#73 – Horrisonous Holiday Habromania

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

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Chris Gammell's Analog Life. And this is Jeff Kaiser from MightyOhm.com.

Jeff Kaiser: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm back. Merry Christmas, sir.

Chris Gammell: Back from the future. Welcome, Jeff. Hey, Jeff. I'm the ghost of Christmas past. Woo!

Jeff Kaiser: We always love having you on, Jeff.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yes, we do. It's great to be back. Hey, guys.

Jeff Kaiser: Sounded good as ever with your recording setup.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I hope I've got it configured correctly. But, yeah. It's good to be back.

Jeff Kaiser: I don't have a shiver in my voice tonight because I am upstairs, not in the basement. Not a basement troll tonight.

Speaker ?: Awesome.

Jeff Kaiser: And, Dave, you're heading off to your new lab for the next show, maybe?

Dave Jones: Well, no, probably not. No, no, no. It'll take me all Christmas break and everything to move into this place, I'm sure. It'll. Yeah. Anyway, what's the coincidence of that? You started your new job today. Yeah, I did. Huge news today for both of us. Yeah. And you started a new job, literally today. Why Tuesday? Oh, no, it's Monday over there, isn't it? Oh, sorry. No. I thought that's a bit weird. Yeah, that is a little weird, huh? It's not Tuesday. All right. It's Monday. It's Tuesday here. And, yeah, and I get the keys to my new office today. Yeah. Woo-hoo! And, Jeff, anything? The NerdK Lab.

Jeff Kaiser: You must have something big there, Jeff, right? Uh, no.

Chris Gammell: You had a Dorkbot meeting tonight, right? Yeah, I do have a busy evening. I'm heading off to the Dorkbot Austin chapter. They're having a meeting at a hackerspace in Austin that I've never been to tonight. So as soon as we get done recording, I'm going to jump in the car and drive over there as fast as I can and try to catch the tail end of that meeting. So now Dorkbot is different than a hackerspace, though, right? Dorkbot is, do they have Dorkbot in Australia, Dave?

Dave Jones: I think there's one. I think there might be one here in Sydney. Yeah. Like a couple of people rock up or something. Yeah, I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's basically a club. Their motto is people doing strange things with electricity. And it's like presentations. And, you know, people will meet either a couple times a month or once a month and talk about, you know, geek-related topics. And the San Francisco... Projects they're working on and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Projects they're working on. The San Francisco chapter, if you can call it that, was always really, really good. And I got hooked on that probably three or four years ago at least. And Austin has a small chapter also. And it's a lot of fun. It sounds kind of like pachakacha. Have you ever heard of that? No. What? No. Gesundheit. Is that English?

Jeff Kaiser: That's actually a Japanese word. It means, like, chatter. But it's basically the same kind of idea. But it's much more generalized. So that's for, like, artistic installations. I mean, there can be technology stuff, too. And it's kind of like you get together once a month and you drink beer and you watch people present about stuff they're working on.

Chris Gammell: That's exactly what Dorkbot is. That's exactly what Dorkbot is. It's beer and presentations. It's good.

Dave Jones: That's a great idea. The word chapter is something. It's very American. We don't really have that here. Or, you know, the local chapter of the, you know, civil club or whatever. It's a very U.S. term. What do you call it? I don't know if we have an equivalent. Like section? Do you call it a section, maybe? No. Section? No. We don't. No. I guess we're just not as social here. A gaggle of mates? A gaggle of mates. Oh, boy. What's a collective term for nerds? Is there a collective?

Jeff Kaiser: A murder of nerds? A murder of nerds. Maybe we should make one up. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe we should.

Dave Jones: Maybe there should be an official.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Some people call themselves hives. I think hackerspaces sometimes. There's hive. Was it Hive 9, Jeff? Isn't it like Hive 13 or 19? Hive 19?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that might be it. I'm not sure. It's like Pittsburgh or something, isn't it? Somewhere on the East Coast.

Jeff Kaiser: I don't know. We should coin a term, though. We should. We'll have to work on it. People can leave that in the comments section. How about that? If you were coming upon a group of nerds, what would you refer to them as? Would it be a gaggle or a murderer or a blotch? I don't know. A blotch of nerds?

Dave Jones: I think this is quite a recent phenomenon, perhaps. Because nerds are almost by definition unsocial.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Antisocial. Unsocial. That's an excellent point. Times are changing, Dave. Times are changing. Yeah, I know. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: How about a grumpling? I like that word. A grumpling of nerds. Oh, boy. Where'd you pull that one out from? I don't know.

Dave Jones: It's got to have some technical feel to it. We're not grumpy. Well, I guess we are. Yeah, right. I made my career out of grumpy. Yeah, right?

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, man. Speaking of grumpy, we found a Dobert strip to commemorate my first day of work. There's an entire section. You can actually... There's like a hash you can do on search.dobert.com for first day. And there's a couple great ones in here, just about...

Dave Jones: Well, you can search for any term. You can search for office politics, or you can search... Well, the entire Dilbert cartoon is about office politics, but...

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but you can search for specific... You know, hey, search for engineer.

Jeff Kaiser: Okay, it's a whole site.

Dave Jones: I know. Well, Dilbert is an engineer from MIT. That's the whole thing. But, you know, you can search for specific sketches on terms. Yeah, like rat bird or dog bird. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Characters.

Dave Jones: Or specific themes. Asok, right?

Jeff Kaiser: That's one of the characters, too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, Asok, yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah, so there's a great one, though, about social media and not blogging about the first day. That's an important thing not to do. So this is...

Dave Jones: We'll actually post that. And that one's rated four and a half stars, or four and a quarter stars out of five.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, it's great.

Dave Jones: Each card in is rated.

Chris Gammell: I actually didn't realize that Dilbert strips were still being made. So, I mean, this one's from about a year ago, but it's very, you know, timely with the Twitter and the Twitters. The Twitters, yes. The Twitters. I didn't realize that Dilbert is still around.

Dave Jones: I was actually going to tweet this the other day, coincidentally, is that I'm getting bombarded so often with Dilbert because I get my, you know, email each time a new Dilbert strip comes out. And I've got this backlog. I all of a sudden end up with a backlog of like five of them. Oh, God, I've got too many Dilbert things to read in my inbox.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, it takes a long to get through, right?

Dave Jones: Damn you. Stop producing Dilbert as quickly. I've got to keep up. It only takes 10 seconds to read each one, but I don't know. For some reason, I just let them accumulate in my inbox.

Chris Gammell: You know, I have the same problem with like IEEE Spectrums and all the like Nuts and Volts and all those magazines I'm on. Like, I feel like I must read them. And so I just tried to clean out. Like, I tend to read them before I go to bed. So there's always a pile of magazines on my nightstand. And last night I read the IEEE Spectrum from March. So this is how far back this pile goes. Yeah, it's a backlog. It's pretty bad. I've been busy. I haven't had time to read things. And according to Jack Gansel, I'm like not doing the right thing by not, you know, keeping up on the industry. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, see, I don't. I'm supposed to be a, you know, where all of us are, you know, leading industry bloggers, are we not?

Chris Gammell: I don't know about that one. Luminaries. I would prefer to call us luminaries.

Dave Jones: Luminaries? That's a wank word.

Jeff Kaiser: I like to call myself a luniary.

Chris Gammell: Luniary.

Jeff Kaiser: Okay. Yeah, that sounds better. That's me. Yes, we are luniaries. I don't know. I don't know. Because I get all my articles through like social media these days. You know, if someone shares an article, a lot of times it comes from Spectrum or it comes from e-times or something like that. But I don't have time to actually sit down and even with a nook or something like that. You know, I always thought, oh, that'll help me read in bed or something like that. But I want to read a novel at that point or something else.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly.

Jeff Kaiser: It is tough.

