#737 – Things are looking up

Chris Gammell: This is the Amp Hour Podcast. Released October 21st, 2026. Episode 737. Things are looking up.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV Blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics.

Dave Jones: Coming from the ghost inside the machine. Bloody mic problems again.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Exactly the same mic as we used last time and it still doesn't bloody work. Exactly the same gain settings. Exactly everything the same. And it just does weird...

Chris Gammell: You gotta have those sanity checks, you know?

Dave Jones: Man, so I had to switch mics. So... Yeah. You wanna know what else really sucks?

Chris Gammell: Sure.

Dave Jones: I'm sure you can think of lots of things. But anyway, getting spare parts. Getting spare parts for your white goods. I had a washing machine.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I saw that.

Dave Jones: My washing machine failed. It's a Mele. You know, it's like a top-of-the-line expensive Mele. You know, the wife wanted like... Yeah, spare no expense. Yeah, yeah. Spare no expense. Management. Yeah. And, you know, it's the one the wife wanted. And we've had it six years. Got it just before COVID. So it's not old as far as, you know. Yeah. Five years or something. So it's not old as far as washing machines go. But it's out of warranty, of course.

Chris Gammell: Of course.

Dave Jones: Of course. And it was a door interlock problem. You know, you get in a firmware because it's one of these newfangled bloody things with a, you know, microprocess, newfangled microprocessor in it. And... Yeah. Although it doesn't have fuzzy logic these days. Bring back fuzzy logic, I reckon. Washing machines, back in the old day, when I was a boy, used to have fuzzy logic. That was all the rage.

Chris Gammell: Right. That's like a sign of a good thing, not a bad thing. Not like a...

Dave Jones: Well, it was... It's like AI is these days. It's all the rage. It's like saying... It's the old school equivalent of saying your... Yeah. Your newfangled fridge or washing machine has AI in it. Right. Back then, it was fuzzy logic. Anyway. So, yeah. So, it was a door interlock thing. So, I took apart the door interlock. I've done videos on this, of course. Because I'm kind of in that business, you know. I'm still in that business, making videos.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Strangely enough. Yeah. Yeah. And the... Yeah. It's just broken inside. It's really like quite a complex little mechanical beast. Because it's got a... You know, it can't... You know, I guess there's rules and regulations in Europe about how machines can't open themselves accidentally while it's spinning at 1200 RPM, blah, blah, you know. Because the little kiddies might lose a finger or something. Right. So, it's a really complex little interlock for what it is. So, it's just a solenoid that just, you know, makes sure the door's... When it's in its wash mode, the solenoid activates. But it's quite a little weird mechanical beast. And like an interlock thing inside had broken off and you can't really repair it. Right. So, it's not really... It's not really repairable. So, anyway. Melee do sell spare parts. Right. So, there were none available, readily available on eBay that I could find. They were in Germany. Right. Because this is a German washing machine. Right. German brand. Made in Germany. Right. And so... But, you know, I didn't want to like spend a couple of weeks waiting for a part to be... You know, slow boat from Germany. Right. Because you can't typically order, you know, express courier shipping from some eBay seller. You know. So, I searched around local and I found a local parts supplier who appeared to have it in stock. So, I thought, oh, beauty. You know, I'll pay for express shipping and everything. And it was a bit more expensive. And that was two weeks ago. Yeah. And we're still without a washing machine.

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, they're just waiting to get that eBay order so then they can express to ship it to you locally. Yeah, right. Right. Anyway.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. So, it's a specific website. You know, it's like, you know, Joe Bloggs' spare parts, you know, for all your white goods and stuff. And it appeared as though it was in stock. But it looks like what they do is they, once they get the order for it, you know, they list them on their website. Once they get the order, then they place the order with Melee. Yeah. And just after I sent the order, we actually got a reply back from, direct from Melee Australia saying that they could sell us the part. You know, they could ship us the part directly. And it turned out it was cheaper. But we'd already ordered it right from this other mob. So, no, it turns out it looks like they don't have it in stock and they're just going to order it from Melee. I don't even think it's been shipped from Melee to them yet. And I can't contact. And I tried to contact them. They said, oh, yeah, no worries, you know. And bloody hell.

Chris Gammell: I know. A couple of weeks.

Dave Jones: So, we're using a local, yeah. So, we go into the laundromat thing, whatever it's called.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's right. Yeah. The laundromat. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Bloody hell. So, what the hell do I do? Do I, like, you know, magically turn up tomorrow?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You short the wire across and you make it think that it's interlocked. Short the wire across.

Dave Jones: But, yeah. Well.

Chris Gammell: I guess it probably has a micro control these days, actually. You said it. It has enough smarts that it knows when it's actually interlocked?

Dave Jones: Well, we actually had someone come out to look at it. That's the thing, right? Because I was, you know, right, get a phone call from the missus and, oh, the washing machine's failed. And it's like, I need it fixed now. And it's like, I'm calling someone. I'm not waiting for you to come home and look at it. Okay, dear. And so, yeah. So, she actually got someone in to have a look at it. You know, a local washing machine repair dude or something. And he said, oh, yeah, it's the interlock plus the main board has failed. And it's going to be like $1,300 or something. And we can, like, screw that. Right? We can buy a new machine for, like, $1,400 or something. So, yeah. So, screw that. So, I took it apart and found out that it was only the, I think it's only the interlock. I can't see how it could possibly be the main board at fault. So, I think it's just a case of, you know, the repairman just, you know, actually just covering their bases and, or maybe. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's not worth it for them to dig through it and you're not, like.

Dave Jones: No, no. Not wanting to pay for that. Exactly. So, they just said, oh, yeah, it's the interlock plus the main board. So, anyway, I thought I'd take a chance repairing the interlock, doing the right thing. You know, not just scrapping this thing and ordering a new one. And, nah, nah, I've been burned. So, what the hell do I do now? I've got to sit and wait for this new one. Or do I order one from Miele Australia and hope it turns up? Are they the bottleneck?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Or do I order it from someone who's got it in stock on eBay in Germany? And then, you know, which one's going to come quicker?

Chris Gammell: I mean, the quickest option would honestly be to throw this whole thing away. And, I mean, I literally went through the same thing with the dishwasher recently. You know, diagnosed it down to, like, the sump pump to, like, push the water up. Right, yeah. Yeah. And it was the same thing. It was like, yeah, it's going to be $300 maybe plus install maybe. And it's like, I can get a washing machine for $800. And this is already at, you know, eight years. And it's just like, you know.

Dave Jones: It is nothing for a washing machine.

Chris Gammell: They don't build them like they used to, Dave. They don't build them like they used to.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. I know. I know. We also hated the old ones.

Chris Gammell: There's also that.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Well, is that a front loader or a top loader?

Chris Gammell: Sorry. Did I say washing machine? I meant dishwasher. Sorry. Dishwasher.

Dave Jones: Oh, dishwasher. Okay. Which is a front loader.

