#671 – NDA Sideshow

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released June 19th, 2024. Episode 671. NDA's Sideshow.

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: Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same. You have no idea what I'm talking about. I just threw that on you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. As we always do. Hit me. What do you got? What is changing and what is staying the same? I guess, wait, yes, what is changing?

Dave Jones: I just sent you a link. Oh, yes. For the last probably 30 years, I've been a public, I guess you could call a public engineering figure, right? Because I used to publish stuff in the magazines and my address used to be in there and my phone number was in there. And people would send me letters back when you had to lick stamps and actually send a letter. A handwritten letter often. Or I'd get phone calls or whatever. Totally old. Really old school. And then they sent me a teletape. And I had a phone with a rotary dial on it, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a telephone table in the hallway. Did you ever have a telephone table in the hallway?

Chris Gammell: A telephone table? No, no, we never did.

Dave Jones: No, we didn't.

Chris Gammell: We've talked about it on the show, though. Yeah, we've talked about it.

Dave Jones: Right. All right. Anyway, so for the last probably 30 years, I've had people contact me and say, Hey, Dave, I love your stuff. You seem to know all about this sort of thing. And I've got this, I've invented this machine that produces more energy output than what you put in. Over unity, I think they call it. Perpetual motion, I think they call it. And, yeah, here it goes again. So, as if there were...

Chris Gammell: And yet you keep responding to it. I think that's really part of the problem here is that you give it oxygen and that baby tiny little, you know, that spark. Yep. That person who's furiously rubbing the stick together in their hands, eventually it catches in the tinder of your curiosity. And it elates. It elates.

Dave Jones: Well, I do like having fun. I do like having fun with it. Well, there is the problem. And especially if they... Well, in this particular case, they didn't call out me direct, but they called out my kin, so to speak. EE influencers on YouTube, right? So they...

Chris Gammell: Present, accounting, accounted for. Accounted for. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. So influencer.

Dave Jones: Basically, the first EE YouTuber or the first full-time EE YouTuber, you know, that's basically me. Even though I'm not the biggest anymore, I'm still, you know, up there, like, you know, top three or four or something.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: And, yeah, so this is directed at me. So I go, okay, right. So I responded. Anyway, there's this dude. I won't even mention his name. We'll link it in down below, right?

Chris Gammell: Will we? I'm not sure I will. Okay, well...

Dave Jones: No, no. You're giving it oxygen.

Chris Gammell: I don't give it oxygen. You give it oxygen.

Dave Jones: You can link in the EEV blog forum thread. All right.

Chris Gammell: I'll link in the forum thread. That's fine.

Dave Jones: Forum thread instead of the guys' actual... Anyway, he did... I had never heard of this guy before, and he does this video on X Twitter saying, I've got this over-unity machine, and I hereby challenge all EE YouTubers to sign this NDA, and we'll show you the machine. And when you see that it works, you must announce to all of your audience that my company is a legit product.

Chris Gammell: And if you don't send it to 30 of your friends, you'll all be cursed. Now, there's a throwback. Oh, boy.

Dave Jones: Anyway, so I literally just replied with lol in the first instance. And it was like, lol. It's like, you know, like, seriously? As if this guy's not aware, which I've made him aware now, that there are literally thousands of YouTube videos out there with people showing, demonstrating their over-unity perpetual motion machine, how it produces more energy out than what you put in. And they've got meters hooked up to it, and it's like, dude, get in line. You know? It's like, just because you've challenged the EE YouTubers. Anyway, Mehdi, friend of the... who's been on the show before.

Chris Gammell: Of course, yeah. ElectroBoom.

Dave Jones: For those who don't know. Yeah, he's actually considering it.

Chris Gammell: You know what, Dave? I'm going to mark this episode. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to mark this episode, and every time you say something like, Chris, you're missing so much on Twitter, I'm going to refer back to this episode and say, this is what I'm missing.

Dave Jones: This is what you're missing, right? This is what I'm missing, yeah. Oh, it's good fun, though. Come on.

Chris Gammell: For some? Sure. Yeah. Oh, well, I think it's great fun.

Dave Jones: Anyway, so, yeah, and as I knew nothing about this guy, and apparently there are no details of the machine. There's no details of his company. They don't even have a website.

Chris Gammell: You've got to sign the NDA. Yeah, you've got to sign the NDA.

Dave Jones: And he admits, yeah, I do this deliberately because, well, well, we have important customers out there who don't want to be tracked by the government.

Chris Gammell: You know, this is a good time for a PSA on the Amp Hour. When someone is absolutely insistent on an NDA, sometimes there are reasons, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are legit reasons.

Chris Gammell: And it's up to you whether or not you want to sign them, whatever. But in my experience, the bigger the deal they make about the NDA, especially the younger you are, like, you know, like, before they can even give you any inkling of what it is, what space it's in, what, you know, what kind of target area.

Dave Jones: They don't even know what, they can't even tell you what market it's in, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you will be very disappointed once you sign an NDA. It's, I think back to the, I was insistent. Do you guys have county fairs in Australia?

Dave Jones: Yeah, similar. So we don't call them that, but yes.

Chris Gammell: Okay, sure. Yeah. So county fairs in the US are, you know, basically it's like rodeos and people showing off their livestock and just, and then just people ripping you off left and right for like, you know, expensive fare food and expensive rides and games that trick you. Handcrafted products.

Dave Jones: Usually like they'll have stalls and people sell their handcrafted products and things like that.

Chris Gammell: The number one thing to a young Chris Gammell was to go in through the amazing show that was there, right? It was like, basically you had to pay some exorbitant ticket price to go and see the alien that they found. The two-headed woman.

Dave Jones: You see the two-headed woman. Yeah, exactly. Right. Okay. We call that the sideshow here. It's called the sideshow.

Speaker ?: Sideshow.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's a good time. Yeah, yeah. Sure.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. And I was absolutely insistent on doing it. And boy, there's never a bigger disappointment than when you finally pay it and you're like,

Dave Jones: that is, that is not what I thought. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It was so dumb. So, so dumb. So that's my likening it to someone who's really into an NDA.

Dave Jones: No, I've always been kind of impressed when I've gone to these sideshow things. You know, they've got, you know, they, they don't have like the two-headed woman, you know, like they would have back in the 1900, early 1900s or something. Yeah. Like the human abuse type of thing. Right, right, right. Um, come and see the, you know, 12 foot tall man, you know, and it's like, yeah, it's just a dude on stilts, you know? Yeah, right. And no, but I've, I've been impressed by some sideshow stuff. Like, like they would have people do it, you know, a guy that squeezed himself through a tennis racket. It's like he, he's a literal contortionist that squeezes himself. Sure, sure, sure.

Chris Gammell: This is not what I, this is not what I experienced. That's what I'm saying. I, I got bamboozled. Oh, well, you got, you found a good, a good sideshow.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. No, you got totally, you know, hangs like someone who hangs like 30 kilos from their nipples. From like a hook. You know? Like, it's like, you know, it's like all their tongues or something like that. The really good stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're really, I love the freak shows.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, sometimes you're going to sign the NDA and you're going to get the, you know, the creature that, the alien that landed on the planet that's actually just a, you know, a fetal pig.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: And sometimes you're going to get someone hanging 30 kilos off their nipples. Either way, you're in for a treat.

