members are of widely varying skills and expertise, but att some time we all learn something from each other.

TONY

I wouldn't like to speculate on what we will do when the credit/debit card system is retired. As the old saying goes: prediction is hard, especially about the future! But, of course, it's already possible to wave your smartphone at a payment terminal to pay, so I guess that will be part of the answer - assuming we still go to the shops at all by then. 🙂

I use an 18 inch Asus Vivobook which I find good for Teams and Zoom ( I am part of Gordon Ross's Tai Chi/Qui Gong Group- good to see him large!)

I use an android phone and partake of several What's App groups. The group for Pickleball uses a poll for numbers attending each week and works well.

I have used a computer for research when I did the Nurse Practitioners Course 30 years ago but consider my skills to be limited and I want to learn more generally and keep up to date. For example how will technology be used when the credit/debit card system is demised.

Sue

I first got drawn in to the world of IT on a very brief 'introduction to computers' workshop at my employer. Commodore Pet to try writing a basic program to convert Fahrenheit  to Centigrade, it worked. I then saw an advert in a newspaper for the Sinclair ZX80 and decided to get one. Progressed via a Video Genie and Sinclair QL to a Schneider PC clone. At that point I persuaded my department to purchase an Apple II Europlus with Apple Write and Visicalc. To cut a long story short, I ended up doing an MSc Information Systems Engineering in 1996 and began to do IT support including building small client server systems  for my department with Visual Foxpro. I retired early from my main role in 2003 and went back 12 hours a week just on IT support, before finally retiring in 2010.

Since then I have been helping with software to time motorcycle speed hill climbs and I am the administrator for the Vintage Motor Cycle Club Forum (PHPBB). In January I began assisting at my local U3A Smart Device Drop In Clinic, which is held in cooperation with a local community association. Weekly 2 hour sessions where the problems people need help for are very varied. Sometimes I am only one step ahead of the 'client'.

So, on the basis that there is always something to learn when it comes to digital skills I have ended up here. Lately I have been using AI to reengineer the timing software. I use the Anthropic Claude Model both as a desktop client and the Claude Code Command Line Interface. The speed which I can generate code is amazing, but I code in a language I am familiar with, so it's not just 'vibe coding'. Plus I test, test, test ;)

Looking forward to reading the threads here and contributing if I can add anything useful.