Chris Gammell: I mean, there's not a lot going on in these machines. I mean, like, there is magic in there, right? There is, like, you know, there's algorithms that, like, control all this stuff. And they're white goods chips. And sometimes they have the other stuff. But, like, really it's like, okay, you need, like, three pumps. And there's, like, and they need to work great. Don't get me wrong. Like, I'm not going to build my own. But, like, there's not, like, a ton of things to diagnose. There's only, like, five things that can go wrong in a dishwasher. And it's like, all right. Well, it was one of them. So, yeah, that point. It's all over.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, that's why I figured I'd try this door interlock, you know. So, it was a few hundred bucks for the door interlock. But I thought, you know, look, I'm going to do the right thing. And it's a good way. And it's an otherwise excellent machine. So, you know.

Chris Gammell: You know, this is actually interesting. Because this is, like, so a dishwasher, laundry machine, right? Like, washing machine. They are, like, some of the best automations that we have in our lives, right? Like, they're just thinking about the amount of time. Oh, yeah. How many dishes we get through.

Dave Jones: Shove them in and they just work.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, just work. I didn't know, actually. Like, washing machine or dishwashers, rather. They use, like, significantly less water than if you're washing by hand, too. Like, so, like, there's actually, like, efficiency gains and all this other stuff, too. And so, now. Yeah. So, let's just say my dishwasher is my favorite robot in my house. But now, compared to, like, people thinking, like, oh, I'm going to put a, you know, humanoid robot in my house. And just the complexity there, right? And just, like. Right. So, you and I are kvetching about, like, you know, one broken interlock, one broken motor. And it's just like, man, how many things are going to go wrong when there's, like, 50 servos and the damn thing can, like, rip your arm off, you know?

Dave Jones: It's just like. Yep. I know. Best of luck to the early adopters.

Chris Gammell: That's what I wanted to say. I don't think it's going to be us.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. No. No. Yeah. Anyway. And speaking of dishwashers, yeah, mine's got, like, all these different modes. And, like, and the screen, like, tells you how much water each mode uses and all this sort of crap. And it's like, I've never used anything but the one-hour power wash.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know? And it's like, it doesn't, and it uses, like, less water than the eco mode. Yeah, right. Like, how does that freaking work? Like, well, according to its own display, it uses less. It's eco mode. Like, I just put everything on the one-hour power wash, and it's always worked fine. There you go. So it's like, you know. Yeah, I'm sure your wife would agree with you, too. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's great.

Dave Jones: Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah, she's in, no, she's in total agreement. Well, I'm the one who controls the dishwash.

Chris Gammell: I'm the one. Yeah, yeah. We all have our role to play. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But still, no, she totally agrees. Just a one-hour power wash, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yep, yep, yep.

Dave Jones: None of this eco mode bullshit, just, you know. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Works fine.

Chris Gammell: All right, Dave. Speaking of AI. Before we, hold on. Before we segue to one other thing, I thought at the beginning of the show, you were going to ask me, what's up, nerd? Because you often ask me that. Could you, could I, could I ask you to do that real quick? What's up, nerd? Well, Dave, things for me are looking up.

Dave Jones: Ha! Yes, you're announcing it, are you?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been 10 days, man. I'm on.

Dave Jones: Oh, a whole 10 days. Oh, he couldn't wait to tell everyone. Couldn't wait to tell everyone.

Chris Gammell: I have a new job.

Dave Jones: You have a, you have a new employer. I do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I'm working at, actually.

Dave Jones: When are you going to figure out you've got to work for yourself, dude?

Chris Gammell: You know, I'll get there.

Dave Jones: That's the ticket, lad.

Chris Gammell: Someday, Dave, I'll have the wisdom of a David L. Jones. Yep. Yeah. That's it. But for now, I will be working for a company we recently had on the show. So, I'll be working for Hubble Network. I'm developing relations lead there. And I have recently used electronics that have talked to space. So, that's pretty cool. Bluetooth. Bluetooth electronics, that is. So, I'm very excited about it. Bluetooth.

Dave Jones: So, this is Bluetooth direct to satellite.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's two things. So, it's, there's a terrestrial network. That's like, so, Alex was, Alex Harrow was on the show. Talked to him. Ended up, that turned into a couple conversations. That then turned into interviews. That turned into, now I work there. And, it's two things. One is the terrestrial network. And that's basically, like, it's an actual Bluetooth mode. It's basically advertising and saying, hey, I have some data. It's encrypted data. But with this certain ID, then like 100 million devices out in the world. Grab that packet and then forward it along to the Hubble Network. That's kind of the idea. So, that's like, you're basically, you know, you have a device out in the world. It's, someone's got an app on their phone that's listening.

Dave Jones: It's acting as a relay thing. Exactly. Exactly. But only if they allow it.

Chris Gammell: Of course. Yeah, yeah. There's participating apps. It's not like, it's not without people's knowledge. Exactly.

Dave Jones: Oh, so the user has to run the Hubble app?

Chris Gammell: No, no. These are partner apps as well. So, there's like partner apps, partner gateways. There is the Hubble app, but that's like, you know, a fraction of the overall, basically. Yeah. So, it's like, it's majority like partner apps that are doing that relaying of data through on the terrestrial side. So, the idea is like, say you had a truck with a Bluetooth beacon on it that's telling you the temperature, like a cold chain tracker. It's Bluetooth based. It's driving around the inside, inside a building. It's beaconing. But then it goes outside the building and now it can also talk to a satellite. And that, so there's now satellites up in space that you can, it switches the mode a little bit. It uses the 2.4 gigahertz radio, but it does FSK. Yeah. Right. And so, then there's certain windows when the satellite's overhead and it's able to still transmit and go back to the internet, which is pretty cool.

Dave Jones: So, they have their own chippy?

Chris Gammell: No. That's the other thing is it's all commercial chips. Well. So, it's.

Dave Jones: Oh, because I'm looking at Hubble carries low bandwidth data from any device. Oh, any device with a Bluetooth chip. Okay. They're just, it looks like on their marketing blurb on their webpage, it looks like they've got their own chip.

Chris Gammell: Ah, yeah. Yeah, I guess there is a finger with a chip on top of it, but that is actually.

Dave Jones: Yeah, there is a finger with a chip.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, my desk right now, I've got Espressif, I've got, I've got some Nordic, I've got some Silicon Labs, some TI parts, you know, basically a lot of the major ones, they all work.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. Right. Got it. Yeah. So, all you've got to do is change the firmware in your existing hardware. Exactly. Do that. Yep. And to use the Hubble, it just, it's like a man in the middle kind of thing. It just.

Chris Gammell: It's like an SDK. It's like a thing you pull in your SDK. And increasingly, it's like, you know, you tell your clanker to pull in this SDK. It's just an advertising packet that you send out, or in the case of the satellite stuff. So, like right now, the satellite, you do need to have a preamp in front of it. You need a preamp to get to 20 dB to get up to space. But in the future, it'll be lower, down to 4 dB. So, it's pretty exciting.