Dave Jones: Or are you in for a treat? Well, yeah, I'm sure I'm not in for a treat if I sign the NDA, which of course I won't. I'm just having fun with these people.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: And anyway, I, I will report back after the show. I don't know. Like live update, live update. Did it, did it, did it, did it, did it. I have asked him because he's very responsive on the Twitters. Has he actually. Yeah, he's not doing anything useful.

Chris Gammell: Sounds like.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Like, has he, has he actually, A, actually got one of these machines and B, has he actually used it to power his computer, which he's currently tweeting with? Because he claims that once you plug it in and it's in it, I don't know, runs it and does its magic thing, then you can disconnect it and it runs perpetually. Like, is he actually powering his Twitter computer that he's using right now? And if, and if he hasn't, why not? Unfortunately, this guy didn't invent it. He's just been diddled by someone else by the sounds of it. He's actually admitted that some other dude developed it. Now he's, I'm sure he's a true believer, but you know.

Chris Gammell: You keep, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Dave Jones: What?

Chris Gammell: Diddled is something very different in the US. Yes, yes, I know. But yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't care. It's a word here. It's fine. I mean, you can say what you want, Dave. I'm just saying. Yeah, that's. Yep. I do not have time for Mr. Forbes.

Dave Jones: Look, I'm not going to moderate my language for you, Yanks. You know?

Chris Gammell: You don't have to. I'm just saying that. Much like when I say. I'm perfectly aware of. Something was rooted and you start snickering, you know, then say in the same way. I'm just saying. You're saying diddled is, you know, different things here.

Dave Jones: I'm perfectly aware of that. Yep. But I'm still going to say it. Tough tips.

Chris Gammell: Twitter guy.

Dave Jones: Literally. Get it? 30 kilos from the. Okay. I'm here all week. I'm here all week, folks. In the sideshow. Oh, boy. We have to name this show, you know, Sideshow or something. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Sideshow Bob. Who's that? Is he a Simpsons character? I can't actually remember who's Sideshow Bob.

Chris Gammell: Sideshow Bob is, I guess, a Simpsons character. Yeah, Simpsons.

Dave Jones: I haven't watched it in so long.

Chris Gammell: It's only been 30 years, Dave. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. That's right. And was Sideshow Bob actually like, you know, Sideshow? I don't know the lore. I don't know the Sideshow Bob lore.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so he was the sidekick to Krusty the Clown. Ah, Krusty the Clown.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah, right. Yes. So that makes sense. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: All right. And I think he was voiced by Kelsey Grammer. I think that's right.

Dave Jones: Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. He went to jail for a while. Yeah. A lot of.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: A lot of storyline there.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: I think it was Kelsey Grammer.

Dave Jones: Anyway, yeah, get in line, dude. It's like, you know, there's no photo. There's no nothing. I can't believe Mehdi's actually considering it. So, yeah. No, I am not going to give him oxygen. I'm just going to play with him. You know, I'm just going to have fun. Nope. Get in line. Because I've done so many videos. It's like I could make an entire channel. I could do a debunking every day of somebody who's demonstrating a perpetual motion or over Unity machine on YouTube. And I could do that every day for a year and I still wouldn't run out of material. There's just so many of them. It's endless. Kickstarter, Indiegogo is filled with them. I've done videos on that. Or they used to be. I think they might have shown maybe. Have they changed the rules? I don't know if they look. I haven't looked in a while. I might have to relook, see how many over Unity machines there are on Indiegogo. But, yeah, it's endless. Anyway. Yep. The more things change, the more they stay the same. So, 30 years I've been getting this. You know. I told you a story about a guy who was super serious and wanted to fly me to Canada. I wanted to pay for my flight to Canada. Offered me $20,000 in an US in an escrow account if I went over to Canada and evaluated his over Unity machine for him.

Chris Gammell: It's a great way to get kidnapped.

Dave Jones: Yeah. No, it's just that will hound you forever.

Chris Gammell: Watching hockey reruns for the next five years while you're changing the radiator.

Dave Jones: Right. No, I know exactly what's going to happen if Medi signs the NDA and goes to this guy and looks at the machine, right? He's going to get this photo op with Medi and then he'll blast that all over social media and to his audience that, hey, Medi's come to a value. Even if Medi does videos completely, you know, dunking on this thing, which of course he would, right? And saying this is all complete bullshit. It doesn't work at all. And they'll still use that as leverage, you know, for their marketing purposes. So yeah, as you say, you don't give him oxygen, but it is fun to play with them.

Chris Gammell: You have now given him 13 minutes of oxygen.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, I didn't even mention him. So don't even click. Don't even click, guys. All right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: All right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: What should we talk about instead? Look over there. It's a change of subject.

Dave Jones: Well, we can talk about his MH370 conspiracies theories because that's apparently what he's famous for.

Chris Gammell: No. No. No. Okay.

Dave Jones: All right. Jeez. Chris has no sense of adventure, no sense of humor whatsoever.

Chris Gammell: This is not what people signed up for, Dave.

Dave Jones: This is not. Well, you think they signed up for electronics? When have we done electronics? I do electronics every single day.

Chris Gammell: Some of us do electronics every single day.

Dave Jones: Right. Well, okay. I can talk about electronics then. Shall we talk about components, marketing and changing components on the customer? How we talk about that? I just did a recent tear down of a DI solar inverter. Like I've actually done a second in an original video where I didn't completely tear it down. Whereas a viewer actually saw that video and they went, hey, I've already got one of these exact models torn down for you. Would you like it? Hell yes. Please send it to me. And so I just did a recent video actually doing a quite an extensive tear down and reverse engineering of that. Someone on the forum who actually designed solar inverters actually went, oh yeah, I can draw that off the top of my head. You know, boom, boom, boom. So, you know. What is in a solar inverter? What is. Give us a black diagram. Well, okay. Look, I'll give you the timestamp of the video so you can actually see the, oh no, hang on. I can give you the actual topology circuit so you can have a look at it. Give me one second here, folks. While I send Chris my DI inverter. Where's the.

Chris Gammell: Whenever you say DI as well. DI.

Dave Jones: D.

Chris Gammell: I know. E-Y-E. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying when you say DI, all I can think of is DI and I like, cause he used to say DI water, like DI water. DI water? DI water. Yeah, DI water.

Dave Jones: I've never heard DI water called DI.

Chris Gammell: That was just like a thing in the fab. It was DI water. That's all it was. Oh, really? Because it was like, yeah, once it was processed and re-DI. Yeah.

Dave Jones: All right. Oh, I've never heard that.

Chris Gammell: That's the only time I heard it. And I haven't thought of that in a very, very long time.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I hope I'm not talking on my ass. I might be talking on my ass, but DI water. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, geez. Sorry. I can't find this thing. I'm going to have to give you the video timestamp. Okay.

Chris Gammell: I have the video up now. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. We'll just go 30 minutes into it or something like that. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Cool.

Dave Jones: So, yep.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. I see it. There it is.

Dave Jones: Okay. So, we're both looking at the diagram now. Yeah. So, a standard solar inverter is basically a, the solar panels go directly into a boost converter. Because even though the solar panel is a very high voltage, you've got to boost them even. Well, it may not necessarily be a boost, but it could be like a SEPIC converter, which is a buck boost kind of thing. Right? Anyway, it depends on the maximum input string voltage. But basically, it converts it into a high voltage bus. Right? Which is like a four or five hundred volts. Something like that. Right? Converts it to a high voltage DC bus. So, it boosts the solar panels up to a high voltage DC bus. And then, they just use a, basically a H-bridge to chop that high voltage bus and generate a sine wave. That's, that's basically, and feed that straight into the grid. That's basically the general gist of it. Of course, there's lots of software foolery. In this particular case, there's the Herrick inverter there, which we've talked about before. I'm sure.