Dave Jones: And so the headline has to catch my eye. If something in the headline doesn't catch my eye, delete. I'm not going to go through and read all of today's new stories. You know, I just.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Nah. Yeah, I'm with you on that, Dave. I agree. I do the same thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I am headline selective. Sorry, people. But it's important. Headlines are important. Yep.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep.

Dave Jones: Engineers can't waste time. Just. We've got too many things to do. We've got the world to save. We've got. Do you know that it takes. Oh, God. Who does do it? Scott Adams. It takes him like half a day to draw each Dilbert.

Chris Gammell: Oh, wow.

Dave Jones: It takes him. Like there's this online. We've mentioned this before. There's a cartoon. I think we posted. Yeah. Yeah. The video of him doing it. And it takes him like four or six hours to do each one.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And like, I don't know how he keeps producing. He must have a huge backlog. You must sit there and go, right, I'm going to do three or four today. Yeah. And then have a backlog. Because you couldn't do one every day. Yeah. If you had to produce one every day and only do it on that day, then, you know. I should start doing that with videos. I should backlog them, you know, so that I've got some time off. Yeah. It does take discipline.

Chris Gammell: I think that's what bloggers do. I mean, that's what big bloggers do. I think they write things ahead, right? And then you schedule them. Yeah. I've done that from time to time. See, I can't do that.

Dave Jones: I can't hoard. If I've got something new, I've got to release it, you know? I've got to. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I know that feeling. I know that feeling.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I know that I should because it's more efficient, you know? Because you're in the mode, you know? You're in the zone and you can work more efficiently. So you produce three or four and then release them slowly. And then you can take a week off and nobody will notice. Yeah. Because you can schedule these things now. You can schedule your YouTube videos when they're going to release. With WordPress, you can schedule the day and time it's going to be released.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, except that apparently it doesn't work all the time because I saw Alan complaining about that.

Dave Jones: YouTube doesn't work at all. YouTube's never worked. It's hopeless.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's a sham. It's shit.

Dave Jones: You know, sometimes even when you do- Oh, their new layout is shit. Have you seen- If anyone's got a YouTube channel, you know what I'm talking about. Their new layout is garbage. It's a wonder they even test- They obviously don't even test this thing. They've got the work experience kiddies working on it again. It's ridiculous.

Chris Gammell: I'm kind of on a- I've just turned off design because after Google changed Reader and Calendar and all those apps, it's like, you can't win. It's just every iteration, it gets worse, I feel like. So I just- I'm trying not to care about it. But I was pretty upset whenever they changed Reader because the changes were pretty drastic.

Dave Jones: I've never used Google Reader. Hmm.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: That's how I get all my- Not all my articles, but a significant amount these days. Hmm. And we encourage people to get their amp hour feed through there, of course. Of course. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You guys are talking about taking a week off there. I took a week off and I had this big backlog of things to do. And-

Dave Jones: How many got done?

Jeff Kaiser: I'd say I had about a 30% completion rate. I had a very long- May I say I told you so? Wow. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Go ahead. Told you so.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. I had such grand plans, but I don't know.

Dave Jones: My young Padawan learner. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: I know. Hey, I moved your computer upstairs. I'm warm now. That's all that matters, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, well. I did get to build some circuits, so I got to build some of the circuits Alan's building. I was playing with those and, you know, some other stuff, so. Oh, I got a beagle board. Or beagle bone, rather. Did I tell you guys about that? Ooh, cool.

Dave Jones: No, I don't have a beagle bone.

Jeff Kaiser: I got a beagle bone. How did you score a beagle bone? This thing is slick. Certain people are very awesome. Their names might rhyme with Schmation Bidner. Briedner. So thank you, Jason. Yeah, but this thing is sweet. I have, you know, I've gotten it turned on. I've gotten the interface up, and it was Sunday, so that, or it was, no, I got a Friday night, and I got to play with it, and then I realized I had to install Linux and everything. You have to develop from a Linux, or you have to install it from a Linux system. Oh, right, so it only works with Linux. It doesn't only work with Linux, like all the drivers and everything will work, but the development is mainly meant for Linux right now.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, don't bother sending me one thing, because I don't even have a Linux machine, you know?

Jeff Kaiser: Well, I ended up doing with VirtualBox, so you can actually do, you know, you can install Linux on a virtual machine, and that's actually what I ended up.

Dave Jones: Oh, I didn't know you could do that.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, it's great. This is definitely the way to do it for me.

Dave Jones: I know the other way around. People always run their Linux box, and then they run a virtual machine for Windows apps. Yeah, I used to do that, too. I didn't know the other way around. Anyway, it's all too complicated. I just couldn't be bothered.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, but this kit, I mean, the kit's pretty slick itself. I mean, I love it. You know, Jason and Gerald and that whole team, they include the Altoids tin. You know, we talked about that on the show before, about how it fits in one. Not only does it fit with one, it comes with one.

Dave Jones: I didn't know that. I wasn't aware it fitted in one. Wow, that's really small. And what is this obsession with the Altoids tin? I had never heard of it before. Once again, it's an American thing. I don't even know if you can buy them here. What are Altoids? What is in the tin?

Jeff Kaiser: They're breath mints. Are they mints or something? Yeah, they're mints. Oh, they're mints. They're curiously strong. Oh, come on, Jeff. Don't give them free advertising.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I just didn't get the obsession with these out. Are they so dirt cheap that they're...

Jeff Kaiser: No, they're not. It's just a quick and easy project box, basically.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. That's why people like them. How many things, like little cheap items, come in convenient little solderable tin metal enclosures? I think that's why they're so popular. Popular, right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But isn't metal kind of annoying? Because then you can't just lay the circuit board... Yeah, I was thinking about that. You would short the hell out of the bottom of this. It's great for shielding stuff. It's true.

Chris Gammell: It is good for shielding. And so a lot of the ham radio guys build stuff in Altoids tin.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I can understand that. Yeah. But otherwise, you know, you might as well use a Tic Tac box or something. I've built stuff in Tic Tac boxes before.

Jeff Kaiser: Like what? Like transmitters? Or like what kind of stuff?

Dave Jones: You can build like little power converter stuff and all sorts of... Yeah, FM bugs were in Tic Tac boxes and all sorts of stuff.

Jeff Kaiser: That's a cool idea. I like that for like waterproofing or something, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, because you can actually pot them. So you can actually put your circuitry in there and pot them. I've actually done that. I've used it as a box to pot stuff in. So, yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: All right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I don't mind it. Man, I've built stuff into cassette cases. For all you young whippersnappers out there won't know what a cassette tape is.

Jeff Kaiser: I even know what that is. My favorite was my Huey Lewis and the News tape. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. I really had great choice of music when I was a kid.

Chris Gammell: Was it sports or...

Jeff Kaiser: No, I think it was Best Of.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay. Have you ever seen American Psycho?

Jeff Kaiser: Yes. Yeah. I believe that's his best album. Yeah, that's a freaky movie.

Chris Gammell: You know, Dave, I think the Altoids tin is probably the most recognizable small metal box that an everyday person would run into, you know, as part of like a throwaway thing you find at the grocery store. There aren't that many things that come in metal boxes anymore. Right. So Altoids is one of them.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay. Fair call. If anyone knows if they're available in Australia, are they? I have no idea. I've never looked.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I guess if you don't know what the case looks or the actual just product looks like.

Dave Jones: I know exactly what it looks like. I can't say I've ever seen one.

Jeff Kaiser: No, really? Like in the checkout line at like a grocery store? Yeah, no.

