy going hiking and camping.
Before buying the car I often carried a small tent and sleeping bag in my backpack, but lately I bring a later tent and carry all the gear in the car.
I like taking photos of places, people or things that I find interesting. However, I'm nowhere near a decent photographer.
It doesn't matter because I'm still having fun.
I started with a Nikon D50, then upgraded to a Nikon D7000, then a D750. However, I ended up selling the DSLR when iPhone cameras became good enough for basic photos.
Besides coding for MSX computers I also enjoy building modern applications and infrastructure, such as this website and the platform it runs on.
I have a number of physical servers at home, some running virtual machines under VMware ESXi, and some running a number of Docker containers in a swarm. This website that you're looking at is running in one of these containers. Besides the servers at home, I'm running a few other services in the cloud (AWS), such as email and DNS.
Back when I was still living with my parents we always had pets: cats, dogs, a parrot or two, hamsters, mice... To me, pets are family members, not toys.
I currently have two male rats (Pico and Momo) and a female cat (Dekopon) that we rescued from the street.
Since moving to Japan I've had several hamsters, two ferrets, many rats, and a rescued cat.
As a child I played a lot with Tente blocks, a Spanish alternative to Lego.
Some years after moving to Japan I bought a couple Lego sets, mostly out of curiosity, and I loved them.
My favorites are the Technic series, the more complex, the better.
I have about half a closet full of Lego sets. I estimate around 200.000 pieces.
Every once in a while I spend the weekend at a ryokan in an onsen town somewhere far away from the city.
Kusatsu is perhaps my favorite retreat spot in Japan. I visit several times a year.
Almost every weekend I go on a road trip to some place that I haven't visited before. I enjoy discovering new places.
Most of the time I go on my own and drive back the same day, but from time to time I meet with other exotic car owners.
In October 2024 I joined a group of Lotus Emira owners on a 3-day, 1000-Km road trip across Japan, from Tokyo to the Hokuriku area and back. We met other friends along the way. At some point we had 6 Emiras, a Ferrari 360, an Audi R8 and a Mazda Roadster.
The little ones that I share my life with.
Gone, but not forgotten.
Nico and all the ones that came before are buried in different places around Mount Takao. Turbo and his brother Oni, and all the ones that came after them, are buried in a corner in my garden.
I have been using MSX computers since I was 9 or 10 years old.
My first computer was a Sanyo MPC-200, a first-generation MSX computer, back in 1985. It came with a Z80 CPU running at 3.58 megahertz, 64KB of RAM and a cassette tape drive for storage.
Nowadays I own a number of MSX machines, together with original software, printed material, and a variety of hardware expansions. I rarely play games anymore, and I use them mostly for programming my own tools and small applications.
The two devices that I use most often are a Sony HB-F1XV (an MSX2+) plugged to an original Sony CPS-14F1 CRT display, and an 8bits4ever SX-E, an FPGA-based clone able to emulate an MSX2+, among a number of other different machines. I use the SX-E mostly for development, and the HB-F1XV when I want to run things on real hardware.
Sony HB-F1XV with CPS-14F1 display
SX-E plugged to a standard VGA monitor, with original Panasonic FS-JM1 mouse and a standard USB mechanical keyboard.
In 2019 I bought a small piece of land in Saitama, and from March to September 2020 I got a house built. I moved here in September, while some final details were still being taken care of.
After moving to Japan in 2002 I lived in several different aparments in Tokyo: Yoyogi, Kyuden (Setagaya-ku), Shin-Nakano, Hasune (Itabashi-ku), Shirokane (Minato-ku) and Nishi-Waseda.
In 2019 I started looking for a plot of land to build a house because living in central Tokyo started feeling a bit oppressive: I have been running my own servers at home for many years, and between the computers and my pets I felt that I needed more space. Also, I wanted to buy a car, and parking in Tokyo is almost as expensive as a small apartment.
Finally, in mid-2019 I found a piece of land that I liked in Saitama, not far from Omiya, and started meeting with the architect office to design the building.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Everything was put on hold for a while.
Construction began in March 2020, and I moved in on September 27th. At the time there were a few details left to complete the construction, but these were small things such as installing the mailbox, hooking up the fiber optics circuit, and other small details.