Dave Jones: I'm looking at the coverage map. You claim to have Sydney here.

Chris Gammell: Coverage map. That is the terrestrial network. Yeah. That's right.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Got you. And so, yeah. And the satellite is US only for now, but that's changing rapidly. And then as more satellites go up. So, there's big, big, big satellites that are going up. Right now, they're CubeSats, but the new ones are going to be like much, much bigger and much, much more sensitive. And yeah. Got it. It's going to be really amazing.

Dave Jones: Well, it claims to cover my map, my lab here.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. There you go.

Dave Jones: And they're all like hexagons. Hexagons are the best of gone.

Chris Gammell: That's right.

Dave Jones: They're all like. You have to choose in a gun. Mapped as like a little hexagon. Choose the hexagon. Yeah. Choose the best of gone. Yeah. Well, it claims to cover my lab here. Yeah. So, who's doing all this? Like, you've got complete coverage over most of, a good lot of, most of Sydney. So, who the hell is taking, who the hell is taking this up and doing this? Because I can't imagine you've got that many nodes yet.

Chris Gammell: A hundred million nodes, Dave.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But how?

Chris Gammell: It's like partner apps, basically. So, that's the idea. It's like.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But which partner apps, which ones are people secretly running that they don't know about? That's what I'm asking here.

Chris Gammell: It is. Life 360 is like one of the, was one of the big ones that is well known. Life 360. So, that's where Alex, the former guest of the show. He was the CTO there. Yeah. And then he's the CEO of Hubble now. So, basically, it's like a family finder app. So, if you had.

Dave Jones: I don't know anyone who uses Life 360.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's pretty common.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Well, okay.

Chris Gammell: So, and like it's not just that either. Right. So, it could. But. I think it's probably only in apps that are already running in the background. So, things like Life 360 are already doing that as well. Right? You think about it. It's like something that's already scanning for location for other people.

Dave Jones: Okay. Yeah. Okay. It's a family tracking app. That's right. Okay. It's like a Find My as well. Oh, for pets and things. Yeah, pets and. It's like a pet finder. Yeah, pets and. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, I'll be building examples. Cool. I'll be, you know, working on explaining how this stuff all works. Right. And building hardware and talking about RF front ends and things like that. So, all the stuff I like doing.

Dave Jones: And going to trade shows, I'm sure.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah. I'm tentatively going to CES and Embedded World. So, I'll be back at Embedded World. I haven't been to CES in a couple years. I'll probably be there. So, should be interesting.

Dave Jones: And they've got their own satellites, right? They've got some satellites. They've got a couple, do they?

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: How many? Couple? Handful?

Chris Gammell: There's three that most North Americans will see on their overpasses on a regular basis. Yeah. Okay. Basically, I see one to two overpasses per day. That's. Okay. Yeah. That's enough to get coverage. Like, coverage once per day right now. And then the eventual goal.

Dave Jones: You can see this on the app, can you?

Chris Gammell: If you have access to the satellite stuff, you can see all the passes. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Does the regular Joe have that? Or is that secret squirrel?

Chris Gammell: It's a good question. I don't know where it's.

Dave Jones: He's only been there a week, folks. That's right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I built some tools for myself to see it.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Gotcha. You can back calculate it from the SDK. I know that. That's how I did it. Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: Fair enough. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. All right.

Chris Gammell: But it's, like, super easy to try out. And, you know, like, honestly, it's a one-click install. If you're, like, in the dashboard, you can just have it, like, it'll actually, like, run a bash script and download everything and put the binary in and stuff like that. So, yeah. It's great.

Dave Jones: Cool. Yeah. Cool bananas. Yeah, I'm excited. Good luck at the new job. Thanks. Thanks.

Chris Gammell: A friend once told me change is as good as a holiday, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. How long were you working last gig?

Chris Gammell: Goliath was five-ish years, five, a little bit more. It was my longest job, actually.

Dave Jones: Oh, I was going to say, yeah, about four. Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I thought it was quite a while.

Chris Gammell: It was, yeah. Yeah. I was surprised. When I looked that up, I was like, oh, I thought I've stayed at other jobs longer, but I guess I haven't. But, yeah, you know. Right. Five years. Who's got five years at a time, right? I mean, I can do it once, but, you know.

Dave Jones: The young kiddies these days have no idea what that means. I know.

Chris Gammell: I know.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Got to keep it dynamic.

Dave Jones: Does that mean you're old? Did they fill your old position, or is it open? What's going on?

Chris Gammell: At Canonical Goliath?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. There's, oh, they are always hiring there, so.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right. Yeah. So, if anyone went, oh, I wish I had a Christmas job.

Chris Gammell: I mean, there was like an open position to work alongside me, basically. Oh, right. Okay. You're looking for a gig? Right. I can put a good word in for you. No, I'm good. When's the last time you've been using Linux still? You've still, uh.

Dave Jones: I've used, I use Linux occasionally. Why? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm just, you know, working for Ubuntu. Yeah, working for them, right? Yeah. Oh, yes, I would.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right. You guys got bored out, didn't you? You were working for technically. That's right.

Chris Gammell: Canonical. Canonical runs Ubuntu. Yes. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Canonical runs Ubuntu, owns Ubuntu, or is Ubuntu. Yeah, is Ubuntu, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Exactly.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Why did they call themselves Canonical? Why not just call yourselves, you know, like, named after your product? I don't know.

Chris Gammell: It's a good question.

Dave Jones: Well, that happened with Google, right? Now they're bloody alphabet bullshit, so.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I guess it's tough. I mean, I think Ubuntu had the most, like, brand cachet, for sure. Yes. Like, people knew that, you know, it's like the free product. It's got tons of goodwill. I think, yeah. But I think Canonical, because it is more than just Ubuntu, right? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. They own, like, a whole bunch of different things. Yeah, we had a look at the map once of all the different divisions that the company has. Jeez. It was nuts. Yeah. It was nuts. Yeah, different products.

Chris Gammell: A lot of data center stuff and things like it. Right. It was nice folks. I really liked the Canonical folks. I miss the Goliath folks. But, yeah, excited about this new stuff.

Dave Jones: Yep. Change is as good as the holiday. Cool. Yeah. Have you seen my LCD magic video? I have. Yeah, you're back at the micro timer. I perform magic with LCDs. Wait a second.

Chris Gammell: No, it's a master class, I believe, I saw in the title. Is that correct?

Dave Jones: That is a different one. I've now, I've got a more recent video where.

Chris Gammell: Power management master class.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. Well, kind of. The LCD physics.

Dave Jones: Yes. There's a more recent one. Yes.

Chris Gammell: Okay. I didn't see this one yet. What happens here?