Chris Gammell: Did you actually make this, did you make this LTSpice model?

Dave Jones: No, that was somebody on the forum. As I said, it was a viewer who is actually a former solar inverter.

Chris Gammell: Designer.

Dave Jones: Designer. And he went, oh, look, I'll just draw this off the top of my head. I know it's. Oh, he's drawing it too.

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, there's no control circuits on the IGP keys.

Dave Jones: No, no, no, no, no, no. So it's not all.

Chris Gammell: No, he hasn't drawn the control circuits. Structural. Structural.

Dave Jones: It's just structural, top level topology thing. Great. Which is all you need to know. You know, you can't go into all detail, right? It'd take you a month to entirely.

Chris Gammell: This is way more than I would have known otherwise. Yeah. No, no, no. This is very cool.

Dave Jones: And I'm sure, as I said, you see that Herrick inverter there, which is labeled with the two IGBTs across the mains, basically. I'm sure we've talked about this on before. It was news where Fraunhofer in Germany owned the patent for this Herrick inverter topology. And they sued, successfully sued a whole bunch of solar inverter companies from China, Canada, Germany, a whole bunch of companies. And they successfully sued them because they used these two IGBT MOSFETs in the way that they had patented. And they successfully defended that and won. Don't know what the payouts were, but I'm sure we reported on that in a previous episode. I reported on that. Yeah. But apparently, as someone informed me, that patent is now expired. So it just expired this year or something like that. So you can now use this Herrick inverter invented by this German guy at Fraunhofer Company. And yeah. So that's linked, if you want a link to that article, that's down in the description of the video. So anyway. Yeah. So that Herrick inverter thing. Sorry, this is not visual, but you can watch my video.

Chris Gammell: I will drop a screenshot that I just took and also the video. Like Dave said, the whole time stamp it and stuff.

Dave Jones: Yep. Cool. And so this Herrick inverter just improves the efficiency because the flyback current in the IGBTs, they are essentially a loss, right? It's essentially a loss in the inverter when you switch it at high frequency. So this Herrick inverter just actually diverts that and it improves the efficiency and it also increases the common mode rejection rate. It improves the common mode rejection ratio as well. And well, sorry, improves the noise that the thing actually emits and stuff like that. So it's lower noise, higher efficiency, blah, blah, blah. So most solar inverters these days have a Herrick inverter. But yeah, it's very simple. It's got a boost DC to DC converter, which is basically a big ass inductor and a big ass switch in VET and a big ass diode. And that just produces your solar up to, you know, to your high voltage bus. And then you've got caps on the high voltage bus, of course, to smooth things out. And then you've just got a H-bridge. So that's how any inverter works, whether or not you buy one of those, you know, cheap ass 12 volt, you know, car inverter things where you plug it in your cigarette lighter and yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And it winds like crazy.

Dave Jones: And it winds like crazy because it's 80 bucks and they didn't bother the strap down, you know, and the transformer's loosey-goosey and, you know, like, yeah, the more inductors just squeal like a pig, you know. Anyway, it's hilarious.

Chris Gammell: So this design though, it is inductorless or sorry, it is transformerless, right?

Dave Jones: There is. Yes. It's transformless if you just got that. But because this is a hybrid inverter, you'll see down in the bottom left corner, it uses a transformer down there and that's for the battery system. Right. The battery, which is a bi-directional transformer. Well, all transformers are bi-directional.

Speaker ?: Oh, to go in.

Dave Jones: Okay. Right. Yeah. But it's basically got a H-bridge on both sides of the transformer so that it can feed power into the battery to charge the battery and then it can extract power from the battery and go through the transformer in the other direction and it just puts that straight across the HV bus. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Man. I just like don't even know where I would, I mean, obviously you wouldn't start from scratch on all of this stuff, but like. No, there's a lot of. Desert Island, you know, box of electronic components.

Dave Jones: And you had to build your inverter from you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I wouldn't have a grid that I have to tie into at that point, but like. Right.

Dave Jones: No, you've got an AC radio and you have to power it from a solar panel. How would you do it? You know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Like. I'd feel a little bit better about that, right? Like maybe. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: But like tying into the grid piece, that's the piece that I'm just like, that, that.

Dave Jones: Well, that's all about, that's all in the software and the measurement, you know, you'll, you have to time the phase and you lead and lag it to increase the current going in the grid, et cetera, you know. And there's definitely a lot of devil in the detail in, in these type of inverters systems. So, yeah. But, but you can just make something crude using for, you know, just using a H bridge and like, just like, yeah, as we said, those cheap inverters that you see, they don't even bother making a sine wave. They're just a square wave output.

Dave Jones: Bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang. Switch inverter on. Switch H bridge on this direction. Yeah, right, right. Switch it on the direction.

Chris Gammell: Eventually the capacitance and the inductance of your, your lines and your PCB traces and everything else. It's supposed to help.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's supposed to help.

Chris Gammell: It'll smooth that right out.

Dave Jones: It'll smooth that right out. Smooth that.

Chris Gammell: The RF you generate will help smooth out those, smooth out those corners.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Horrible stuff. But, uh, so anyway.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of, uh, things that are in the details, have you. Hang on. I haven't finished the story yet.

Speaker ?: What?

Chris Gammell: Get the hell out of here.

Dave Jones: No.

Speaker ?: Dude.

Chris Gammell: I haven't finished the story. You've got two minutes.

Dave Jones: Okay. It is. It is. It's not exciting. You know, the stuff we're talking about.

Chris Gammell: I said the exact same thing to my daughter tonight when I'm trying to convince her to go to sleep. Just so you know. Right. So.

Dave Jones: Yeah. You've got two minutes. Yeah. This is. Two hours later.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Exactly.

Dave Jones: Been there, done that dude. Still happens.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Totally. I believe it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Until they're probably 18 and then they don't really want to know you anymore. They just don't sleep. Or they sleep the whole time. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Or you just don't care anymore. Eh, do whatever you want kid. You know. Yeah. Here's the car. I can borrow the car keys dad. Eh, here you go. Bugger off. You know. Yep. Waiting for it. Anyway. So the interesting part about this was, is that DI, the guy, the viewer who got this. Like the water. Yeah. Like the water. Yep. DI. I've never heard that. I've got a friend of mine who actually has a, has a bottled water company. Actually. He set up a.

Chris Gammell: You don't want to drink deionized water, Dave. It'll.

Dave Jones: Right. No, no. Yeah. I just, it just reminded me that, you know. Okay. I know this guy who's got a bottled water company.

Chris Gammell: Anyway. You want the ions. It's got what plants crave.

Dave Jones: Yes, exactly. Anyway. So it came with a brochure, you know, a big glossy brochure about how DI is the best thing ever. And they've got a whole page in there devoted to how they use the best quality components. And they put the logos there. They've got Nippon Chemicon caps. They've got Panasonic relays. They've got, you know, this brand semiconductor in there and all that sort of thing. So I did the teardown video and none of them are in there. None of them are in there. Yeah. They actually switched.

