Peter Laws
was born on the 7th November 1973. He was born with Cerebral Palsy
after a difficult birth. His full name is Peter James Richard Laws,
named after his father, Peter Frances Laws. Growing up with a disability
can be a challenging experience. Peter has proven that this isn't
the case, he has achieved so much in his life, whether it is for
himself or for his family.
In his school
days, Peter had always had access to computers due to his nature
of his disability. He first used the first Apple computer, which
had a solid metal case and a 5.25" floppy disk drive. Then
the Acorn BBC computers came out, this was the computer that helped
Peter with his school work as well as for communicating for a few
number of years.
Peter is unable to speak,
this is due to the nature of his disability. Computers helped him
to overcome this, and still are to this present day. This is how
his fascination for computers started. He was brought a Commodore
VIC 20 for his 11th birthday, which was the first major home computer.
A few years later, Peter was brought a Commodore 64 after him seeing
one at a friends. He was amazed at how the games looked. As well
as gaming, he tried his hand at game making, with BASIC at first,
and then using tools such as Graphic Adventure Creator, 3D Construction
Kit, and many more.
His big break was when
he designed a 14 level shoot-em-up game. While Peter was at college
in 1991, aged 18, studying Business and Information Technology,
he programmed this shoot-em-up in his spare time. He needed testers,
so he arranged for his Commodore 64 to be rigged up in the colleges
refectory for people - mainly male - to play his game for a day.
The response was unbelievable, about 98% liked it. Some wanted a
copy of the game, but the game wasn't finished and Peter had big
plans for the game. As Peter received a good response to the game,
he decided to make a one level demo and send it to big publishers
such as Ocean, Alternative, Domark, and a few others. Three weeks
went by and Peter didn't receive any replies. Peter studies were
more important to him, and this new venture was just an extra bonus.
While he was studying, a letter was waiting in his pigeon hole.
It was from Chris Price, the games manager at Alternative Software.
He thought Peter's game had potential, so much that he told Peter
to slightly improve it. It took a few weeks for the game to be of
a good enough standard. Chris sent a fax to Peter explaining the
royalties. Peter could have earned £9,500 from this deal,
but, however, Alternative Software pulled the plug on the deal.
They wouldn't tell Peter as to why, and no-one signed any contracts.
If the deal was a dead-cert, who'll know what would have happened
to Peter's career as a games programmer! After that, Peter sold
his game to the college students for £2 a go.
After he finished college,
he brought an Amiga 500+. Peter took a long break from education.
During this time, he started up a Bulletin Board System (BBS) with
his trusty 14,000 baud modem called Quantum Leap. People could transfer
files from and to his Amiga's 160mb hard drive! (In them days, 520mb
sounded a lot). After a year, Peter brought an Amiga 1200 and a
33,600 modem.
Still running his BBS,
he went back to college (Enfield College) in 1996. He studied Business
for four years, first was the "foundation" level, then
the "intermediate" level, and for two years, the "advanced"
level. Peter passed all three courses. Peter stayed for another
two years for an Information Technology course at advanced level.
During this course, he brought a PC - 244mhz, 64mb ram. He learnt
hardware, networks, software programming and web design. However,
Peter was finding it a strain, what with being in education all
his life, he had enough. So he decided to quit the course in 2000.
In 2002, with the humble
PC, Peter started a web site called Pedsters Planet. The name is
a long story, Peter was fond of chat rooms from 1999. His chat handle
was always Pedro, so one day one of his friends called Peter, Pedster.
This gave Peter the idea of calling his web site after his nickname!
Peter had to buy a faster PC, so that he could improve his web site
from just HTML pages. Peter taught himself PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor)
and MySQL in just 6 months! You can see the results as most of Peter's
sites are PHP driven.
In the past
two years, Peter has developed a web site with potential, and has
established the site in search engines as well as other web sites.
Peter is aiming for Pedsters
Planet to become a big hit in years to come.
Definition of Cerebral
Palsy:
A term used to describe a group of chronic conditions affecting
body movement and muscle coordination. It is caused by damage to
one or more specific areas of the brain, usually occurring during
fetal development; before, during, or shortly after birth; or during
infancy. Thus, these disorders are not caused by problems in the
muscles or nerves. Instead, faulty development or damage to motor
areas in the brain disrupt the brain's ability to adequately control
movement and posture.
"Cerebral"
refers to the brain and "palsy" to muscle weakness/poor
control. Cerebral palsy itself is not progressive (i.e. brain damage
does not get worse); however, secondary conditions, such as muscle
spasticity, can develop which may get better over time, get worse,
or remain the same. Cerebral palsy is not communicable. It is not
a disease and should not be referred to as such. Although cerebral
palsy is not "curable" in the accepted sense, training
and therapy can help improve function. For more info CLICK
HERE and HERE
And to think that when
Peter was born, the doctors only gave him a few hours to live. Whoever
said that doctors know everything, should re-think!
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