Dave Jones: I've never seen them in the checkout. Yeah. One. Interesting. That I can recall anyway. So.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I mean, they're getting these third party now. I mean, I know Adafruit gets their third party now. And I think the BeagleBone team got, or BeagleBoard team got them third party as well because there's no markings on them. But, yeah, they're still iconic, I suppose. And people like it. I mean, I saw a lot of people. So this is supposed to be our quasi Christmas episode, right? I've seen the, I don't know if people saw the, oh. Yeah?

Dave Jones: I've got to say, I think they're a bit kludgy, though. Like, you know, like putting a commercial product in there is a bit, a bit tacky. I've got to say.

Chris Gammell: It's a gimmick. Yeah. It's totally a gimmick. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Ah. It's just not elegant. I don't like it.

Chris Gammell: Hmm.

Jeff Kaiser: So you'd rather have like a big, what is it, Hammond? Like a big Hammond box?

Dave Jones: That's it. It's got to be a big die-cast Hammond box. Yeah, exactly.

Jeff Kaiser: If I drop it on my toe and I don't say, oh, it's not good enough.

Dave Jones: My latest power supply is in a nice little Hammond box. It is. It's beautiful. No, I just love purpose design project boxes and then fitting your design around that. You know, they've got the PCB mounts in there and they've got the front, you know, the mounts for the front panels and the back panels and they're, ah, it's just nice. Shoving something in Altoids tin, it's just a hack.

Chris Gammell: But I think it's a hack, but it probably costs them 50 cents. So it's a nice little, you know, it's cute. It's, people understand what it is.

Dave Jones: I can buy a Jiffy box in Australia for a dollar, right? A proper project Jiffy box made in Australia for just over a dollar. So, you know, I mean, it's crazy and it's got the PCB guides in there and everything. It's got the, it's got the lid on it and it comes with the screws and everything for a buck or two bucks, you know? I mean, it's probably cheaper than what an Altoids tin would cost with the mints in it.

Chris Gammell: I don't think that there are engineers at TI that are frantically eating all the mints in the Altoids boxes. Those TI guys, they have wonderful breath. I have a feeling.

Dave Jones: I'm just saying it's good for a one-off and something like that. But if, like, I can't believe that, you know, Art of Fruit, you know, how many tens of thousands of those minty boost things have they sold? And it's still in the Altoids box, you know? I just don't get it, really. I thought, okay, it's great. Okay, you've done the little hack. It's nice. It works, you know? You might sell a few of them. And then you redesign it in a nice little box.

Jeff Kaiser: Nah, you're missing the main point of it, Dave. Nah. It's not about looking nice. It's about a fast solution that looks kind of cool and offbeat, I think.

Dave Jones: Nah, I'm an engineer. I like things to be optimal, you know?

Jeff Kaiser: I like things to work.

Chris Gammell: I think it appeals to a certain segment of the market. Like, people like things to be a little bit hacky. I think kits and stuff, and Altoids 10 is something that people identify with. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Hmm.

Dave Jones: Hmm. Fair enough. Anyway, my latest power supply is not going to be a hack. It's going to be nicely designed into this little Hammond case. Sorry, people out there who are disappointed because I didn't build it into a Vegemite jar or something.

Jeff Kaiser: Now, that would be iconic, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'll do a power supply in a Vegemite jar.

Dave Jones: It comes with a screw-on lid, and you can put the 4mm banana plugs on the top. It smells like ass.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, boy.

Jeff Kaiser: But, yeah, what I was saying earlier is that, you know, I saw the BeagleBone. A lot of people were actually asking for that, for the DigiWish. Have you guys seen that on, like, Twitter and Facebook and everything? Digikeys doing a thing where people can be like, oh, I want this thing, and then eventually they'll pick someone. So, I saw a lot of people asking for the BeagleBone.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. And they'll pick someone at random and give them that product.

Jeff Kaiser: Which is, yeah, smart on their part in terms of advertising, but I've seen a lot of...

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: It was $100. I actually found on Digikey... I forgot what I was looking for, but I found that they sold CDs... They sell classical CDs on Digikey. What?

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: I saw that. Yeah, that is pretty weird. It was really weird. Are you kidding me? That's what I was searching for. I was searching for something a little off anyways, and then I saw, like, oh, CDs and media and books, and I thought they would have, like, you know, textbooks or...

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: ...even, like, art of electronics or something like that, but nope. They had, like, Mozart and... Oh, that's pathetic. It was weird. Weird.

Dave Jones: I can understand if they're getting into the, you know, the farting toy business or something like that. They want to sell it. Leo, Farnell's do that. Element 14. What? They've done that for a long time, you know. You could buy your little remote, your farting novelty toy or your remote control tank or whatever. Really?

Jeff Kaiser: Weird.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Huh.

Jeff Kaiser: I'm going to try and find this on there now. Huh.

Dave Jones: Search for farting novelty toy on Digikey and see if you can... Probably not. That's more of a Jaycar thing, but, you know.

Jeff Kaiser: They smell kind of like... Like, kind of junky little toys like that?

Dave Jones: Yeah, junky. Because engineers, when they're doing the purchase order, you know, you'd always throw on a couple of these toys on there, you know. And you'd rename them, of course. You know, a farting novelty toy is like a, you know, a... Sound inducing. ...pezo-ceramic generator or something like that.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, there's an art form to, you know... Getting your expense reports approved? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, boy. I have a feeling that these CDs were probably, like, a thing to test their shopping cart or something and they never took them out. You think? I don't know. Do you think they're really selling classical music CDs? You should order one and see what happens.

Dave Jones: Can I see if anyone can beat this for a bizarre item put onto an expense report?

Jeff Kaiser: Hit us.

Dave Jones: Feminine hygiene products. What?

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. For a real engineering purpose. For an electronics person or for something? Okay. No, this is... I put in an expense report. If I work at P&G, I mean, like, he would... He worked on feminine products in, like, a production environment, so...

Dave Jones: Okay.

Jeff Kaiser: That would make more sense, but...

Dave Jones: That, no. In my... One of my engineering jobs, one of my underwater military jobs, I put in an expense report. There we go. Feminine hygiene products.

Jeff Kaiser: Was it a water absorption mechanism?

Dave Jones: No, it was actually a shock absorption mechanism. Shock absorption. That's... Oh, wow.

Jeff Kaiser: That's clever.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I was experimenting with various materials and... Yep. They're crap, by the way. Yeah, okay, yeah. Just wanted to say that.

Jeff Kaiser: You should have bought Silly Putty, too, and been like, oh, it's... Well, it has many uses, but...

Dave Jones: Their vibration response is just awful. It's just horrible. Yeah. Their impulse shock responses. Yeah. Nah. Don't buy them, folks.

Jeff Kaiser: I cannot beat that. I... The best I've got is, like, you know, funky food that I've tried. Right. Okay.

Dave Jones: And you would think that cotton wool would be good, right? Cotton wool is shit, let me tell you, as a vibration impact. So this is, like, inside a project box? Or what? Even for low mass stuff. Hmm.

Jeff Kaiser: Sorry? Are you talking about, like, inside a project box for, like, absorbing shock of, like, a...

Dave Jones: Yeah. Actually, shock absorbing a product inside a box. Yep.

Jeff Kaiser: So what do you end up using it?

Dave Jones: You know, everyone thinks, oh, cotton wool, it's nice and fluffy and light and, you know, it's just crap.

Jeff Kaiser: It just gives too much, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn't have the correct response you need for shock absorption.

Jeff Kaiser: So what was the best?

Dave Jones: Well, the best is, surprise, surprise, some of the shock, you know, the sorbithan type materials, the engineering materials actually scientifically designed for shock absorption. Go figure. Wow. Yeah. Funny that. Yeah. We just thought we'd be smart and be able to find something better. And, no, just regular anti-static foam is pretty darn good, too. That's almost as good as the proper sorbithan engineering materials. But it depends on the mass and depends on the, you know...

Jeff Kaiser: So that's, like, the stuff that might stick, like, a dip package into to ship with, you mean?

