Introduction

Welcome weary traveller. I'm glad you made it. Let me introduce myself - I am Gerald and I am a developer. I started out programming an Acorn Electron in 1984, learning BBC BASIC and 6502 assembler, moving upwards to a BBC Master Compact and Acorn Archimedes. Still developing in BBC BASIC on RISC OS, I then got introduced to Pascal at college, before taking up a job as a software engineer using Delphi (the first version). This was about the time when the World Wide Web was introduced, so I began dabbling in HTML. This, eventually, moved into Javascript. PHP rapidly followed, as did CSS. Now in my current job, not as a software engineer, I get to play with AV controllers - so I have since learnt AMX Netlinx, and have qualified as an Extron Authorised Programmer. I have also dabbled in Brightscript for the Brightsign solid state players, intially re-imagining the cinema at Urquhart Castle Visitor Centre in Scotland.

In these pages, I have decided to share some of my code. But, be warned - I do not subscribe to the 'common' standard of formatting code. For example - why put the opening brace on the same line as the function declaration? Surely it makes sense to put it on the next line so that it will line up with the closing brace? This probably comes from my Pascal and Delphi background where the begin and end statements line up.

So, I can code - but my aesthetic skills are crap. I am not a designer. This is probably obvious.

My Websites

What websites can I lay claim to, I hear you not ask? Well, I am responsible for the East Sutherland Camera Club site (although Andy Kirby is largely responsible for the design) - guess where the design for this page came from. Then there is my own site...no, not this one - which is obviously mine, but a game I enjoyed on the Electron in the 80's and is still being published - The Repton Resource Page. There are others, but these are now, or soon to be, defunct...they looked good back in the day, but have not aged well.

What do I use?

What software to I use? Well, obviously I use Delphi to write Delphi stuff - Embarcadero have this amazing thing where you can get a free community licence for the full(ish) version of Delphi, under certain restrictions. However, I have recently moved over to Lazarus, which is a free version of Delphi (effectively) and is also multi-platform. This means I can write the same code, compile and deploy onto Windows, macOS and Linux. For AMX Netlinx, well, I use AMX Netlinx Studio (pretty obvious) and I use Extron Global Configurator for the Extron stuff. I still do write BBC BASIC and 6502 assembler - and use a BBC Micro emulator for that...too much hassle to fire up my BBC Master and find a floppy disc that still works, and hope and prey that one of my floppy drives still reads it. But, for web development - I did used to use Bluefish, until I discovered Microsoft Visual Code, which seems pretty good. Well, it would be if it didn't keep trying to predict what I'm going to type a lot of the time. But, yes, I hand write the code...no fancy content management system crap here.

And there's more

Instead of having loads of websites I've decided to put everything here - so you'll also find my photographs from my photography hobby. Yes, I know, there's not many and the quality is rather dubious, but I don't upload them often. Also, back in 2001/2002, I decided to try and write a novel. The rather poor result is also here. I have got ideas for many sequels, but I guess I better get this one to some sort of standard first.

Check it out

So do check out the code using the panel on the right. Some are just downloads (Windows Applications/IR Files/etc.), while some are PDF documents. But most are actual code.

Where you see this icon there is a download available, and the indicates a demo is available. There is also which will copy the page link to your clipboard. These icons will appear bigger on the code pages.

If you want to contact me, you can use the form under Links->Contact.