Chris Gammell: You know what's a lot cheaper than good components is a nice glossy brochure.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And to be fair, though, in my previous video of this, where I did like a partial teardown, somebody else had done a video tearing it down an older model. And I saw that video and I noted that they did have Nippon Chemicon caps in there. Right. So at one point they did have all these quality brands as claimed. Now, I've just been contacted. I haven't replied to them yet. I've just been contacted by DI and I won't say any details, but they're basically saying, oh, that was an old brochure and they didn't explain how they've changed. But obviously, yes, they've changed. They're no longer using those quality components. So now 20% cheaper. Now 20% cheaper. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that was the interesting part of the...

Chris Gammell: Got it.

Dave Jones: Well, that was an interesting tidbit of the teardown is that they had changed all this, even though the brochure came with the thing. The brochure came with the... And you open it up and yeah, they're not in there. Oops. So I don't know. It's like, it's one thing not... Like, otherwise, it's a really good inverter. Like, the build quality looks great. You know, I don't think there were any viewers that were saying, oh, that just looks totally crap. You know? And basically everyone was thinking, oh yeah, that looks pretty darn decent. Consider it like it's a bottom price inverter. Right? Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. It's pretty good. You know, this came up...

Chris Gammell: Except for the... This came up today that... I linked a thing in the show notes. Well, it'll be in the show notes, but it was also on the subreddit. But it was a comparison about the PY32 and the CH32 and, you know, SCM32 and GD32 and all these different things.

Dave Jones: Ah, right. Yes, yes. You just posted this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was good.

Chris Gammell: You know, side by side. It was fun.

Dave Jones: Battle of the 10-set microcontrollers. Back when... Hey, has inflation kicked in? Because I can remember doing a three-set microcontroller video.

Chris Gammell: Well, it was a little bit more full feature than the Paduk 3-set. Ah, right. Than the 3-set. Yeah, this is like...

Dave Jones: Yes, well, true.

Chris Gammell: This is like the CH32, which you and I have talked about on the show before. And we had Charles back on the show a couple weeks ago.

Dave Jones: Have I done a video on the CH32?

Chris Gammell: You have, Dave. Yes. I think...

Dave Jones: I thought I did. I completely forgot.

Chris Gammell: I know you have.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but what was it called? Like, was it... Did I label it like a 10-cent... Did I, like... Yeah, you did. Do the clickbait? Yeah? I did? Yeah. Yes. There you go. Okay. A 10... Yes. A 10-cent RISC-V ARM processor. There you go. Yes, I did. Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: And we've had multiple...

Dave Jones: Oh, 300,000 views? I should do more of those videos.

Chris Gammell: We've had multiple episodes on the Amp Hour as well, talking about the CH32. Yes, yes, yes, I know. I've talked about the boards that I've built with it. We've had Charles back on the show.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but I was just wondering about my own clickbait.

Chris Gammell: Oh, of course. Well, number one thing we've got to do.

Dave Jones: And my 3-cent microcontroller got a quarter of a million views. I need to just dedicate my channel to cheap chips.

Chris Gammell: Cheap, cheap, cheapest chips, yeah. I think there... Well, that's what I was getting at. So, you know, this company was promoting the high-quality stuff. People don't really care. And that's what I keep finding myself saying, too. Like, there was all these comments about, like...

Dave Jones: It depends on what it is. Come on. You've got to admit. Like, something like a solar inverter, people are going to go, where's my Japanese caps? You know, I mean...

Chris Gammell: No one says that. Literally, no... Bullshit. Dude, you're just not hanging out.

Dave Jones: You need to hang it on the...

Chris Gammell: No one says that as a consumer. As a consumer, people don't say that. That's what I'm saying. It's like, yes, there are people... Like, it's a power distribution, right? The vocal people that are, like, looking inside and opening it up, like, of course they would, right? But most people, when they buy this kind of stuff, does it work? Is it fitting my budget? Like, is it hitting the specs that I want? Has it had the features I want? Like, most people don't care about what's inside, and I hate to say it, but I'm kind of entering that second group. You know, like, I'm just... Maybe I've always been in that second group.

Dave Jones: If I'm talking about a consumer product, I'm...

Chris Gammell: Sure, sure. But even a high-end product, right? It's like, this has come up multiple times where... I'm talking about this review of these different parts and stuff like that. I don't really... One of the things against it was like, oh, this is, like, Chinese-made components, and I don't really have feelings about, like, I don't have allegiance to any chip maker, and so it's really, like, the spec of the part itself and not, like, the quality of the maker. You know, like, mostly because I'm not doing it...

Dave Jones: I'm not too concerned about the chips in it, because, like, I'm concerned about if there's a power product and those devices are stressed, right? So, hence why I'm going to care about the brand of the capacitors. I'm going to care about the brand of the semiconductors, right? I'm going to care about stuff like that. I'm going to care about the thermals. The thermal design of the product is poorly thermally designed, right? Yes, I'm going to care about those things that are stressed.

Speaker ?: Sure, sure, sure.

Dave Jones: Intrinsic safety type of things. But, like, if you're using a CH...

Chris Gammell: But you could buy high-quality caps that are rated properly that you might not know the name of, but they are actually tested. Oh, sure. And that's what I'm saying is, like, the branding piece... We're talking about, like, you know, Chemical, Michicon, whatever the brand was. Because brands take dives off the deep end all the time, too, right? You know what I mean? Yes. And so...

Dave Jones: Yes, but it's about trust as well, right? I think it's about trust of the people you're buying from. Because you can't test those yourself, right? You can't... Oh, I'm going to test these caps myself, so I'm going to rip them all out. I'm going to put them in the thermal chamber, and I'm going to test these things for 10,000 hours and stress them, right? Sure, sure, sure. You're not going to do that. So you have to do it based on your knowledge of the industry and the trust that has been built up in certain manufacturers, right?

Chris Gammell: No, I don't think so. I think you have to trust in... Rubbish! What are you living in? I think you have to trust in the people that you're buying from, right? And so if you... Here's the thing. If I was given the choice between a high-quality end product maker who source components from who knows where, right? But I trusted that versus...

Dave Jones: But you're still trusting.

Chris Gammell: You're still trusting that manufacturer. Hold on. I said, if I had the choice between the person producing the end thing, in this case, let's say an inverter, and it's a high-quality inverter brand where I trust that brand making the thing, and it has no-name components in it, versus buying from 10 different no-name product companies that use the high-quality company. This is important. This is an important distinction. This is what we're talking about. No.

Dave Jones: No.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, no, because you're saying that the brand of the component matters. You can talk about both, dude. You can talk about both. You can talk about both, but I'm saying that what I prefer more is I would rather have a product company that I trust that is using...

Dave Jones: You would rather have a fluke or a Rode in audio gear, or you'd rather have a... You're into audio. You would rather have a Fender brand instead of someone unloading. Audio?

Chris Gammell: What? I play music. I'm not into audio. I'm not buying tube amps or anything like that. But this is what I'm saying, is that I would rather trust in the people that are testing these things, because it's up to them. It's like their brand is on the line to do the testing of the thing instead of leaning on brand name components, because...

Dave Jones: Yeah, but it always comes down to... It's always got to include a discussion of both, right?

Chris Gammell: No, it doesn't. I don't think it does. Because most people are at the consumer level, and even in prosumer, even in other stuff like

Dave Jones: that, you know, we are... All of the viewers on our show are not regular consumers. They are not Joe Average.

Chris Gammell: Dave, we have no viewers on our show.

Dave Jones: What? We have no viewers on our show. What? Oh, listeners. Sorry. Well, no, you can be viewing the logo on YouTube, the static logo on YouTube.