Dave Jones: Uh, no, just regular packaging. You know, your product, you know, your oscilloscope comes shipped in, you know, the foam.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, okay. So not the black. You said, do you say anti-static or no?

Dave Jones: Oh, no, I, yes, I said anti-static. The black is the conductive stuff. Don't confuse conductive with static dissipative, which is the pink stuff. Talking about, like, the pink foam that, you know... Okay.

Chris Gammell: What is the difference between the black stuff and the pink stuff? I've never understood this.

Dave Jones: The black stuff is actually conductive. It contains carbon and other conductive materials in there. So if you stick your multimeter on there, it will actually be a fairly low resistance, you know, a couple hundred K or something like that. Huh. Whereas the pink anti-static stuff is a static... It will not build up a charge. Its surface is treated... It's treated with a chemical, so it will not build up a charge.

Chris Gammell: So why would you use... But it is not conductive. Why would you use one versus the other?

Dave Jones: Uh, because when you are packaging products, you don't want static build-up inside your box. So if you've got a conductive box, for example, like, you know, you can get conductive boxes and they've got the black...

Jeff Kaiser: Like a metal, like a metal Hammond box.

Dave Jones: They've got a metal layer or a carbon layer inside, right? Anything that goes in there must be an anti-static material so it doesn't build up a charge. So you've got to use your pink foam, you've got to use your pink anti-static bags, you've got to, you know, use those sort of things. Because their material, they will not build up a charge on their surface. That's the whole point. So you can shuffle them around your desk and they won't actually build up a charge. Oh, so the black stuff... And when they're moving around inside the box itself, you know, during shipping, they won't, you know, all of the vibration won't build up a charge on the surface.

Chris Gammell: The black stuff is conductive, but it can still build up a charge.

Dave Jones: Well, it's conductive, so it... It'll just pass right through, right? No, it's conductive.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, so it won't act as a dielectric, it'll act as a conductor.

Dave Jones: Yes, it'll act as a conductor.

Jeff Kaiser: Right, because the idea is if you had a metal top and bottom, right, and then you had a really, like, staticky piece of foam in the middle, then you're basically building a capacitor. That's the idea, right? Yep. Yep.

Dave Jones: And I've done a video on this way, way back, busting the anti-static myth that the pink, you know, you put your components in those pink anti-static bags, it doesn't protect them one little bit. It doesn't protect them one bit. And ICs that are inside those clear tubes, those anti-static tubes, you know, they've got anti-static written on them, they aren't protected at all.

Jeff Kaiser: They're just expensive.

Dave Jones: You can zap those chips right through the tube, and you can zap your components right through those pink bags. You've got to use a conductive shielding bag. Yeah, metal in bags. To actually protect anything. Metal in. Yep. Yep. So, there you go. Okay. Because at a proper ESD-approved station, if you want to take ESD seriously, then you are not allowed to have any materials on that bench that can build up a charge. So, your brush that you clean your circuit boards with must be a black conductive brush. Right, yeah. You can't just use a toothbrush.

Chris Gammell: Got it.

Dave Jones: And all of the bags. Must be pink anti-static bags.

Chris Gammell: My favorite is that every lab I've ever worked in has always had a big tube of anti-static hand lotion. I'm not kidding. There's always this, like, pump dispenser of ESD hand lotion. I always thought that was hilarious. It's just weird. There's ESD everything. ESD tape dispenser. Oh, yeah. Anything you can think of, someone's made an ESD version that's, like, three times more expensive. Right? There's this whole industry based on that.

Dave Jones: But if you want to take it seriously, you know, you have to take it seriously. You have to put all the protection mechanisms in place.

Jeff Kaiser: See, I feel like, I mean, I know that every time we talk about ESD, it starts getting people all upset. But I feel like they're building diodes into so many inputs these days, too, that it's so much less of an issue than it used to be. I mean, I know that it's still an issue. They're very robust. Right.

Dave Jones: They're very... A fully populated circuit board with modern components with their built-in protection is a very robust bit of kit. Yeah. I get hammered every time I do a teardown. I don't wear my ESD strap. You know, I get all these, you know, nut jobs emailing me. Oh, you didn't wear your ESD protection. Bloody hell. You know. You're not my father.

Chris Gammell: Oh, boy. How did we get onto ESD? That's what happens whenever I'm on the show. We get on these little wild tangents.

Dave Jones: Well, half of the show's gone already. Should we actually get onto some real stuff?

Jeff Kaiser: Well, I wanted to hear what... So, I don't know if you guys are still down with the whole Christmas wish list idea. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right.

Jeff Kaiser: So, what's on your wish list this year? Because the reason I wanted to do the show a little earlier is because, you know, if we say something really awesome that people might, you know, like, then they can go out and try and buy it before Christmas. So, what do you got?

Dave Jones: Well, I've got a pretty Monday. One thing my lab doesn't have is a spectrum analyzer. Oh. I don't have a...

Chris Gammell: I'm seriously jealous here.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: I'm seriously jealous. Do you know which one you want?

Dave Jones: Oh, you know, the traditional HP one would be nice, you know.

Jeff Kaiser: You want eBay for that? No new?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. They're quite, you know, you're talking probably $1,500 to $2,000.

Chris Gammell: Oh, at least, yeah. Minimum, you know. Yeah. Depending on the frequency range, they can get very expensive.

Dave Jones: Yeah. See, I don't need, you know, a gig would be plenty, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, make sure you get, like, the fifth harmonic of anything you plan to measure.

Dave Jones: Yep. So, yeah, that's, you know, that's, I just, my lab doesn't, has never had a spectrum analyzer. So, I've had audio spectrum analyzers before. I've had quite a few expensive ones of those through my lab over the years, but never, you know, a wideband RF spectrum analyzer.

Chris Gammell: Hmm. I've actually been.

Dave Jones: So, there you go. That's what I'd like from Santa.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I've been shopping for those a little bit, too, but not super seriously. I've always wanted one. I think to make a nice RF lab, you have to have a network analyzer and a spectrum analyzer. And network analyzers are. With a tracking gen. Yeah. Yeah, if you want it to be really nice. Yeah, actually.

Dave Jones: I can't believe you don't have one, Jeff. Well, you'll like an RF guy.

Chris Gammell: I haven't done much RF work since I started contracting because it's hard to build a, you know, half million dollar RF lab on a contractor's budget. But I've definitely entertained doing contract work that would require me to get them. And I'm just waiting to have the justification. Right. Because I would love to have some nice RF test equipment. Actually, I used to own a spectrum analyzer. It was a Tech 491. And it was from the 1950s or 1960s. And it actually used a vacuum tube for the microwave source. And I got it for like 50 bucks from somebody, some ham that I knew. And I used it for a couple years whenever I was big into microwave ham radio. And I opened it up once. And I swear, half the weight of this thing was gold. Like, everything inside it was gold. And I don't even know how much these were new.

Dave Jones: And it'd be thick gold plating. It wouldn't be that cheap-ass Chinese, you know, one hung low plating. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It was amazing. And whenever I moved out of my apartment in San Diego, I sold it on eBay for 800 bucks. Wow. Just for the gold? No, no, no, no. For the working spectrum analyzer. For sale, lump of gold. Gold. But, yeah, I have a feeling. I actually want to move more into doing some RF product design. I'm getting back into ham radio. And I actually want to see if I can do some kits in that area. So I've been shopping around. And you have some ham news, don't you, Jeff? Oh, yeah, yeah. So I got a new call sign.

Speaker ?: Woo.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I've had a ham license for a long time. But I've always had this really bad call. It's KF6PBP. And the last three letters are impossible for people to remember, you know, PPP or whatever. And so I applied for a new call sign about a month ago. And I finally got the grant for it last week. So now I am W6. Grant? Yeah, yeah. You have to apply for a vanity call sign. A vanity, yeah. So it's like a vanity license plate. Do they have those in Australia? Can you get custom license plates?

