Thomas shares makes

Ancient VB6 stuff
vb6

Ancient VB6 stuff

Visual Basic used to be an easily accessible programming language for the windows platform. I spent quite some hours and a lot of creativity with it years ago, and the result is a bunch of half-finished programs. I started creating stuff with VB6 out of interest when I was a kid. I didn't have any programming experience, and literature I got from the library.

I compiled a list of the things I created in VB6 when I created my website years ago, and for nostalgic reasons I still keep it here. Be warned these programs are childish and useless. Fortunately there is none of its nasty code here to look at.

PenguinPages Preprocessor
php

PenguinPages Preprocessor

When I started maintaining a personal website years ago, I kept all content in static HTML files which I uploaded. The server didn't support server side scripting and for a while I used a JavaScript to provide a navigation menu.

The JavaScript menu fixed just that, navigation. Devising a publishing side scripting system allowed me to separate the website look (template) from the content too.

I created a set of PHP scripts I named Pepp to process the page content along with a navigation menu to static HTML files to upload to the webspace.

JAL Programmable Logic Controller
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JAL Programmable Logic Controller

When my brother was doing his last year of high-school in electromechanics, he came up with the idea of doing his final project using a homebuilt PLC instead of the usual Siemens stuff. I built the electronics and came up with a framework so he could easily implement his GRAFCET state machine for his part sorting robot for the PICMICRO in the JAL programming language.

This was long before Arduino, long before 'all the cool kids were doing it', and JAL was a free compiler for the affordable PIC microcontrollers. The Arduino of its days.

Countdown timer with PIC16F84
teenager

Countdown timer with PIC16F84

This is the first circuit I built with the PIC16F84. It can best be described as an egg timer with only the timekeeping code in place. It's got 4 pushbuttons, a character LCD and a buzzer. I started building this clock because I wanted to build my own Alarm clock. That project moved to another page, and this project will be made into a short period timer that automatically turns of a device (battery-charger, UV-case) after a preset time.

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