Brian Clarke is a computaphile.
He first started in computing in 1964 writing software in Algol at Bristol University.
His experience and abilities in trouble shooting other people’s problems in electrics and electronics tended to keep him away from computing and writing software until the mid 70’s.
His love of programming made him go it alone for a while starting Computaphile in 1976 developing a ‘Forth’ compiler and going on to producing machine control programs.
He worked as a computer systems design engineer for Thorn EMI and ventured for a while into customer training.
In 1989 Brian started Computaphile full time, employing up to five people providing I.T. Support and writing software for a number of power stations, University of Central England and a number of other small businesses in particular Aerial Promotions and Wicker’s World Hot Air Balloon Ride companies.
In 1995 Computaphile became Computaphile Software Solutions and has continued to this day providing I.T. Support and Training, but mainly software development.
More recently he has increased his involvement in the internet and web development.
Brian is an engineer!
He will turn his hand (and mind) to most things and his most common statement to our customers is, ‘That’s interesting! I don’t know how to do that, but I will find out and provide a solution or an acceptable work around’.
To date he has always resolved the requirement. His experience is great, and he can bore you with having been in the Army as a Staff Sergeant, has worked in steel works, power stations, nuclear submarines, destroyers, film sets, yachting, climbing, photography, the list goes on….
His experience is often needed in the challenges we face.
Summary of Brian’s working life:
1962-1964 Chemical Lab Technician. Birmingham university. Working on Flourine chemistry development. Can still recognize solvents by smell to this date.
1964-1973 British Army. R.E.M.E. Control Equipment Technician. Left as a Staff-Sergeant, Trained in Electronics to HND Level in 1969. Introduced at Bristol University to computer programming in Algol-W in 1965.
1973-1978 Employed as Electronics Test Engineer with Thorn EMI, through light test, (subsystems), to Heavy Test (Complete DC Control Systems), For British Steel Rolling mills, as an example.
1978-1982 Employed as Field Service Engineer with Thorn EMI, based in Bristol, onsite fix of DC Drive Control systems and Inverter driven drive systems for wide range of systems from British Steel, ICI, Pilkingtons through to small drive applications. Also on board fix of 400hz weapon power supplies for the Navy.
1983-1986 Employed as a computer systems design engineer with Thorn EMI (studied for a degree with O.U. on Computing), and then on to design systems for the MOD working with a high level research team.
1986-1989 Employed as the customer training engineer with Thorn EMI. Created, priced, sold and delivered a number of training courses for customers in the repair and maintenance of Drive systems complete with PLC’s and also Invertor Power Convertors and Gyro Compass systems for the Navy.
1989— Created Computaphile Software Solutions providing on site support on PC’s and small networks. Designed and created software solutions to Power Stations, Hot Air Balloon Companies, and several others too many to mention here.
Software developed:
Shift Rota Program for Power Stations. 4+ stations
Diploma Printing for U.C.E. 1 off
Permit to Work Document Production for Power Stations. 20+ Stations
Absence, Cover Wages Management for Cleaning Company. 1 off
Materials ordering system for Cleaning Company. 1 off
Komax Wire Cutting Design Tool in Excel. 1 off
Hot Air Balloon Company Flight Booking Systems. 10+
Bar Code Reader for Document Management. 1 off
Contactless Card Scanner for Logon to Software. 1 off
Plus several other minor projects, email sender, database manager, etc,. etc.
Programming Languages Used in most use order.
Pascal (Embarcadero Delphi).
PHP.
Visual Basic.
JavaScript, J Query.
C, C++.
Forth.
Assembler.