Dave Jones: Yes, we call them a custom. We don't call them vanity. Yeah, so here it's vanity. We just call them a custom.

Chris Gammell: You have a vanity call sign. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So you have to apply. It's a whopping. Or we call them a wanker plate, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so I've got a wanker call sign now. Right. What is it? It's W6 Ohm. W6 Ohm. Oh, sweet. Yeah, it was available. I don't know why. But I looked up. They have these lists you can look at for available call signs. And I got it.

Dave Jones: That's nice.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so if anyone sees me on the air.

Dave Jones: I want VK2EEV. You should see if it's available. Somebody suggested that.

Jeff Kaiser: You got to use your license first, Dave.

Dave Jones: Just like me. Just like me. I'm not saying. It's just like the spectrum analyzer. I probably wouldn't use it much, but I just want one because my lab doesn't have one. You know, I just.

Chris Gammell: I feel the same way. I want one because I don't have one. I've been getting way back into ham radio. I bought a new. Well, new to me. It's actually from the 1980s. I bought a radio and I've been on some of the digital. There's these digital modes that are very efficient. So you can use really crappy antennas and basic stations like what I've got. And you can talk to people. I've been chatting with people from around the country and also in like South America too. I'm in a situated at a point where I can make good contacts into South America. So it's kind of fun. I'd like to be able to work Europe, but I don't have a good enough antenna at this point.

Dave Jones: Well, I'm actually down in a gully here, so I would get shit reception. Maybe I can, on the new office building, if I get up on the roof, maybe I can install a clandestine antenna.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, yeah. It's a good way to meet your neighbors, right? Oh, sorry you dropped that antenna through your skylight. I'm in the basement.

Dave Jones: I need some way to communicate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. So if anyone from HP is listening, I would not say no to having a HP Spectrum Analyzer proudly. Oh, Agilent, sorry.

Jeff Kaiser: Dave wants to do a product review for you.

Dave Jones: Oh, I'll do a product review and it will proudly sit on my bench in every video.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, thank you very much.

Dave Jones: Have you seen these ones on eBay? You know, these one-hung low-brand ones? And they're like $600 and they've got a tracking gen as well. Run away. You know, free delivery from China with tracking gen, a one gig Spectrum Analyzer.

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: And they're...

Chris Gammell: You can get them. That's what they cost. Yeah, they scare me a bit.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I don't know. And they've got CRTs. They've still got...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Like, is it so much cheaper to actually put a CRT in one of these things? I mean, these are a totally new design. And they come with schematics, too. A couple of the people advertise and it comes with schematics.

Chris Gammell: Wow. Huh.

Dave Jones: But I'm curious. Is it actually more cost-effective to put in a CRT tube into a Spectrum Analyzer or have a cheap-ass LCD and some converters?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I do find that really surprising.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I just... We made it out of a water glass and a lot of mercury and...

Dave Jones: And built it into a Vegemite chart.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And 10,000 volts. Well, maybe you should try to get one of those cheap ones for a demo, like the Rigol. Maybe... You know, I would love to have the Rigol of Spectrum Analyzers and network analyzers.

Dave Jones: Oh, the Rigol ones aren't cheap.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, these are the A10 brand. Right, A10, yeah. And they're rebadged under five different... You're right, right, right. ...brands, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Because it's probably hard to get one for a review because these companies basically are just badge engineering companies and they don't... You know, they're not big, prestigious engineering companies. I don't know. I've talked to the Rigol people.

Jeff Kaiser: I know the Rigol guy in the US and he said they got a decent number of people over there. I think he said they got like 100 engineers. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Rigol... No, Rigol are a reputable company. I'm talking about the rung below Rigol.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, okay. Gotcha.

Dave Jones: Yeah. You can't go and buy a $500 Rigol Spectrum Analyzer. You're going to pay five grand, you know.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Speaking of Rigol, that's actually on my wish list. Because I've been doing audio stuff. I need a Siggen. And I'd seen theirs. I had a co-worker who had one of theirs before and it was pretty slick.

Dave Jones: No, dude. You're not doing it right, okay? This is a Christmas wish list. You wish for Agilent or Tektronix. Oh, yeah, right. You wish for Rigol.

Jeff Kaiser: I am a realist. You want an R. I'm a realist here. Yeah, right. I don't believe in Santa Claus, guys. I mean, I believe in my own budget and my ability to get away with buying something. Right.

Dave Jones: Without the wife divorcing you.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. Yep. And actually, even that one's like 500 bucks or so. So, I started looking around online, right? Oh, yeah. That's pretty cheap. Yeah. Yeah. But I looked even cheaper. I wanted to see if there was like a kit I could build or something like that. I started looking around and I find this a-hole who has this kit and I'm like, who is this? Alternate zone? No. Alternate zone.

Dave Jones: Oh, that idiot keeps showing up. Yeah. All over, buddy. Spammer.

Jeff Kaiser: Ugh. It's horrible. But yeah, I found your kit, Dave.

Dave Jones: You're about 10 years too late.

Jeff Kaiser: I know, right? Yeah, you don't make this anymore, right? Do you make this anymore?

Dave Jones: No, I haven't sold that kit for, yeah, seven years at least, I think. Something like that.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, that's too bad.

Chris Gammell: There goes my kit. I've got a few kits on my wish list also. Oh, yeah? Um, there's, I really, ever since it came out, I've always wanted an ice tube clock from Attafruit. Yeah. And so there's one of those on my wish list this year. But I'm actually, I'm more excited about the kits that I'm buying myself for Christmas. So, so based on the show notes today, I bought, uh, one of the Nixie thermometer kits that that's in the show notes. I saw that. We haven't mentioned that yet. Yeah, I saw it in the notes and I had to buy it. So I've got one of those on the way now.

Jeff Kaiser: And I should mention, uh, that that's mentioned by, uh, Electro Man Jay. That's who, uh, suggested that to us. And, uh, he was adamant about me mentioning his name on the show for some reason. And that's what he had to offer. Maybe he gets royalties. Yeah, he, he did a good job. It's a nice, nice job.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, the kit is awesome. So, so this is, uh, do you want me to talk about it, Chris? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. It looks pretty cool. So this is a thermometer that uses, uh, a Nixie tube style element to actually indicate the temperature. So there are these Nixie bar graph displays that have neon. I've never seen those before. I actually have a couple of them here in the lab and I've never made anything practical out of them. But I, I had this idea to do a thermometer years ago and I never got around to it. Um, but the, the guys that are making this, which is what Dr. Nixie, I think is the, the guy.

Jeff Kaiser: Um, that's a convenient name for what, uh, job he got into.

Dave Jones: Dr. Nixie, he sounds evil, you know?

Chris Gammell: But the kit is awesome. It's a totally analog design. There's no microcontroller in it at all. Uh, it's got this really nice laser cut case that's around it and RGB LEDs. And there's a video on the website of, uh, a review by, uh, Brian Stuckey of, uh, tube clock DB who I've seen some of his other videos before. And, uh, I'm really excited about this. I've never seen anything like it. And it's one of the coolest uses of these bar graph displays I've ever seen.

Dave Jones: I got a bit. How much is this thing? I want one too.

