#229 – MightyHohm For The Holidays – Kaiser Keyzer’s Kits

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We are joined once again by our old friend Jeff Keyzer (Mightyohm)!

• Last time Jeff was on show was after the 2013 Open Hardware Summit (episode 162).
• Jeff has been working on a new high volume consumer product and has been experiencing the need for DfX. Instead Jeff has learned that shotgunning issues is a more likely way to find problems.
• Back in the day Jeff used to do III-V semiconductor PA design. This was part of what we talked about last week with Shahriar.
• Dave was very curious about whether Valve would be showing anything at the upcoming CES.
• Dave just tore down an Apple Lisa:
  [tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hxdz6c8bHg[/tube]
• Chris asked if Dave and Jeff have needed to use IEEE 488/GPIB/HPIB for programming test equipment.
• Jeff (and his wife) have still been selling the Geiger Counter kit, both online and through distributors like adafruit.
• Adafruit has a tutorial about packing and shipping kits and talks about using a counting scale.
• Dave is currently hiring an assistant, but didn’t expect people to apply from outside the country. They would need a travel visa to work with Dave.
  [tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_qhlFc-MVU[/tube]
• Jeff hasn’t found too many in-person hardware events in Seattle but the Kent mic and key swap meet has been well maintained and interesting. Jeff compared this to the De Anza swap meet down in Silicon Valley.
• Jeff got to see Mike Ossmann speak (from afar) at TAPR. Microsoft has a HAM group called microhams.
• One of the most north-westernly conferences in the US is ToorCon.
• Jeff also wants to visit the Hanford Superfund site/reactor in eastern Washington where they enriched some of the early plutonium for US projects.
• There is a Living Computer History museum in Seattle paid for by Paul Allen.
• Another museum (the Space Gallery) is owned by Charles Symonyi. He was the lead developer of Micosoft office; Bill Gates hired him because he did a phd on compiler design.
• The 1405 intel chip was recently decapped and photographed by Ken Sheriff.
• Jeff has thought about making an art project out of scope he picked up at swap meets. like the ICO435.
• What Jeff really wants is the Keysight MSO4000 series. He likes things like the touchscreen and the USB analyzer.
• Another piece of test equipment that would enable a lower cost RF consultant would be a piece of equipment like the Fieldfox.
• Jeff has found a bunch of low cost/no cost tools for RF design:
  • LT Spice
  • QUCS (outputs S2P files)
  • AppCad
  • NEC antenna sim, EZNEC
• The Art Clock was an impressive project that Dave posted about recently.
  
• Adafruit has an article investigating who owns and the history of Heathkit (and an update today).