Chris Gammell: The static logo, you're right.

Dave Jones: You can be staring at that for an hour. Stare at it.

Chris Gammell: Look at it.

Dave Jones: It hasn't changed for many years.

Chris Gammell: All right. I think you and I maybe are just a different path on this stuff. What I was trying to get to, though...

Dave Jones: I totally agree with you, right? I would do the same thing, right? I am going to trust that company, right? But if I open the thing up, but if I open up that company, if I'm doing a teardown and I open up their company's product and I've seen they've done something fundamentally shit, right? Yes. I'm going to call it out. Right? 100%. If they've got a huge... You know, if I tear down a huge brand name in Inverter or something like that, and it uses these caps I've never heard of, I'm sorry, I'm going to say something. That questions me in my mind, like, hey, these guys are penny pinching here and they could come a gutzer. Right? Because they've penny pinched.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if I agree with that. Okay, here's the thing. Like, if it's... So if they look like they're in good condition and it's marked on the side that they're, you know, the proper... Like, if they're, like... They're 105. Say they have a 300-volt bus and they're rated at 200 volts, I would call that out, right? But, like, if it says they're, you know, 600-volt rated caps and it's a 300-volt bus and it looks like there's enough of them. And, like, I don't know. Like, I assume that the company is testing this. And if not, then I don't know.

Dave Jones: Like, sure. But it at least raised my heckles up, right? I go, hey, what's going on here? I expect it better.

Chris Gammell: Maybe this is the difference here. Right? Maybe where we can come to an accord is the fact that Dave, the reviewer, is very different than Chris, the consumer.

Dave Jones: Yes.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Sure.

Dave Jones: And it also depends on price bracket, right? Because, like, you can buy a cheap Fluke multimeter, right? You can buy a $50 Fluke multimeter that's made in China, right? Sure. But... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and so it might be acceptable in that to use some lesser quality components to meet a price point, right?

Chris Gammell: Totally.

Dave Jones: Fine.

Chris Gammell: Right, but brands are absolute. It's not a really good example because nothing in there is stressed. We're making the same point, though, that brands are not absolute and brands are not trustable, both at the product level and the component level, right? Yes. I mean, like, I just... Trust but verify. Trust but verify. Not bad. Yeah. Okay, so the other thing I was getting to with this, though, is that I find myself, as an electronics designer... Yeah. ...not a great one, but, you know, an experienced one, I think. You know, increasing experience every day. Okay, I find I am also rejecting this on a product... Or, sorry, on a component basis for my own designs where I'm not as choosy about the components that I'm putting into things as long as they perform, right? And as long as they're sourcing. Oh, sure. As long as they perform.

Dave Jones: But what do you do? Okay. You're designing an inverter like this, right? You know these components are going to get stressed. Oh, please. Right? No, but no, this is a genuine question, right? Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Let's go on this path.

Dave Jones: If I'm designing some little battery-powered widget, right, I don't care if I use a CH32 processor in there, right? Sure, sure. I don't care if I use a 3-cent micro in there, right, because they're not stressed, right? Right. But if I'm, you know, if I know I've got some product where those components are going to be stressed, I am only going to trust the name brands which I have trusted, the big brands that I have trusted in the past. I am more, you would, like, there would have to be some extreme cost reason for me to choose no-name components in a stressed design. That's what I'm saying, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think that is the shorthand for what will probably find success. Yes, but in absence of that, because I think, you know, in the dark times while becoming tap shoes, I think there were no choices, right? And then it came down to the engineer to do their own stress testing, to do their own sourcing, you know, to do their own evaluation to figure. And I think that's probably what's loosened up some of my mind about it. I have no doubt that at some point I'm going to get burned and I'll be like, never again. Like, so I get where people are coming from and they're like, no, no, no, just go with, you know, pay a little bit more, do the thing. But what I'm saying is, I think because of the shortage, I think that just kind of unlocked my brain a little bit, you know?

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure that did for quite a few people, actually. Yeah, I think so. It did quite a lot. But I, no, it didn't really, I can't say it did change the mindset for me. I've always been a horses for courses guy, right? If it's warranted, like if those components are going to be stressed, I'm only going to be using the ones that I trust unless there's some extreme circumstance. No, I'm going to err on towards the ones that I trust. And verify, of course, you know, because you've got to verify your device. But you can't test your cap for 10,000 hours. You can't, and they might change batch to batch. You can't do that, right? As a designer, you can't just stress this semiconductor. Well, maybe if you had infinite time and resources, you can't stress that semiconductor.

Chris Gammell: I cannot do it at the same level. That is true. I have to trust the data sheet at a certain point. You don't have the time.

Dave Jones: You don't have the resources.

Chris Gammell: But you know the other thing is true? What? I will never, ever, ever design an inverter because they scare the crap out of me.

Dave Jones: Same here. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, I would, but they do scare the crap out of me. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. I've said it before. Basically, if there's anything over 24, 48 volts DC, scares the shit out of me. You know? Yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: All right, mister. Time for your bed. It's been more than two minutes. I'm a low power guy. And we're going to put this issue to bed and talk about the thing I want to talk about. Oh, okay. Which is probably something you want to talk about if I'm being honest. You have an agenda. Okay. I do. Let's go. And actually, I had filled out the add this to Reddit thing, and apparently I didn't hit submit. So we had someone write in about the new Altium model. And I was like, I bet Dave wants to talk about this too.

Dave Jones: Oh, I just heard about this this morning.

Chris Gammell: Uh-huh.

Dave Jones: I just heard about it. They've completely removed the perpetual license. Is that correct?

Chris Gammell: And so that is correct.

Dave Jones: And I think- And is that the only change?

Chris Gammell: They also, I think, move the price up a little bit.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. But Altium price famously varies depending on how actual loudly you shout at them, basically. Yeah. And how, sort of, if you get a bite towards the end of the month and they have to make their monthly quota, the sales guys, then you might get a better deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of thing.

Chris Gammell: That is actually true of most things that are for sale is try and catch the salesperson right on the day before quota.

Dave Jones: There's actually an EV blog forum thread on this. And I heard somebody in there said that they got some, like, three-year deal. Like, they negotiated some three-year deal paid yearly or something and they got, like, 40% off or something like that, you know? Yeah. It's like, yeah, so it just, you can really negotiate with them. Or you used to be able to. I don't know what the new company, the new owner. Renesas. Renesas. Renesos? Did you say Renesos?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I say Renesos.

Dave Jones: Renesos.

Chris Gammell: Renesos. Renesos. Isn't it a Japanese company?

Dave Jones: No, I think it's Sass. Renesas.

Chris Gammell: Okay, whatever.

Dave Jones: I could be wrong. Like, I'm famously wrong, so don't quote me on that. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: I will quote that you're famously wrong.

Dave Jones: I haven't checked. Have the shares actually been delisted yet? Because last I looked, they hadn't been bloody delisted.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, we did an episode about this. Oh, it was complicated. When it happened, right?

Dave Jones: Like, it was, yeah, it was so, like, I only checked.

Chris Gammell: I did think it wasn't going to go through, but I'm pretty sure, I mean, at this point, I'm pretty sure it's going to go through.

Dave Jones: Well, the company's already bought all the shares, but I think, no, the shares are still listed. It's up 0.27% today. Wow. So, like, what the hell?

Chris Gammell: Buy, buy, buy.