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. I can make pixels on an LCD vanish. Disappear. Like magic. Disappear. Yeah. Disappear. Erased from existence. So, yes. It's an interesting physics phenomenon because we're using this extremely low power LCD, right? And it's so low power that the little capacitors, because inside a thin film transistor, TFT, right? Each pixel is held there with, well, there's a charge. There's a individual transistor, hence the thin film transistor part of the name. Each pixel has an associated transistor and associated storage capacitor. And whether or not each pixel is on or off depends on the charge on that storage capacitor. And it's tiny. It's etched onto the glass. It's only like a puff or half a puff. I don't know. I could most likely can't even measure it. It was so tiny, right? And so the difference between the VCOM voltage on an LCD and the charge on that capacitor, that indicate that then the field between those two nodes either vertically aligns or horizontal or doesn't align the individual liquid crystals inside the screen and hence turns a pixel on or off, depending on how the polarization works, blah, blah, blah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. Anyway, so there's a tiny little itty bitty charge on each individual pixel on the LCD. And if you shine a light onto a transistor, an exposed transistor, transistors are, every transistor is a photo transistor. Remember this, kiddies? That's why they put transistors in black packages. Yes. Yes. Einstein. Yes. This is, you know. Yep. This is Planck's constant, the whole thing, right? This is, whoa.

Chris Gammell: Sorry.

Dave Jones: Chris just broke something in the lab. I did.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I just dropped the irony of irony is I just dropped my radar-based heartbeat monitor and it would have seen my heartbeat go up as I dropped it.

Dave Jones: Why do you have a heartbeat monitor on? Is there some medical condition on that?

Chris Gammell: It's a remote one. It's a Seeed Studio, 60 gigahertz. We'll talk about it after, I guess. I don't know. I didn't mean to drop it, though.

Dave Jones: It was mostly the 3D printing case that made the noise. Okay. Right. Gotcha. So where was I? Yes. Individual pixels. Yes. So when you, every single transistor, doesn't matter if it's an LCD or whether it's not, get a regular transistor in one of those metal packages, one of those metal TO5 packages, and actually cut off the top of it and then shine a torch inside. None of that flashlight Yankee rubbish torch here in Australia. Right. Shine a torch inside and you can make that transistor turn off or on. So, yeah. How much can you control it? Because photons have energy.

Chris Gammell: Can you just, you like, it's just kind of like a bulk, it's like charging up.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's a, well, that depends on the bulk silicon, but it depends on the bandgap voltage of the silicon, right? So the LCDs use amorphous silicon, I think, which, well, there's different types, but the low power ones use the amorphous silicon, I think. And that has a bandgap voltage of like a volt and a half tops, something like that. And white light has a photon energy, once again, in electron volts of three-ish volts, something like that, two and a half to three volts. So that can overcome the bandgap energy level inside the transistor and boom, that transistor is going to conduct. And that's why the pixels vanish because your transistor, which is supposed to be off, is now suddenly on. It's discharging your itty bitty capacitor on that pixel and bingo, your pixel vanishes. Magic. Physics magic. Yeah, it's great.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. What were the natural effects of this though? So like if you had a LCD out in the sunlight, it would blank out?

Dave Jones: I show that in the video. I actually take it out in the sunlight, even though I put it against, like it does not, it's really hard to do it through the front of the LCD because the transistors are etched on the back surface of the glass. So you've got like the polarizing filters and the mirror and the reflective back in, all that sort of stuff. But if you have, I actually take it out in the sun and in the lowest power mode possible, yes, the sun does actually erase the LCD until you send the data back in and you actually recharge the caps and then the cycle starts again. So it just turns off on, off on. Yeah. So you put it out in the sun, this super duper low power LCD. So if you're designing your product kitties and it works fine in the lab and then you make a hundred million of your widgets and then you take them outside and oops, doesn't work anymore because your super low power LCD is susceptible to UV and sunlight. So, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I was trying to explain UV to a five-year-old the other day and it was interesting.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Talking about light, like my mind, I was like blowing my own mind as I was explaining. I was like, yeah, you know, there's like all these wavelengths inside of light. What's a wavelength? Yeah. Just like all the way down. You're just like relearning things from a kiddo perspective.

Dave Jones: Dude, I can tell you exactly how you can teach kids about this because I've done it in a classroom. I've done it in a classroom. Let's hear it. Come on. With kids is I took my thermal camera into a kid into a kindergarten class once. I think it was kindergarten or year one or something. Okay. Anyway, young, young kids about that age. And what, what I did is got one of them to stand up behind a black garbage bag so that you couldn't see them. Right. So then, you know, so that you can't see them. And then I put the thermal camera in front of it. Oh, it's like magic. We can see through the black garbage bag. So that teaches them that there are wavelengths of light outside visible ones, you know, and that they were all stunned that, you know, we could actually see the person behind the black bag.

Chris Gammell: Well, the pedant in me says, I was talking about ultraviolet, but I suppose infrared also works. That's fine.

Dave Jones: That also works. It's either side of the spectrum.

Chris Gammell: So you're going to work on, yeah, one, one, one side of the invisible, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. It makes no difference. Yeah. It's, it's a spectrum thing, but yeah, it just teaches the kids that there is wavelengths outside of visible light, you know? Yeah. That's a good one.

Chris Gammell: I mean, even just as like, it seems like you're seeing through stuff like that's, that's cool on its own.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's magic. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Even the teachers were amazed. Teachers going, what the hell is it? Like, how does that work?

Chris Gammell: The teacher is probably thinking, now I can find the kid that always hides when it's time to come in from recess, right? Yeah. Which is true. That's it. You know, that would be a good idea.

Dave Jones: Yep. Thermal cameras issued to all teachers. Yeah. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Like a predator style, you know, they're just scanning the, scanning the schoolyard.

Dave Jones: Awesome movie, Predator. Just saying.

Chris Gammell: It's classic. Yeah. Classic.

Dave Jones: Haven't got the kids to watch it yet. What is the pitch there?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know?

Dave Jones: Well, I don't know. I'm trying to get them to start watching the action movies that I like, you know, and stuff like that in there. Like, you know. Yeah. It's a tough ask, you know. It's true. Right.

Chris Gammell: It's not super high budget either, you know. It was iconic for the era, but it's not, yeah. I did see a Terminator 2 clip the other day, and man, that. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. They see, they haven't watched Terminator yet. They haven't watched, you know.

Chris Gammell: Graphics wise, but like, it's amazing what they did back in those days. It's just truly amazing.

Dave Jones: I think it's still pretty cool. You've seen some of the garbage these days?

Chris Gammell: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course.

Dave Jones: I mean, jeez. You know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. The original Jurassic Park just buries anything these days. Still?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It holds up. Damn right it does. And it was one of the first. It was. I don't know. The care, the love that went into it, I guess. Yeah. Nowadays. Yes, they spare no expense, right?

Chris Gammell: I guess that's the second. Right. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So I've been dealing with, I've had a couple of very popular videos, or at least another one last night on the second channel. I've been dealing with supply chain. I've been doing a video on supply chain attacks.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. On your crypto wallet thing? So yeah, Ledger.

