Thanks for visiting “Behind The Code with Gerry” website!
About me.
My name is Gerry.
I have a background in Digital Electronics & Industrial Robotics. A Technician by trade. I have always had a deep passion for digital electronics as well as robotics. I was the Kid always taking things apart to see how they worked. Eons ago, I received an Associates Degree as part of a Robotics technician program, and since completing my studies, I have been working as an Electronics / Robotics Technician.
As a side hobby, I loved trying to figure out ways to make old videogame consoles do things they were not necessarily designed to do. Such as running custom code for interfacing purposes. I would rig up additional hardware and connect them to other computers (AKA “Interfacing”) this was my favorite thing to do.
It was not too long ago, when I started collecting and working with retro Videogame development hardware. In 2016 I was approached by a friend who showed me a video on YouTube posted by YouTuber “MetalJesusRocks”. The video showcased a very rare US model of a disk drive addon unit for the Nintendo 64 game console. This was the discovery of the N64 “64DD” USA prototype! That was it….I was hooked.
I am constantly messing around with Microcontrollers, FPGA’s, Laboratory robotics, and recently Retro game development kits. I do dabble with computer software as well, compiling my own source code to create custom programs; targeted specifically for testing and debugging hardware.
I own many different pieces of electronics test equipment such as logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, function generators, pulse generators and many of these I use on a daily basis. I connect different types of interfacing PODs to various pieces of equipment, to run all sorts of hardware diagnostic tests. Such as PCB layout testing, using boundary scan with CPLD’s and FPGA’s. I also just love messing around with communication Protocols on various devices or systems. (RS-232, LPT Parallel, CAN, ISP JTAG, I2C, SPI etc.)
Here are some photos of my electronics workshop. (AKA “The Lab”.) It has been relocated many times.
Over the past 6 years or so, I have delved into collecting and repairing Retro Videogame Development hardware. Getting these beauty machines up running as they were originally intended to be used, is very rewarding. I have done this with many different game development kits, for systems such as the Nintendo N64, GameBoy, Gameboy Advance, Sega Genesis, and I have many other dev systems yet to be tinkered with. (GameCube, 3DS, Sega Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, PS2, PSP handhelds and many more.)
So definitely check out some of my Game Development hardware Demo’s if you haven’t already. My YouTube channel link is below:
https://www.youtube.com/@BehindTheCode_wGerry
Cheers! All,
Gerry