Dave Jones: Like, you know, it's like, and yeah, it's been almost flat since the announcement in, according to the web thing, which was the 15th of February, and it dipped a little bit after that, but then it's kind of stayed flat. Now it's gone actually above the offer price.

Chris Gammell: It's a meme stock now.

Dave Jones: It's a meme stock. It's a game stock. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Roaring kitty's going to be on this. Yeah, right. Yeah. Did you hear he had a $150 million, $100 million position in GameStop? It's happening again. Dude.

Chris Gammell: I don't care about meme stocks at all.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. No. Oh, man. It's legendary. You should check it out. Anyway, the guy just, everyone thought he sold out and apparently had a $150 million position or something, plus options. And now it's-

Chris Gammell: Anywho, it was back in March when we-

Dave Jones: Chris doesn't want to talk about anything interesting, folks. Nothing. Yeah, you're right. That's not interesting.

Chris Gammell: I agree that's not interesting. $659 was the episode. Oh, boy. So, they're switching from a perpetual license model. And I think that's actually a misnomer, too, because it's a perpetual license, but you almost always have to pay, what are they called? Maintenance?

Dave Jones: No. So, basically- No, you don't have to pay maintenance. You only have to pay maintenance if you want to, if you want the bug fixes.

Chris Gammell: Oh, right. If you want to be a dumb shame if you couldn't work yourself nowhere no more, you know?

Dave Jones: What are you talking about? For 20 years, I used Altium, like 30 years, I used Altium with no one's bugs. Because everyone uses it with no one's bugs, and you just learn to work around them, and you know, it should be right. Well, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think maybe the bugs have gotten worse. But anyways, yeah, it's not trivial either. It was like, you know, I think it was like $5,000 for the initial license, and then $1,500 for maintenance, you know, that sort of thing.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Now, what it's going to be, though, is basically, they're getting rid of perpetual, and it's only term-based licenses, it's called. Yeah, well- And so, someone who wrote in said this basically means a doubled annualized cost. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. This is for Altium 365, I guess. Yeah. Which I had used before, and someone sent me a design. It's pretty cool. I mean, it's not bad. I mean, like, nice, webby kind of thing, but very expensive now. Yeah. Wow. So, this person who wrote in said, what's our take, and is this a move that will make Altium a corporate-only tool and bring KiCad into the professional world for real, or does it make sense?

Dave Jones: Oh, look, Altium's always been a corporate, like, it's, well, no, I guess, no, there's a lot of small companies out there. So, corporate, you mean big company, right?

Chris Gammell: Not- Yeah, I think. Well, I think it's, does this move this into the echelon of, you know, pads and similar, like, just kind of legacy enterprise tools that are targeted at the high-end, you know, high-end market with high-end customers as well that are paying huge licensing fees, and that's, you know, basically they're just like, yeah, we service the tier ones, and that's it, right? So, I think that's what this person is asking. I'm making some leaps on that, but yeah, I think it's, you know, how does the SMB fit into all this, a small and medium business, right? I think that's kind of the question.

Dave Jones: Well, often-

Chris Gammell: I can go first if you want, or you can go first.

Dave Jones: Well, I'll just mention this. The small to medium business is often quite happy with the monthly model because they know exactly what their expenses are, right? So, they're often, there's a lot of small to medium businesses that are very happy with that monthly model. They don't want to pay five or 10 grand up front because that's a chunk of cash flow that they can use to buy stock, you know? So, they're often happy with that. So, there's always going to be customers that want both, you know, that swing both ways.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I am a key kid user. You may be surprised to learn. Also, if you didn't know. Yeah, listen to the last episode. I mean, Peter talked about that. Petter talked about that. But, and I thought Petter had a good take on it where basically, you know, he's a professional designer. He's using key CAD. He can do a lot of things, but not everything. And I think I'm probably a step below where he is. Like, he's a very talented designer. I'm not doing nearly as fancy of designs as he is. But, I don't run into a lot of restrictions on myself these days. And I do feel like at a certain point, there's some, like, diminishing curve where probably some of the work-

Dave Jones: Oh, for stuff that you're working on, key CAD's plenty.

Chris Gammell: Excuse me.

Dave Jones: Excuse me, sir. You said it yourself. You're not working on high-end stuff, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. No, exactly. I mean, like, I'm like four-layer board, sometimes RF, sometimes controlled impedance. And that's about it.

Dave Jones: I'm not doing FPGA designs. I'm not doing memory. You can go back and use free ProTel auto tracks for DOS.

Chris Gammell: Let's not get too harsh here, Dave. Come on. Yeah. I'm doing some interesting things here. No, I'm serious.

Dave Jones: You can do a lot with a little, you know, with a low-end PCB package. Any of them. Any of them.

Chris Gammell: I think what this comes down to, and so now what I'm going to do is kind of channel Jay Carlson, who's been on the show twice. And Jay talks about, you know, if you find a tool, regardless of what your tool is, right? If it's, say, it's auto tracks, right? And if you find a tool that improves your workflow time and gives you a lot of time back, ultimately, that's probably what you should use, even if it does cost money, because it's just going to-

Dave Jones: That's what you're paying for with Altium. On the larger designs, you're paying for a more polished, automated experience. I think that is improving.

Chris Gammell: I think that is improving. But I think some of the tooling, some of the tooling will be on you. So, like, if you're willing to invest on the keycat side of things, or really just, let's just say, non-Altium, right? Yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, because there are other choices, too. I think you could build a pipeline and tooling and stuff like that. I think, you know, the benefit of something like a keycat would be you probably control more of it. You know, you could lock yourself to a certain version. You could have support on that. You obviously own the, you know, you have the code as an open source project, that sort of thing. But ultimately, then all the tooling's on you. There's nobody to really shout at unless you hire Seth and Wayne and shout at them. But don't do that because they're very nice people.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you're paying them, right? That's what you are. But I'm just saying, I like them. I know. I don't shout at them.

Chris Gammell: You could ask, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but that's kind of the business you get into if you have that services business where your customer's paying you to solve their problems. Totally. They're going to shout at you. They are not going to be nice.

Chris Gammell: There might be some shouting.

Dave Jones: Yes, that's true. And they're almost certainly going to shout at you. You have to take that as a given. Come on.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, to the person writing in, they mentioned that they had like 15 licenses, which is not a small amount.

Dave Jones: Okay, yeah. No, no. That's a decent. Yeah, that's a decent number of seats.

Chris Gammell: I would, you know. Wow. So, if I was in the same scenario, and I don't know if it would be because that's a big employed base of designers. I'd probably try and survey people who have made the switch. Yep. Try and take the amount of time it took to switch over workflows and stuff like it. I'd pad that number by 4x. I'd multiply that by my hourly rate. And I'd see what the payback time is on the switch over. Because Altium's probably...

Dave Jones: Well, at the same time, I would go to Altium and I would throw the numbers at them and say, look, my unit price has... My per seat price has effectively doubled. This is absolute bullshit. I'm going to leave to something else unless you give me like... As I mentioned, somebody in the forum got like a three-year locked-in price discount at 40% off.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right? That's definitely worth doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd be having those.

Chris Gammell: If your workflows are all in that space, that is a non-trivial disruptive event to your business.

Dave Jones: And for 15 seats, trust me, that salesman's going to bend over backwards for you. They're going to take it right up there. Yeah, really? End of the month, an extra 15 seats?

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: From a customer?