Dave Jones: Ledger crypto hardware wallet. It's just making the news again.

Chris Gammell: Can you define supply chain attack?

Dave Jones: I can define supply chain attack in this case. This is when the manufacturer manufactures their widget thing, and they box it up, and they seal it, and everything. And then somewhere between there, and somewhere between the manufacturing plant and the customer, somebody, somebody in the middle, a secret squirrel, opens it up, hacks it, puts in a secret spyware eSIM thing, which reads your seed phrase, and repackages it like brand new, and ships it to the customer. And yeah, the customer doesn't know any different, and they have all their funds stolen, because there's a man in the middle. It's also called a man in the middle attack, which usually refers to comms, but it also can refer to supply chain attacks.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and I feel like that's important to disambiguate on these terms, because there's also a supply chain attack that people might have heard in the software space. And so there's things like namespace squatting, and things like it. So if you're like a package manager, and like an NPM package manager type of thing, and there's a package named blob, B-L-O-B, but for some reason, people always seem to type in blib instead. Like they miskey it, and they say NPM install blib. Or that is also, so like basically a hijacker would put a malicious package into blib instead of blob. And that's also referred to as a supply chain attack, because you're basically swapping something out in the middle, like the same kind of idea.

Dave Jones: Exactly. So the other way that happens with these hardware wallets before, haven't heard of it much these days, but it happened a lot, is that they wouldn't hack the physical device, because that requires electronics engineering skills and hacking skills and all that sort of stuff. So they open the package, and they just change out the instruction cards in there. So instead of giving you a blank crypto card, where you generate, you know, how these work, is you're supposed to use the hardware device to generate your secure key that only you know, right? But what they do is they can insert a, they can take out the real sheets in instruction and seed sheets and put in, instead of a blank one, they give you one that's already pre-filled out with the seed phrases, which they know, of course, because they're the ones who've printed it. And then they change the instructions. So instead of setting up a new seed phrase on your hardware wallet, you restore the seed phrase, which they've already given you. And it looks all official. All the paperwork looks official. The instructions look official. But bingo, they've, they just wait a few weeks or a few months, and then they steal all your money because they have your secret phrase because, you know, yep, yep. So that's a paper supply chain attack.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: There's also other ones where, this is interesting, where all they need is your email or home address, right? So they steal, this has been happening a lot lately. They will hack a third party shipping company and steal their database, right? So they have all the customers who've bought one of these wallets, right? They have your home address or email or whatever. And they will actually go to the effort to then ship you a brand new hardware wallet that's hacked, of course, that's already pre-hacked with an official looking letter from the CEO of the hardware company saying, oh, we're, we're sorry. We've been having, you know, security issues now, but your money's safe. But here's a, as a, as a token of appreciation, here's a brand new wallet. Trust me, bro. Use this one and your money will be safe. And they actually ship you a brand new product just out of the blue and people can fall for that. And, you know, yeah, it's, it's amazing. There's many ways to do these supply chain and database hacks and all sorts of things. You know, it's just, it's just endless. It's endless. Anyway, it's been going on for years. It's not new.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, it's new ways to do old, old crimes, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But before that it was bank accounts. And I recently did a video on a pin pad, a credit card swipe terminals, you know, and how the security and those works and stuff like that. So, yep, yep. So they can fake those and. People are still doing crypto. Have you seen the video?

Chris Gammell: What? No. Sorry. Like, like skimmers. Is that what you're talking about?

Dave Jones: Skimmers. Yes. I'm talking about card skimmers at your local servo or gas station in the US, right? Yeah. Have you seen the videos of the ones where they actually remove the physical, like the whole front panel of the ATM machine?

Chris Gammell: The skimmers do?

Dave Jones: Like the entire front panel. Yeah. They actually make an entire fake front panel. It's really amazing. Oh, I understand that. Yeah. So you walk up to the ATM machine and it looks totally legit, but it's got a completely fake front panel on it. And it's like, ah, it's just amazing.

Chris Gammell: And why do they do that versus, is that because they need to have the pin pad in addition to the tap?

Dave Jones: They need to have the pin pad in addition to the skimmer. So they replace the entire front panel, which has the skimmer and it goes into the real machine, you know, like it goes in, but it goes through their one first, you know, and then pin pad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's bloody amazing. The effort that these scammers go to, but the actual payoff is big. Like this latest one is like $100 million or something like that. But this latest one is actually more interesting than this again, right? Because this hack happened through a legit seller, right? A legit seller of ledger hardware wallets, right? In Malaysia, I think it is, right? So they're an authorized reseller, but this is an NDA hack. This is a non-disclosure agreement hack. What happened is that was a totally legit company selling totally legit versions of these hardware wallets, but they were secretly bought by a Chinese company or somebody in China. And they made them sign an NDA as part of the purchase in the company that they're not allowed to tell anyone that they sold the company until I think next week. I think it expires next week and bingo, the hack happens this week. And it's like, yeah, so that that's how it happened. That's how it happened apparently. But there's still sketchy details on that. But yeah, this, so this hack, this $100 million hack happened through a legit hardware seller, which is the remarkable thing. So yeah, it's an NDA hack. You know, it's very, I actually, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's all just variations on social engineering and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah, yeah. It's all, yeah. It's, yep. But I have to tip my hat. That's pretty innovative. So, yep. Yeah. Anyway. So yeah, just beware, kiddies. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just crypto. It's everything, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, I don't, I don't actually know like how people are doing this in other ways too. You just mean like skimmers and stuff like that too?

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. Skimming machines. You can get credit. You can get bank card fraud and all sorts of things. Yeah. You know, you can get fake bank accounts. You can get, you know, like you, you think that you're logging into your actual bank account, but you're not. You're logging into a fake actual website that looks exactly like the real thing. Yeah. You know, it's, it's been going on forever. Yeah. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's great.

Dave Jones: So if you think you're safe because you don't use the crypto, think again. Yeah. Once again, once they get, all they have to do is, that's why stealing databases of customers is a big thing. You know, if your, if your bank gets hacked or some third party company gets hacked and steals all bank customers email, all they need is your email address and your name and then you'll start, or your phone number and then you'll start getting a call. This is from, you know, XYZ bank. I'm calling about, you know, did you authorize this hundred and this thousand dollar transaction on your card? Yeah. Shit. No, I didn't. Okay. Right. You know, do this procedure and then they proceed to, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I get icky feelings whenever I get phone calls and like, they're like, oh, you know, you know, we're from this place and, you know, can we, can we confirm your information? And they start like listing out. I'm like, I'm not, I'm not trusting you. Like get, give me a number to call back. You're giving me your name. I'm like, I'll call you back, you know, that sort of thing.