Chris Gammell: Um, it's a, it costs me about 120 bucks, uh, us dollars in, if you're in Europe, the Euro conversion rate kind of screws us Americans. Um, and the shipping too. So I think it's like 70 something euros. Um, so it's a German company, right? Yeah, it's a German. And in fact, the website is mostly in, in German. So I had to click on like buttons that I didn't know what they said, but, uh, Google translate. Come on, Google translate doesn't translate images. Oh, buttons. You're right. The buttons don't, don't go over. But, um, as soon as I saw this today, I, I clicked, uh, I ordered one. So hopefully I'll have it in a couple or a few weeks. Oh, not going to get here by Christmas. No, there's no way. Shipping is, yeah. Germany, right? It just doesn't, doesn't. Customs is terrible. Uh, I've, I've had a lot of dealings with customs over the past couple of months and around Christmas time. Good luck. Um, but there's, uh, there's actually another thing that I'm really excited that I ordered for myself. And, uh, it's the fun cube. What? I'm just thinking about your wife just like beating on you for Christmas.

Jeff Kaiser: It's just, why are you buying this crap?

Chris Gammell: Hey, I, I bought this with my own money. You know, there we go. You know, Geiger, Geiger counter sales are pretty good. I can afford to do these things. Um, and, uh, using a kit to buy kits. I actually think that's a very good model. And I was thinking about that today. People buy kits for me. And a lot of times it's people that are also making kits. And so like, we, we all like build. It is, but it's the best kind of thing. It's like, you show me your project. I'll show you mine. Right.

Dave Jones: So you all end up not making any money at all. But that's okay. That's, that's okay.

Jeff Kaiser: I mean. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What if like one of us made bread and then another of us like made shoes and we could like trade each other. And I think it's great. Maybe live in harmony.

Chris Gammell: I live in Austin. If somebody pays me, pays me, and then I can use the money to buy a kit they're making, that's fine. Because then I get a free kit, basically. It's a trade, right? It is a trade. Yes. Um, and, and so anyway. Okay. So I bought a FunCube. FunCube. This is a FunCube dongle pro. Oh, I've heard about these. The kit with the most ridiculous. And yeah. Uh, okay. So anyway, this is a software defined radio kit that's put out by the guys at AMSAT UK. And, uh, it's, it, this is, I guess, kind of ham radio related, but it's actually a little more general purpose than just ham stuff. Um, so this is, is basically a radio that can tune in any frequency from, it's like 150 megahertz up to 1.3 gigahertz, something, something around that range. Um, and the, the reason this kit exists is because, uh, there's a, uh, like a student satellite project that this is going to be the downlink for. And I actually don't know if the satellite has been launched yet. Um, but they designed this really low cost, low being like $200, um, software defined, uh, receiver for the satellite project. And people have been using these to do cool stuff, um, because it's basically a general purpose radio that is very agile. And as long as you can build a decoder on your PC, you can listen or watch, you know, any kind of modulation format. So it's independent of the type of signal if you have the right software. Uh, so the, the coolest use I've seen for these so far is a couple of people have set up antennas and have used these to look at weather satellite images coming from the satellites. So like you can, it's like, you can see your house, you know, like you can, you receive

Dave Jones: a signal from the 1980s that everyone was building receivers to tune into the weather transmitters, you know, and you would actually get the map, you know, that's exactly what

Chris Gammell: this is. Yeah. And it's slow scan. Is that the idea? Uh, it's a weird, it's, it's, it's, it's, we fax, I think it's like a fax, uh, really like a fax kind of system and it was big in

Dave Jones: the eighties. Everyone was building a fax receiver.

Chris Gammell: But now you can, now you can build this with a receiver, which is the size of a USB thumb drive, which is really cool. It's really, really interesting. And it's not just a, uh, weather fax receiver. It can be used for anything.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I remember I had seen this when, uh, when Jerry did her video, when she built that software to find radio, I remember people were talking about this one. Yeah. It's been out for about a year.

Chris Gammell: And I'm kind of a late comer to the whole thing, but, um, I decided that it was finally time to check it out and actually see. So it should be here tomorrow and I'll, I'll check it out and maybe have something to, uh, I'll have to write up a blog post about it. I'm really looking forward to just scanning around and seeing what's out there. It's like the ultimate scanner, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Speaking of kits, I just finished laying out the board for my latest power supply kit and it's a through hole. I haven't done a through hole board for ages. Like, and it was just novel, you know?

Jeff Kaiser: Jeff, take it easy, man. It's just, he's like laughing, uh, uncontrollably, Dave. Why? I just think it's funny.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's, uh, you know, it's so 2008. Through hole is not dead. Through hole is, it's okay.

Dave Jones: Because a surface mount, right? Surface mount kits are a pain in the ass. You know, if you've got to cut off each little resistor from the strip and then they're not labeled and then the capacitors aren't labeled and, you know, it's a pain in the ass. But it's going to be a kit, right?

Jeff Kaiser: If it's a kit, I think it makes a lot of sense.

Dave Jones: But yeah. So I decided to make a through hole. Unfortunately, there's three surface mount parts on there. So just couldn't make it a hundred percent through hole. But surely you can solder an SO8, right? And a single SOC 23. I'll make the pads nice and big and, you know. So hopefully that won't kill it. But apart from that, it's all through hole. You're right. Yeah. And yeah, because everything I've been doing is surface mount for many years now. So I haven't done it. It was just novel to lay out a through hole board again. Yeah. It's neat. I liked it. I enjoyed it. You're drilled. And you'll be able to see some video of that. I did actually capture it. So I've got like a time lapse of me actually laying out the board. Oh, cool. So I'll add some commentary overlay to that and upload that.

Chris Gammell: This is where I routed that trace and then I routed that other trace. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Dave Jones: You would be surprised at the amount of people who've asked me for exactly that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's amazing. People want this stuff. People want to see me laying out a board.

Chris Gammell: They can lay out vicariously through you.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I do plan on doing a whole video series of PCB layouts.

Chris Gammell: It can be like the fireplace video for the holidays. We can have the PCB layout video playing in the background.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. Oh, man.

Dave Jones: You guys may laugh, but you'd be surprised at the number of people who are after that sort of stuff. I don't doubt it. Yeah, you're right.

Jeff Kaiser: There's only so many resources out there for actual board layout if you're not going to sit down and talk to an engineer. So I understand that, but it's just not the most enthralling thing ever. It'll be a challenge for you to make that exciting. I'll say that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. Anyway, I'll have a go.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Well, the last kit I think, not even a kit, one of my last Christmas thing I had on the list at least was one of my friends, one of my former co-workers, he did one of those sink lights. It's called sink lights, but it was a thing where you control your lights outside, and he actually did a DIY solution. So I thought it was pretty cool. But the coolest thing about it is that it's controllable by text message now. So, you know, like the actual, he's got the FM transmitter and everything. But now you can drive up to his house and, like, punch in which song you want to hear.

Chris Gammell: Oh, cool.

Jeff Kaiser: Right, yep. Yeah, so there's some cool videos on there. So I'll link that in, too. But that's the last Christmas thing I had. I don't know. Or a holiday thing or whatever.

Dave Jones: Oh, I got my, no, no, we talked about that last week. Which one? I got my arcade machine.

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, cool. Well, I haven't actually got it yet.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Actually, there was one more thing. Sorry. Because John Janier, John DeCrissefaro, he did, did you guys see his XY thing on his scope? Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's cool. No? What's his?

Jeff Kaiser: He did a voltage output from a microcontroller. So, and then he programmed those to go into the XY, an XY of an old tech scope. Yeah, that's common, yeah. And then he drew out, like, a Christmas tree on the scope, basically. Oh, right, yep. So, I thought that was cool, too.

Dave Jones: Sweet.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, man. Happy holidays.

Dave Jones: What else have we got on today's show? Hey, our mate Jeremy.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Our mate Jeremy Blum. He was, hey, Jeremy. Because he does listen, I'm sure. He's been named the new face of college engineering. Yeah. By the IEEE, is it? Is that the... It's IEEE.

Jeff Kaiser: It's for E-Week. I don't know. We didn't really talk about E-Week last week. What is E-Week? At least in the US, it's kind of like a week for recognizing engineering, kind of like engineering outreach and trying to, you know, have better visibility.