Chris Gammell: I think that's the other thing. I think this move is also moving them away from a software sales model to more of a SaaS model, right? This is like a software-y kind of thing where you have fewer incentives with humans. Instead, you just move it to more like how newspapers are where you go to click the cancel button. Oh, wow. Automatically, the price drops 50%. Do you want to stick around? Well, yes, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Always cancel your newspaper thing, right? Yes.

Dave Jones: Always cancel your insurance. Always cancel your... Oh, totally.

Chris Gammell: Cancel everything, right? And they're just kind of leaning into it because I think there is also that expectation.

Dave Jones: I canceled my... Yeah, we talked about this before. I canceled my power bill, right? And I changed to someone else. And then like an hour later, I got a phone call from them. Oh, we will offer you a 30% off if you switch back to us right now. And I went, yeah, okay.

Chris Gammell: I think that's the thing. And there's like workflows that are built around this sort of thing. There's an entire software industry that's just about like retention because retention... So just to use our kind author who wrote into us, like if he is committed to it, right? Once you're a month down the line or a day, I don't know. Once you're like locked in though, that is 15 licenses that are never getting back. And ultimately, that's a drop in the bucket. But if you do that enough times, then you really start to add up. And basically, that just becomes a leaky bucket that they're trying to then fill up with new subscriptions, which are not as valuable to... You know, like someone who's coming online as a hobbyist is not nearly as valuable as 15 sure thing licenses every year because there's just... It's a known quantity and they're probably well-trained and they know what they're doing and they're complaining less because they're just experienced users. So I do agree with Dave. I think that having that is, you know, chasing discounts in the short term. Right.

Dave Jones: There is one thing you have to understand though, is that they know, Altium know very well. Yeah. In fact, their entire business model for the last, what, 40 years has been based on this fact, or at least 30, has been based on this fact, is that they know how hard it is to change tools.

Chris Gammell: Getting easier. I don't know if you know that. Keycat 8, the Altium importer, is much better than before.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you, your productivity instantly goes back to zip, you know?

Chris Gammell: I don't know if I agree with that.

Dave Jones: Well, not to zip, but you know, it takes a huge hit. No, it's...

Chris Gammell: I don't know if I agree with that either.

Dave Jones: No, sorry, dude. It's always been the case. Maybe it's getting better, but it's still the case.

Chris Gammell: When's the last time you did a layout, Dave?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know.

Chris Gammell: Seriously. I mean, like, it has changed, right? I know. Okay. This would be a great... I think you should. I think this would be good content. You know, like, just compare the latest ones, right? Right. Compare the import function, like compare... I just... I have been thinking about doing that video. That sounded like I was calling... Yeah. That sounded... I'm sorry. That sounded like I was calling out, but I'm just saying that, like, these things are and have changed, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, it has been on my list of videos to do.

Chris Gammell: Trust me. I think things have changed, but I think... And I agree that productivity will take a hit, but only because in this organization of this person who wrote in, like, that is... Like, just think about the norms of, like, companies. That's the big thing to me, right? Like, anyone can learn any new software package. Oh, cool. It's just a matter of... It's a matter of time and effort. A couple months. You really just... It's like, you just got to burn the ships on the shore, right? That kind of thing. You got to be like, nope. Everything new is going keycat. Everything old is supported by Altium, but we're going to tail off the licenses. You know, like, that's one way you could do it. You could do a hard cut, but then you're probably not supporting your past clients. So, I think... Yeah. It's a real tough decision, though. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Totally. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I think the fact that it's Windows only is criminal, to be honest, but, you know.

Dave Jones: Why?

Chris Gammell: That ain't changing anytime soon.

Dave Jones: If you're using it every day, why does it freaking matter?

Chris Gammell: Because I don't... On a Windows machine, Windows crashes all the time. And that's something that's a Linux user. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Windows crashes all the time, does it?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Dude, I can leave my Windows machines going for weeks, and they don't crash.

Chris Gammell: Well...

Dave Jones: Programs crash.

Chris Gammell: Maybe I'm not good at running... Programs crash. Running Windows. I don't know. You must suck at it. Yeah. Must be.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Tough call. But that was totally predictable that they would do that. Everyone said that. Everyone said that as soon as the announcement was made. Everyone said, oh, yeah, they'll just go to a software, like a subscription model only. So...

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, I think they want to be Adobe. They want to be Autodesk. They want to... You know, like all of these higher margin things. They all want to chase that and make it more self-service. And, yeah. I...

Dave Jones: Well, you could also say, well, why are they doing this? Because it's a small drop in the bucket for the parent company, right? And, like, maybe... How do they operate that at a corporate level? Does Altium have to show... Like, does Altium, with its own CEO as a subsidiary company of the larger parent company, does that have to show a profit? Does that have to still keep, you know? Interesting. Like, how does that work? Or is it just noise to them? Like...

Chris Gammell: I would guess... They only purchased them three months ago. Like, they announced the purchase three months ago. Yeah. But I would take a pretty good guess that this has been in the work for six months, a year. Oh, yeah. Like, this is the kind of thing where, like, probably was in flight way before... Oh, yeah. The purchase, maybe even part of the purchase. Like, hey, we're switching to a SaaS model. We think we'll be able to capture this much more revenue. Like, maybe that was part of the interest in the purchase in the first place. It's like...

Dave Jones: And maybe that's just the parent company standard. I don't know. So, I don't use the...

Chris Gammell: No offense to Renaissance, but I don't give them that much credit. I don't use their...

Dave Jones: I don't know. Really? I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I don't... They're chip makers.

Dave Jones: I haven't used any of their tools for, I don't know, a decade. So, I don't...

Chris Gammell: Well, I'm just saying they're chip makers. I don't give any chip makers the benefit of software knowledge. You know what I mean?

Dave Jones: That's right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I just don't think they're... Like, they do have some software tools, but I'm...

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Chip companies are... Fair enough. ...really terrible at software. Sorry, chip companies. Generally. All right.

Dave Jones: So, you're a third-party compiler man.

Chris Gammell: Is GCC a third-party compiler? Yes.

Dave Jones: Of course it is. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Sure. Yes. Yes.

Dave Jones: Although, some companies like Microchip, for example, don't they contribute to GCC? Yeah, many do. Or their version is based on GCC? So, I don't know. No, no. Many of them contribute back. So, that sort of muddies the waters a bit.

Chris Gammell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Or they do like a branch off, don't they? They usually do like a... I think that's really what it is.

Chris Gammell: Their tooling is built on top of GCC. Yeah, exactly. A value add from the tooling. Yeah. Stuff like that. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But... Which is kind of not the same thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't... I just don't... I don't know. It's mean, right? It's not like... I don't give them credit for the things they do. Right. I give some of them credit when they do Zephyr stuff because...

Dave Jones: That's your employer. I feel like that's different. They're paying your bills, dude.

Chris Gammell: I mean, yeah. I mean, yes. Yeah. I think that that's really leaning into like more things on top of GCC, right? Like tooling for an ecosystem. Awesome. So like, as a reminder, you did a review on the CH32 and Moon River, right? Which is an IDE. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Yes. Right.

Chris Gammell: On top of the...

Dave Jones: Which is a third party IDE on top of that.

Speaker ?: Which is a third party IDE on top of that.

Chris Gammell: GCC. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so it's like, I'm not going to WCH, the makers of CH32, for their software.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. No. No. Of course. You just buy the chips.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Totally.

Chris Gammell: Same with Renaissance.