Dave Jones: Dude, I got a call from the Australian federal police. You can't see me at the moment, but I'm making the quote marks, right? Yeah, right. I got a call from the Australian federal police, but I swear it sounded, they, they must've been using voice changing tech because like, you know, usually when you get these scam phone calls, it's somebody, then yeah, it's an Indian accent or whatever. Right. It's practically guaranteed, but this one sounded totally English Aussie. And it's like, and, and that, you know, so I go ahead with that, you know, I kind of string them along just to see what the scam is for funsies, you know? And, um, and I swear they spent like 20, 25 minutes on the phone with me, not actually doing, not actually trying to scam me in any way. The scam comes later from a follow-up call. That's how it works. But like, and they sound totally legit. Like it's actually somebody here that you would trust, like somebody you'd trust from the Australian, Australian federal police. It was really impressive.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And they spend that amount of time with you and they don't even hint at the scam. Well, they do, if you know what you're listening for, but they're not trying to scam you on that call. It's always, you know, a follow-up. They'll pass you on to someone else from another company. Right. But yeah, it's the voice changing tech is wow. I was blown away. Yeah. Seriously. It's getting, it's getting seriously good. I could not tell. Yep. You know, and I'm asking them stuff in real time. Like as they're talking, I'm trying to interrupt them to see if it's like a real time translation thing, you know? And it, and it was, it was just, it was incredible. So I'm sure that was not the guy's actual voice because you know, it just almost practically never happens. So yeah. I'm sure it was voice changing tech. Really, really remarkable.

Chris Gammell: So I'm hearing here, I should put all my money in a coffee can in my backyard. I should like bury it in my backyard. Is that what I'm hearing?

Dave Jones: Yeah. You should bury it in your backyard. Yeah. Well, well, you've just told us. Yeah. Yeah. See, I'll put it in the front yard.

Chris Gammell: You'll never. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, the front yard. Right. Everyone's digging in Chris's backyard. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. With their metal detector. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Just scan the whole thing. Oh boy. What else has happened?

Chris Gammell: You know, I am pretty excited. There's a new free CAD release. Um, free CAD is a, you know, kind of an ongoing soft, soft project of, here's the, here's my pitch. Uh, you know, all the other CAD programs, uh, they all, uh, basically none of them have the plain texts. I think the plain text tools basically are winning just because the clankers like them, you know, so. Yes, exactly. It's helping development. It's helping, you know, like you can have an MCP. There's MCPs for a lot of CAD servers now, but, and there's tooling to do that sort of thing across. There's so much stuff out there.

Dave Jones: The new micro timer project will have an MCP. Right, but that's not for design.

Chris Gammell: You're saying like that's a.

Dave Jones: No, that'll be for the user to use it so you can make it do other things, you know. Got it. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm still not sure I completely understand the micro timer, but I'm sure I'll get there later.

Dave Jones: Yep. Well, we haven't really told everyone what it's for capabilities.

Chris Gammell: I'm just going to wait for the final. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you guys are back on it. You're going to wait for the big reveal. But like, but there's like so many like things that like the, you know, controlling blender, controlling free CAD, controlling key CAD, like all of these things that are like, and, you know, better or worse. It's all, it's all moving really fast. You know, I'm not sure where it all goes, you know.

Dave Jones: Well, did you see my recent video on getting paid $175 an hour to eliminate your own PCB job? Yeah. I'm pretty sure the customer is Altium. So I think Altium are paying this third party company. I mean, there's so many out there.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if it would be. I mean, there's literally like 30 to 50 companies.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But why would you use, why would you, why would another company pay people to train how to use Altium Designer? You're better off training to use key CAD or something, which is free. So I think it's Altium.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, that's the thing. There's a lot of, there's, there's, there's like literally, you know, there's startups that like email us, Dave. I mean, I don't know if you're getting all these emails, but like, you know, they're like, they're like, hey, we're doing all these tools for, and often it's for Altium Designer because they're chasing after.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. So you think it could be a third party who, who is trying to get Altium as a client, maybe?

Chris Gammell: No, no, no, no, no, no. They're, they're trying to build, well, I mean, no, not really. They're trying to like, they're trying to get the, the companies that are using Altium and they're trying to build like tooling, tooling that will control their Altium instance.

Dave Jones: Gotcha.

Chris Gammell: But in order to control their Altium instance, they need to have training data on top of it.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know. Yep. There's still a lot of reasons to know how to do it, but it's, you know, we're going to start competing. We're going to start competing with, with a lot of the, the computers out there too. Yeah. So.

Dave Jones: Well, everyone now is bragging online. I know you don't use X, right? But the latest flex on X is, hey, look what I built with a single prompt. Yeah. And they, like a single prompt and then it designs the, it designs the schematic, it designs the PCB. It hooks up to the LCSC database. It checks on, it checks on all the parts that are available. It places the order with LCSC to, it places the order with JLC or whatever, but they're all the one big group to have your boards assembled. And then it generates the 3D case for it. And then it generates the video on how to assemble it all. And it just, it's literally a turnkey thing. People bragging about a complete turnkey product from a single prompt.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I've been thinking about trying it just to see. I mean, you should.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I think that's the thing we should try it and it is going to get better, but it's like, I don't know, the value kind of goes down. So Eric was on the show last week and he was talking about this, Eric Pan from C Studio. I was a little surprised, you know, I was listening back as I was editing and I, I loved everything he said. I, I was a little surprised that he said he doesn't think the tooling is going to come for the service side of things in Shenzhen. And I thought that was interesting. But I, I also think that like the, this, the vendor side as suppliers of like just quick turn hardware that is going, is as an input, like, or sorry, basically as a consumer of the data that the clankers output, right? So the, all of the tooling that, you know, one, the one shot design stuff, the people that can assemble hardware the quickest, if it's JLC or other people, they're going to, they're going to win or really the best tooled up as well. Like good APIs, good front ends, that sort of thing. So yeah, it is, it's pretty wild, man.

Dave Jones: Brave new world.

Chris Gammell: It is, it is. There's still a lot of stuff that breaks though. So, you know, we'll, we'll probably be needed for that for now, right? Well, yeah, I got to like take things apart and, you know, solder, solder wires that fell off. So yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, I'm still in the YouTube business until I, until I'm not. Speaking of which, segue. The, the kiss analog YouTube channel, Eddie Aho is a fellow YouTuber. His channel got hacked recently and I don't, I haven't checked yet, but I don't think he's gotten it back yet. It got hacked. And then there was another one learning electronics repair channel. I think it is. I hadn't heard of him before, but he looks like he does really good videos. His channel was also hacked and it's interesting how it was hacked, right? Usually, right. This is how, this is how the Linus Tech Tips channel was hacked, right? Et cetera. Is that they send you an email. They pretend to be a sponsor, right? And then you open an infected document, a sponsor document, and then it hijacks your session cookie for your YouTube. So that bypasses all the two-factor authentication that you've set up on your YouTube and your Gmail account. And that's how they hijack. And your channel is gone within a minute. Wow. Like, it's all automated. Bam. As soon as you open that document, within a minute, your Gmail account, they've changed your password. They've hacked your YouTube channel. They've changed the password. Boom. Because security sucks on Google. Anyway, so the way, but he was aware of this, right? Learning Electronics Repair YouTube channel was aware of this. So how he got bitten, and they stole his session cookie, is that he was on one of those database websites. You know, when you search for old, not database, datasheet websites. Oh, yeah. Like, you know, datasheets.com or something, right? When you're searching for an old datasheet, because he does vintage repairs, right? So he's always searching for old datasheets and things. So he was innocently on that website, right? And they've got Google ads on that website. And apparently, they're now putting them in infected Google ads, where it simulated a capture thing. So he went, oh, it's another capture thing. I'll just solve the capture. But it's actually running a script, which steals your session cookie. And it was on this datasheet website. That's weird. And that's what stole his YouTube channel.