Dave Jones: Is this all types of engineering or?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, yeah. So, like, I was part of it through my school after I left the school. But I think a lot of colleges participate. But I really haven't seen much outside of schools in terms of participation for it. So, hopefully, that will ramp up eventually. But I don't know. But they're, among all the different engineering disciplines, they're naming, you know, new faces. And Jeremy was the choice for IEEE. And I think they've made a great choice. He's awesome.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, what does he get for this?

Dave Jones: He just gets his name plastered somewhere for a month or something. I don't know. I'm sure there's no actual money there. There's probably a plaque in there somewhere, right? I mean, it's a press release. Fortune and glory, kid. Maybe just the glory. For those people who read the IEEE, I guess. All right. There's some news, which I tweeted this week. You might like this, Jeff. Although you've probably never heard of it. The Micro-B kit computer, speaking of kits, is back. It's back from the 1980s.

Chris Gammell: This is huge news. I had never heard of this. I looked at the link today. No, of course.

Dave Jones: It's an Australian computer. It's a famous Australian computer, which came out in about 80 years. Okay. I think 1982. Wow. Actually designed and built here, and it got into the schools here. Every school in Australia was using these Micro-B computers.

Jeff Kaiser: So, did they have the flat panel monitors back then, like they're showing on the site?

Dave Jones: Oh, dear. Where's the flat panel? Oh, yes, they do have the flat panel monitor. Yeah, you're right. Okay. Granted, that's a bit of the blend of the old. Yeah, right? Yeah, where's the old amber CRT display? Because they were amber back then.

Jeff Kaiser: It says they've added a cold-fire processor, which also allows them to run Micro-C Linux. That's kind of interesting.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I don't agree with that. I think that was a mistake. But anyway, the guy revived the company, basically. And he bought the rights to the Micro-B stuff. And as part of that, he got a whole bunch of original cases and original PCBs with it. So, actually, just on 100 of them. So, he's going to do 100 kits. And he'll easily sell them, because there's lots of Micro-B aficionados out there. Yeah, it's very cool.

Jeff Kaiser: The Z80, remind me, is that like... Z80. Z80. Oh, sorry.

Dave Jones: Get it right, man. This is a technical show.

Jeff Kaiser: This is like the 6502 kind of era? Is that the same? That's the same era, correct? I never got into the old, old micros.

Dave Jones: The Z80 and the 6502 were the two competing processors at the time. The Z80 went into the CPM systems. The 6502 went into the Apple and some other ones. So, I'm sure computer buffs out there will know all about that. All right. And it worked at a screeching 3.3 megahertz. That was the upgraded one. The first one, I think, was 1.8 megahertz, the original. And it was a kit. But this Micro-B, it started out in 1982 or whatever on the front cover. Actually, I've got... I used to have the magazine and I sold it on eBay. Guess how much I sold it for? One copy of one 1980s computer magazine.

Jeff Kaiser: A hundred bucks.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it was over a hundred bucks. Wow, really? For one copy because it had the Micro-B on the front cover. That was when it was released. Really?

Jeff Kaiser: So, this is like really collector crap, huh?

Dave Jones: This is really collector shit, yeah. There's people out there who pay for this stuff. And somebody paid over a hundred bucks for this ratty old one copy of this magazine that I had.

Jeff Kaiser: Two megabytes of RAM.

Dave Jones: And I've still got... Two meg? That's the...

Jeff Kaiser: That's the upgraded version. That's the upgraded version. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: That's the new modern design. No, the old one only had 16K. So, you bought this kit. It was actually first released as a kit. You couldn't buy it built up. And, yeah. And it was $399.

Jeff Kaiser: Back when IT were IT men and they soldered stuff together. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's really cool. When the term IT wasn't even coined. Yeah, right. Thankfully back then.

Jeff Kaiser: They were just the weirdo in the back who put your computers together for you and hoped they were around. Nerds. Yeah. Yeah. They were almost all electronic nerds. A grumble of nerds.

Dave Jones: There were... I wonder when just computer nerds actually started where they didn't care about the electronics. Probably early to mid-80s, perhaps. No, I think... No, they didn't that even.

Chris Gammell: I've read that book, Hackers, by Stephen Levy. Yes, Stephen Levy. Yeah, that... I think those guys were around in the 60s, for sure. 60s even? Really? Yeah, absolutely. They were programming mainframes. Because these guys, they would sit at the computer terminals and they didn't necessarily have to know anything about electronics. They were just coders. Very true. So, yeah. They just wanted to optimize algorithms.

Dave Jones: Yeah, okay. Right. No, I'm talking out my ass. I was going to say I'm talking about the home computer kind of thing. Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, the guys that... Well, yeah, you're right. It probably...

Dave Jones: Most of them were probably engineering students, weren't they, though? Yeah. Because that's where a lot of these mainframes were used at the universities were typically in the engineering physics type areas. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I don't know when computer science became its own thing. I'm not sure how... what year, you know...

Dave Jones: Yeah, it would have been the 60s. It would have been certainly early 60s, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of computer science, I guess, came into being would be my recollection.

Chris Gammell: But engineering was first. Oh, we have to remember that. Right. And then the physicists will say, well, physics was first. You know, and electrical engineering, I'm sure, came out of physics. The chicken came first. Yeah. Which one was first?

Jeff Kaiser: Oh, boy.

Dave Jones: Anyway, this is very cool. He's actually bought back the kit, and you can buy it as a kit, and you can build it up at the original price, $399.

Jeff Kaiser: Probably not the same weight in terms of... It's not the inflation-adjusted dollars, is it?

Dave Jones: Well, it's obviously totally ignoring inflation because it's $399. Right. So back then, that was a really big deal. And it is a hybrid kit. The extra add-on board, which this guy's designed with the coal-fired processor and all the extra couple of megabytes of memory and all that sort of jazz, Ethernet, and all that sort of wanky stuff. And then that actually comes actually assembled. That comes fully assembled because it's got surface mount, you know, flat packages and that sort of thing. But the main board itself is the original board from the original stock with all the through-hole components, and you can assemble it. That'd be so much fun. I'd love to, you know, but I wouldn't pay $399 for one, but I'm sure he'll sell all $100. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think it's funny whenever they have, you know, all the little support stuff, like the extra processor with the Ethernet. And I think it's because as users of modern computers, whenever we go back to use computers from the 80s, you realize that they weren't very good. Oh, no.

Dave Jones: It was pointless. You can't do anything with it. How do we get on the Internet again? Yeah, exactly. How can I get on the Internet? No. You can't. You know, you can type in a basic program and save it to cassette tape. Woo-hoo! And, yeah, schools used to have these microbees networked, because the big thing with the microbe was that you could network them all together. And that started off originally where you could have one tape machine, and so the teacher would actually insert the tape, press play, and then all the students had to hit load at the same time on all the different machines, so it could load into one tape. Wow.

Jeff Kaiser: Johnny was staring out the window. We have to start over.

Dave Jones: Oh, fun times. Wow. Anyway.

Jeff Kaiser: There was actually, speaking of old chips, there was, you guys see the Google Doodle today? The, you know, if you go to the Google homepage, there's a picture of 4040, maybe, I think it was, or 8080. My chip knowledge is not very good. But anyways, yeah, celebrating Robert Noyce's, what would have been his 84th birthday, but he passed away 10 years ago, I believe? Or no, many more years ago, in 1990. So, and he was the guy that co-founded Fairchild and Intel, so if people don't know that, obviously. Wow. Yep. An important dude. And he went to school in Ohio.

Dave Jones: He was one of the infamous seven, wasn't he?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think he was. What, who left Fairchild?