Dave Jones: Right. Well, Paduk was interesting because they had their own C compiler. They actually had their own quasi-C. It was quasi-C. It wasn't even... I think it was... Yeah. They just like... That was the only way to do it until somebody wrote a port for GCC, I think, at some point. Yeah. Later. Yeah. But, yeah. Yeah. If you wanted to use their chips at first, you had to use their quasi-C compiler.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Yep. Worked, though. But, you know, yeah. I can understand your... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, your video, you got it working. It's like, it's cool. You know, like...

Dave Jones: But, you know, I can understand your lack of trust. Like, I never used to use the microchip tools. I would only trust the high-tech C compiler, which was an Australian software company that made... I remember that. ...that made a C... That made this C compiler. And it was like the industry, you know, best C compiler for microchip parts. And then, bloody, they bought them out. They bought them out. So, now, you know...

Chris Gammell: Downloads can be found in their software archives. You can still get it, Dave.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. You can still get the original high-tech C written by the high-tech people. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. I thought high-tech was the dark scouts. Interesting.

Chris Gammell: What was the decision process around that? So, what was the... You trusted high-tech but not...

Dave Jones: Well, high-tech just produced better code. It was just a better C compiler. It actually... It famously produced tighter...

Chris Gammell: Got it. Okay. ...leaner code. So, just like side-by-side, you would get a smaller binary.

Dave Jones: Side-by-side, you would actually do two compilations, and you'd find that, no, the high-tech one kills it. So, basically, half the industry started using high-tech C, you know.

Chris Gammell: Did they ever figure out why? Was it just better...

Dave Jones: They just had better... I don't actually know how compilers work. ...smarter programmers. Yeah, no, I'm not a compiler guy. But, no, they just had a, yeah, better, smarter written compiler.

Chris Gammell: Better assembly smiths. Better algorithm-y things in there. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, stuff like that. You know, tighter. You know, they just had more, you know, and better optimizations.

Speaker ?: Toit.

Dave Jones: Toit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And same, also with the microchip theme there, I never used to use the official microchip programmer, either. I used to use another Australian microchip programmer called the newfound Warp 13, which was probably the industry standard here in Australia at the time. Like, you know, tons of people used it. And it was from a little one-man band guy from his house selling his little Warp 13 pick programmer, and it was better because it was always better up-to-date. It was always, you know, he'd always, you know, he would always have the latest chip release and bloody microchip pick. Dude, Dave, how have you not had this guy in the show?

Chris Gammell: DonTronics.com. That is a great, oh, that's good stuff.

Dave Jones: Oh, Don, yes. DonTronics, yes. Yes.

Chris Gammell: Is his last name Tronics?

Dave Jones: No. Don McKenzie. Oh, my God.

Chris Gammell: This website is fantastic. Fantastic.

Dave Jones: Oh, wait, so this is- It is not the original. It's pretty close to the original HTML.

Chris Gammell: I recreated the website, Shopping Cart from 99. Wow. Oh, really?

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that is fantastic.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's great. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Wow.

Dave Jones: From 1999?

Chris Gammell: Yes.

Dave Jones: Send me the link.

Chris Gammell: It looks like it's from 1979.

Dave Jones: All right. Send me the link.

Chris Gammell: At a certain point back, I just don't even realize.

Dave Jones: It's on a Wayback archive, is it?

Chris Gammell: No, it's on his site. I think he's hosting it.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man, there's flashing GIFs. Oh, this is- Yeah. Win $500 cash.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Don Tronics, the logo is flashing and showing win $500 cash.

Dave Jones: All right. Yep. Okay, so it's not-

Chris Gammell: Oh, this is a specific- This is a- This is a- Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no, this is his website. But yeah, no, he was one of the first in the country to actually do online e-commerce. I think he was the first person to do online e-commerce in Australia. So yeah, that was a big deal. That was, yeah. No, it's great.

Chris Gammell: You got to get this- Don McKenzie, you got to get this guy on the show, Dave. Come on. Right.

Dave Jones: Okay. Yep.

Chris Gammell: It looks like he might be a little older. Yes, yes, he is. If you go to downtronics.com, it says, I'm redirecting you to my daughter's website, and she's a 3D rendering company.

Dave Jones: He did. I did actually ask him to come on the EEV blog way back, and he said no, but he's now admitted- He's actually been on a podcast before, so you can actually- Oh, yeah. That's good. He's been on a local vintage computer podcast, so you can actually listen to that if you can. But yeah. Yeah. All right. Anyway, I'll see if Dom wants to come on the Amp Hour. That could be real interesting.

Chris Gammell: That could be fun.

Dave Jones: Do you- No. I know the answer. It's a rhetorical question. You don't remember web rings, do you?

Chris Gammell: I do remember web rings.

Dave Jones: Yeah, you do remember web rings.

Chris Gammell: I do. Yeah. This is like- You're older than I thought, dude. Earlier than a blog roll, right? Yeah. The blog roll was preceded by web rings.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Because search engines sucked back then, you know. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: You had to click through other people's sites.

Dave Jones: You had Ask Jeeves. You had, you know, stuff like that. So if you-

Chris Gammell: What was I thinking about the other day? Oh, it was- I was thinking about how YouTube Shorts and TikTok is kind of like the video version of StumbleUpon. Do you remember StumbleUpon? No, I don't remember StumbleUpon. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It was like-

Dave Jones: I remember the name, but I'd never used it, I don't think.

Chris Gammell: It was a, it was basically like a little browser, like, extension. Yeah. It was an extension, though. And, and you basically, it would be like, it would do an iframe window within it. So you go to StumbleUpon.com. Right, yeah. You click the button and whatever interested stuff you were in, stuff you were interested in. So like, you select Electronics, you click the button and it would take you to like Alt Zone. And then you click the button again and it would take you to Dontronics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would just be like a list of randomized links. And then, you know, some people would stick around. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, for those who don't know how WebRings work, it was a bunch of hard, like a hard-coded HTML you'd add to your HTML website down, down the bottom. And it would basically, if, if you had like a niche, like Australian electronics, for example, everyone who had an Australian related electronics website would put this WebRing code into your thing and it'd have like next, previous, random buttons, list sites. And so that you could, you know, so if you stumbled across my site, then you could press next and it might go to Dontronics's site or it might go to Newfound's site selling the Warp 13 program, et cetera. So you'd jump between all these related websites. And it was really cool. I don't know who actually ran the service backend for it. I don't know how it worked in the backend. All I know is that you...

Chris Gammell: Well, you know, Dave, whoever it was, they probably powered it with over Unity Energy. Right. You just keep clicking it and then you show up in a new place. It's magical.

Dave Jones: And it, yeah, it just runs endlessly. So I guess it was WebRing was the company, I guess. WebRing.com or org or something. I don't know. I can't. It's been so long. It's been 25 years or something since I last generated that HTML code for the WebRing. Probably 30 years. Is it? God, what is it now? Yes. Yeah. It'd be 30 years. Jesus. Something like that. Yep. Wow. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: The days are long, but the years are short, Dave.

Dave Jones: Yep. Our amp hour's up. Yeah, that's pretty short too. We won't be too long about free energy. So we're going to have to label this something to do with Sideshow and I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Sideshow Bob's free energy machine.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. Don't you worry about it. Don't you worry about it. I'll figure it out.

Dave Jones: You'll do it. You're in charge. All right. All right.

Chris Gammell: I'm the balls.

Dave Jones: Catch you next time. Bye.

Speaker ?: Outro Music