Chris Gammell: I don't understand how I can do that with, like, the cross-site, the course policies, stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I don't know. But, yeah. And so he knew all about this, you know, sponsor infected document scam. And he, you know, and it came through like a capture on a datasheet website. Are you kidding me? That means it can happen to anyone anywhere.

Chris Gammell: You know, folks, Dave's getting older, and they target the elderly. So, you know, Dave has to be careful.

Dave Jones: Right, they target the elderly on the vintage datasheets. That's right. Yeah, that's where the thread is these days. That's right.

Chris Gammell: The Z. Oh, did you hear the Z80 officially? The Z80 is officially kaput? Like, dead, dead? Like, they're no longer going to make any more Z80s?

Dave Jones: The Z80 does not exist. It's called the Z80.

Chris Gammell: Sorry, the Z80 is fine. Z80, thank you. Ixis, or however you say their name, I-X-Y-S, the little fuse. Ixis, basically, they were the final owners.

Dave Jones: Oh, were they? I hadn't heard. Is that like, they recently bought it?

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's just changed hands so many times. Actually, I was watching the Asianometry channel about it. Did you know that the Z80 was actually made by an oil company? It was owned by an oil company? Let me pull that up. It was amazing. It was really good. I mean, I love the Asianometry.

Dave Jones: That must be a new video that I've missed, or one that I've missed. I usually watch the Asianometry.

Chris Gammell: Which one was it? I've been watching a bunch of those lately. I mean, kind of like catching up on the old thing. But it stood out because it was about standard oil and oil companies. Okay. Yeah. Oh, because they also owned a... They were trying to compete with IBM. That's what it was. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, it's officially dead now is what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. It's officially all the Z80s. Like, they've actually... Like, it's just... They've declared it dead. Yeah, exactly. And does that include the microcontrollers as well, like the Z8 and stuff like that?

Chris Gammell: I believe... I think this is... I saw a thing about it, and I... Yeah, I thought it was finally dead, dead. But, yeah, there's still stuff in the market. You can still buy them. Don't get me wrong. You know, there's a lot out there. But I think they're no longer... They're officially no longer producing them. So, the video by Asianometry, or John, is the Exxon's Office Fling. It was...

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Yeah. Ooh.

Chris Gammell: It's a really good video. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I say... Like, I Google it, and the first thing I get is a Hackaday article from back in April. Oh, April 24th. The Z80 is dead. Oh, geez. Okay. No.

Chris Gammell: I think that's when they listed, like, the end-of-life date, and I think we finally hit that or something.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Oh, right. Okay. Gotcha.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Rip. Z80.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We hardly knew you. Hardy salute. Only 50-some years, right?

Dave Jones: Only 50-something years. Yeah. Jesus. When did it come out? 70 when?

Chris Gammell: I wasn't alive, man.

Dave Jones: All right. I need to know the exact... I should know this exact date. 76. 1976. 76. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is well and truly before you were born. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. Mm-hmm. That was quite the beast back in the day, you know? Mm-hmm. That was quite the thing, so...

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We should see if NVIDIA will bring it back, you know? All right.

Dave Jones: It's mad what you can emulate these days. I mean, anything. Now, it's like...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I know. You can run an Xbox in a browser now.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You can run the original Halo games on the original Xbox in a browser.

Chris Gammell: I know.

Dave Jones: I know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, there's like web GPU, like the thing where you can access the GPU from the browser. That's pretty wild.

Dave Jones: Just...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That is insane. What's going on?

Chris Gammell: I know. This is not even close to the same level, but I've been writing some tools for my new gig, and I put like 30 giga... Sorry, 30 megabytes worth of Python into a web assembly.

Dave Jones: Clanker derived.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, I didn't write it, but... Yeah, of course. Basically, I was like, I think I could probably talk about this. Yes. I could talk about this. So, there's this really cool new thing where there's a project online where they basically use the... They bypass some of the stuff inside an ESP32 S3. And so, you can access the raw IQ data out of the radio. So, normally...

Dave Jones: Oh, out of the radio itself. Oh, okay. Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: So, basically, I have this prototype where I have an ESP32 S3, and it's dumping all its IQ data out of the USB port at like a megabit per second, and then it's being processed by web serial, and then there's a bunch of Python running in a web assembly container, like basically WebAssembly is like a compiled down version of different languages into the browser. And so, I have like this Python running. And so, basically, I am doing an SDR on an S3 for 2.4 gigahertz. And so, I can actually view all of the satellite data. You can do that in a web browser. I can view it in the... I can watch a full waterfall plot. I can decode all of the encrypted satellite data that we're sending up, because I obviously have my own device keys. It's so cool, Dave. Like, I'm hoping and I think I'll be able to put it out in the world, but like, it is so cool. And then like, you can also like see... This is mad. You can see all the like the frequency hopping happening in 2.4 gigahertz. It's like, it's limited bandwidth.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: But the project that it's taking inspiration from, because I actually had it rewrit it from scratch. The S31 that's coming out, and that's like a new one. There was an Adafruit article. The S31 that's coming out from Espressif is actually going to run Linux. They've already just, they've proven that it runs Linux. That's an Espressif part. That can do 20 megabit on USB and 40 megabit over, over ethernet. So from the one megabit that I'm doing, which can do about 500 kilohertz of the decoded, it can do 40 megabit per second, which means I could probably do like multiple, you know, multiples of what I'm already showing. So the full Bluetooth spectrum, basically. Yeah. It's pretty wild. And that's an, I mean, the S3 is like a $2 chip. So like, you know, from the Z80 to that, it's pretty wild. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: All right. Oh, God.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I'll show you, I'll show you a demo after we're done recording.

Dave Jones: Yeah. With the micro timer project, I went, oh, should I add an ESP32 module? Or just a Bluetooth module. And in the end, we kind of decided, yeah, we'll go with the ESP32. It's so cheap. That's the thing. Even if you're like, I mean, you guys aren't using them as your main processor, right? They're only two bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Sorry. You're not using it as your main processor, right?

Dave Jones: Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. No.

Chris Gammell: I mean, you could just use it as a.

Dave Jones: No, because it isn't really. As an AT motor, you know? It's, it's, yeah. Anyway, so yeah, we've added the footprint for it.