Dave Jones: The infamous seven who, yeah, who left and formed, you know, who broke away and formed. And those seven apparently spawned the entire semiconductor industry, as we know it, you know. Right, right. So, yeah. Quite incestuous. What do they call them? The famous seven or the notorious seven or something like that? Or have to check that. A grumble of seven, that's what it is to say. Right. Anyway, very cool. Do we have a last news item? Time for a last news item?

Jeff Kaiser: We have another day in nerd history. No? No? You don't like those? I like them.

Dave Jones: Well, I thought that was it. Noice. No, well, that was one.

Jeff Kaiser: The other one was the, today was the first day. You can't have two. Yeah, we've had two before. In 1901, it was the first transatlantic radio transmission. So, you know, Jeff might like this. Oh, cool. It's kind of a big deal, right? Yeah. Yeah. Newfoundland to England. Wow.

Chris Gammell: Marconi.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I used to work at GC Marconi. Oh, yeah? There you go. Yep.

Jeff Kaiser: They probably did that with Spark Gap, right? That's how they used to do that, those kind of transmissions?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. They used to use huge antennas, like, you know, mile-long wire and really, really primitive equipment.

Jeff Kaiser: Really big Spark, right?

Dave Jones: Anyway, Design Spark have a new contest. They do. Well, through CircuitCellar. It's through a... Anyway, it's, yeah, let's talk. It's a chip kit, you know, the microchip, PIC32 Arduino clone thing. Yeah, yeah. And they're, once again, they're trying to suck you into the Design Spark funnel. I think as part of the entry requirements, you have to design a PCB using Design Spark PCB software.

Jeff Kaiser: I didn't see that.

Dave Jones: Or something like that. Yeah. Because, you know, nobody's using Design Spark because Eagle dominating the market and Design Spark concept is floundering, apparently. So I guess they have to... Anyway, they're giving away 1,000 free chip kits and there's 10 grand in prizes and all that sort of stuff. It's not bad. It's kind of... Yeah, but they're sucking you into the funnel, you know, and it's an energy efficiency challenge. So it's all about if you've got an energy efficient design, you'll win or something, apparently.

Jeff Kaiser: Right. I can't imagine an Arduino clone is very efficient itself, but... Yeah. Oh, well.

Dave Jones: Anyway, we're not really fans of being sucked into the funnel, are we?

Jeff Kaiser: No, not really.

Dave Jones: Really, Chris? No.

Jeff Kaiser: No.

Dave Jones: No. It's a bit rude. Yeah. Well, one last point about the... If you want to join their game, you've got to play by their rules. So, eh, there you go. There it is.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. So we do have one last thing, but this is more about the show. It's kind of a new thing for us.

Dave Jones: Let's end selfishly.

Jeff Kaiser: Yes. Why not? And speaking of things that people are fans of, so we've kind of put a little button, a button on our page. So we put a donation button on the Amp Hour page. And there's a nice long explanation alongside it. But basically, if you're a fan of the show and you want to donate, it goes neither to Dave nor my bank account, but goes towards the...

Dave Jones: Who the hell gets it?

Jeff Kaiser: The Amp Hour gets it. And the fans get it back in terms of faster servers and contests and whatever else we can figure out to use it for. But, yeah. It's a... So it's a pool. Yeah. It's a pool of cash. Jeff has offered to donate his kit money for the next four years. He's not going to buy another kit for the next four years. Right, Jeff? Did we lose Jeff? He signed off. He was so pissed at us, he signed off. And, uh... He is.

Dave Jones: He's gone. He's gone. Thank you very much, Jeff. Nice knowing you.

Jeff Kaiser: Jeff Kaiser has left the building. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, maybe we'll get him back here. He might have lost the network. Hopefully, Texas is still on the map somewhere. Right. And hasn't been nuked. Yeah. Jeff's spark gap was lost in voltage, right? Right. But, yeah. Oh, boy. That's our thing. We're going to try it out. If you're interested in donating, you know, it's something new. You're not obligated to. It's, you know, we've got donation amounts from $1 up to $10 a month, $1 a month to $10 a month, or one-time donations. And, you know, you can cancel whatever you want to. We kind of got the idea from how Leo Laporte does it. You know, if you like the show, you can donate. If you start to not like where the show's going, you can yank that right back and we'll notice. So, yeah. Anything else to add, Dave? I mean, I don't know.

Dave Jones: No, I haven't. I don't know. This was your idea. I haven't really thought about it.

Jeff Kaiser: All right. All right. Anyway, no. Donate to Chris and Dave because Chris said so.

Dave Jones: No, because the server, for example, you know, like our shared server craps itself every time we upload a new episode almost. Yeah. You know? And at the moment, I'm putting the episodes on my EEV blog server, which is probably not where. And that'll eventually slow down the EEV blog server as well. And I actually rely on that for keeping the forum fast. So, we'd, yeah, ultimately like to get our own dedicated server or a VPS or whatever. Yeah. But those things cost, you know, $50, $100 a month or something like that. So, they're not cheap.

Jeff Kaiser: Right.

Dave Jones: Or actually, that's for a VPS. If you want a dedicated server, then, yeah, it's a fair chunk of cash. It's a few hundred bucks a month.

Jeff Kaiser: It is on our wish list regardless, right? Yes. For Christmas.

Dave Jones: And neither of us want to fork out the cash, do we?

Jeff Kaiser: Well, I'll throw in some of you, but if people are willing to help, we'd love to help. And we'd love to be able to make, you know, things much better for all our listeners. And that's kind of the main thrust behind it. So, yeah, that's our news. So, check out the donate button up above. And if you're so inclined, feel free to give.

Dave Jones: This Christmas.

Jeff Kaiser: Yes. Yes. In a charitable mood. Yes.

Dave Jones: And happy holidays for all those people who don't like the word Christmas. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yep. Holiday wish list. I'm not that anal.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I don't.

Dave Jones: I believe in Santa.

Jeff Kaiser: I believe in Dave. I believe in EEV blog. He does exist. He's loud.

Dave Jones: You've never met me. How do you know?

Jeff Kaiser: That's true. Oh, my God. My mind is blown.

Dave Jones: I could be a figment of your imagination.

Jeff Kaiser: You could just be some extremely advanced Australian talking algorithm, right? I could be. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah?

Jeff Kaiser: Take a bit of unintelligible, add a bunch of pissed, and just a touch of test equipment, and you've got Dave. Oh, boy.

Dave Jones: Anyway.

Jeff Kaiser: All right. Well, thanks to Jeff, even though he had to bounce, apparently. Yeah. He just vanished. Yeah. Magically. You can find him at MightyOm on Twitter. You can find Dave at EEVblog, or you can find me at Chris underscore Gammel. And, yeah, there's lots of other ways to find us, too. So.

Dave Jones: All right, man. Thank you very much, and we'll catch you next week.

Jeff Kaiser: All right. Bye.

Dave Jones: We'll have another show before Christmas, won't we? It's not Christmas. What's today's date? The 13th here?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah. We'll have two more shows, I think. Oh.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Jeff Kaiser: One more show. Yeah.

Dave Jones: One more show.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. It doesn't matter. You don't have a job anyways. Come on, Dave.

Speaker ?: Come on.

Dave Jones: Don't have a job. I just spent a shitload of money on my non-existent job.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep.

Dave Jones: And I get the keys today. Woo-hoo. Yeah. Just waiting for the phone call.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, good luck today.

Dave Jones: Thank you. I handed over the checks yesterday. That was painful.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But you've got to spend money to make money, right? That's what they say. That's right.

Jeff Kaiser: That's right.

Dave Jones: Right. Or you've got to spend money to go bankrupt.

Jeff Kaiser: That's the other option.

Dave Jones: Either way, it's going to be fun. See you.

Jeff Kaiser: See you.

Chris Gammell: Uh, guys? I'm just, I mean... I'm here. I'm all alone. They left me.