[3] After viral encephalitis left him severely disabled, he first got a computer to use video games to improve the coordination in the remaining arm in which he had the power of movement.
After experiments with Prestel, he found an early British online community, CIX, in the late 1980s, before direct connections to the internet were cheaply available outside academia, and this provided him with a new social and business life.
Winder was contacted through CIX email over the internet by technological culture writer Howard Rheingold, a habitué of The Well, another early online community-based in the United States, and eventually the two met in person at Winder's home; the meeting is described in Rheingold's book, The Virtual Community.
The most recent, Being Virtual, in conjunction with the Science Museum, in London which explores the realm of virtual identity and is part auto-biographical in nature.
Winder has contributed regularly to newspapers and magazines including Computer Weekly, The Guardian, The Times, .net, PC Pro, and Forbes.com.