Chris Gammell: I mean, if you want to, if I can hook your micro timer up to space, you know, I'm just saying.

Dave Jones: Right. Right. Okay. Yep. All right. Cool. Well, we'll include that in the Kickstarter video, shall we? Yeah, there you go. There we go. Yeah, right. Okay. Yep. Great. Unbelievable. Yeah. So can you talk directly from the ESP32 straight to the satellite?

Chris Gammell: Yes, you can. In this case, I was not, but yeah, you can. On some of the chips, there's enough front end.

Dave Jones: You can in theory, right?

Chris Gammell: No, no, like my coworkers do.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's only like every once in a while, right? Right now.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah. Because there's only three satellites up there. I know it's whizzing past.

Chris Gammell: And it's so like anticlimactic when I did it too. I was like, oh, look, there's my data. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, expect like the clouds to part and be like.

Dave Jones: Oh. Yeah. No, well, you were there with me when we pinged the Voyager 1 space probe.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right. That's right.

Dave Jones: It was like.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's like. There it is. There's a signal from the Voyager 1. That's right.

Dave Jones: There's the data on the screen. And it's coming from the Voyager 1. Like, you know, and it's like.

Chris Gammell: It's like the stacks and stacks and stacks of like human achievement. Yeah, yeah. And we're just like. Exactly. Oh, look at that. Look at that little wiggle. Look at that little wiggle on the screen.

Dave Jones: 50 years of human achievement. Yeah. It's pretty cool. It's gone into that. Yeah. There's the spike on the screen and there's the data coming out. We can see the rule. Cool. What else? What else you got for me? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is lame.

Chris Gammell: Ain't that the truth? You know, we are fickle creatures and we are fickle creatures.

Dave Jones: Yeah, we are. Unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: Oh, boy. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. All right. Well, I'll include that in the Kickstarter.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Do you have a timeline on? Is Kickstarter still a thing?

Dave Jones: Well, I don't know. Like, everyone uses CrowdSupply these days, don't they? I don't know. I haven't looked into it. I haven't, you know. Yeah, yeah. It is still a thing, Kickstarter, but, you know, there's just so many other.

Chris Gammell: CrowdSupply, the nice thing is, like, you can get into Mauser easily. You know, they basically are, you know, they're owned by Mauser. So, you can, your products.

Dave Jones: Oh, is it? Is CrowdSupply owned by Mauser?

Chris Gammell: That's right. They got bought a couple years ago now. Oh, I didn't know that. Maybe more. Oh, really? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, geez. I'm not up to date on this stuff.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but the nice thing is, like, so, you know, you do all this work to get it into the CrowdSupply system, and then they have, like, a reorder process for themselves, you know, where they kind of continually offer it, but then it also gets cross-listed in Mauser. So, you know, I love the CrowdSupply. Right. There are some downsides. bunnie, bunnie Huang, who's been on the show a couple times, he had some negative experiences with his Bao, which I haven't caught up. I should ping bunnie. Ah, interesting. Do you know the Bao, the chips that he did? We didn't really talk about it.

Dave Jones: The name doesn't ring a bell, but I'm probably familiar.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so bunnie, bunnie, basically, bunnie and Zobz, who've both been on the show, they have a custom chipset that they put out. I think it was on the wafer space, but basically, oh, man, I have not been on bunnie's site in a while. I'm probably saying some of this stuff wrong, but basically, there's a new product that's out, and it went through CrowdSupply, but the sourcing and the timeline was tough, he said.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And I think it's, you know, he's working on Asia timescales, which are very, very fast, and I think some of the Mauser side fulfillment stuff just takes a long time because of regulations in the US and stuff like it. So where is this thing about the, but basically, the Bao is a custom chip that they put together. There is a similar like PIO style, like on a Raspberry Pi Pico, like the custom process processor instructions where you can have like ongoing serial processing and things like it. So there's a bunch of those. Yeah. Gotcha. I don't know what they call them. I should read more of this. Baochip. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I've got a link. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I don't remember what the product was though. I think it was just the chip. That's maybe the Bao. Oh, sorry. Bao is the, is just the coprocessor. That's what I'm getting wrong. That's why. Crowd supply. Okay.

Dave Jones: Okay. I'm on the page for it and it's just got name that where. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's, that's on his blog. I think that's why is because I'm, what is it called? De Bao's.

Dave Jones: Cool.

Chris Gammell: Anyway, it's got a custom. Powerful new RISC-V microcontroller with mostly open RTL. Yeah. So that's the idea. Yeah. So bunnie's been working on this, on this like open stuff because it's like, if it's not open all the way down to silicon, there could be stuff hiding there. It's kind of tied back to your, your supply chain attack type thing. Supply chain. Right. I mean, you can't do anything if someone's going to like desolder it and solder something on there. But if you have custody of the thing and you know the provenance of the silicon all the way back to the RTL, then like.

Dave Jones: Well, there's, there's arguments between open source and closed source here. It's like, you know, like closed sources technically makes it harder for hackers to, you know, to do that, like to actually substitute the silicon with something else. Right. But then there's advocates both ways in this space. It's like, Oh, it needs to be a hundred percent open source. That's the only way you can be sure. But a hundred percent open source didn't stop the cold, the cold card hack. So, which is another hack, which, you know, people lost hundreds of 30 million bucks or something. Well, fake bucks. And yeah. So fully open source. And yet it was hacked because they did the wrong thing because there weren't enough people to verify it actually, you know, verify the code correctly, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, advocates both ways. That's what I'm saying. Yep. When it comes to supply chain attacks. So sometimes closed source is better. Yeah. Depends.

Chris Gammell: If you look at this page real quick, let me see your link. Yeah. This has the comparison. So what did you guys put on your timer? Did you put a RP 2350 on yours? What's the price? No, no.

Dave Jones: It's in STM32. STM32. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. So the specs on the Baochip is 350 megahertz top clock speed, four BIOs. That's basically like a PIO. That's four times Pico RVs, which are like small RISC-V processors that are running at 700 megahertz. Tiny little thing. Yeah. That is nuts. Yeah. And then RAM flash, four megabytes flash, two megabytes RAM, Rust native. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And nine bucks. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be really interesting seeing this kind of stuff out in the world. I mean, this is just a performant micro, I mean, this is a beefy ass microcontroller just by its own, you know? So just comparing it to Raspberry Pi and stuff like that. So, oh, single core versus dual core, that sort of thing. So we'll see. But yeah, it's cool. It's cool. It's out there. I'll have to give bunnie a call.

Dave Jones: Excellent. Oh, well, I think our amp hour's up, dude.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, definitely. We blew it. We did. Yeah. Yeah. If people want to talk to me about new stuff, let me know. Otherwise, I'll be back here next week. Or you can have another. Or they can steal your old job. Yeah. Yeah. You can go do that. Next week, we will be interviewing the CTO of Ambiq. That's pretty exciting.

Dave Jones: Excellent.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. All right.

Dave Jones: Catch you next time. See you soon.