#47 – Apple HQ and Vintage Arcade Games - The Mothership Manifesto

Dave Jones: This is The Amp Hour, recorded June 15th, 2011, episode number 47, The Mothership Manifesto. Welcome to The Amp Hour, I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog.

Jeff Kaiser: And this is Jeff Kaiser from MightyHome.com.

Dave Jones: Hey Jeff, how you doing?

Jeff Kaiser: Pretty good.

Dave Jones: There's no Chris this week. Yeah. He mumbled something about Vegas and jumped on a plane, I don't know. So that's all we know. So he's in Vegas. He has tweeted there that he's losing his money or maybe even winning.

Jeff Kaiser: He's quite the man of mystery now. Maybe he's on some caper or something that you can't tell us about. Possibly. Well, I guess we'll find out when he gets back.

Dave Jones: And yeah, thank you very much for joining us. You're our third wheel here at The Amp Hour. Not in a bad third wheel kind of way, but you always step up.

Jeff Kaiser: To the plate. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. And yeah, in true Amp Hour style, I think I heard about this, what was it? It wasn't last night. It actually was, I think, the night before. So I actually had a pretty good two days or almost maybe one and a half days notice. Right. But yeah. It turns out you were on a plane yesterday. So we couldn't record yesterday. Yep. We couldn't record yesterday and finally got around to it today. But hopefully people haven't been waiting on the edge of their seats too much.

Dave Jones: Yes. And by the way, you are very popular. Every time we have you on, people say, more Jeff.

Jeff Kaiser: I don't know what they're thinking.

Dave Jones: Well, you have got that lovely radio voice as opposed to my nasally, whiny Australian accent and Chris's twang there, as I call it. I don't know.

Jeff Kaiser: What's it called in the US? I don't know. It would be a twang, but I don't think there's a Cleveland twang. Right. I don't think there's... I'm the one that's supposed to have the twang living in Texas. Oh, okay. I'm probably supposed to have some kind of an accent. But I'm pretty much a Californian at this point. So yeah, I guess I'm the one that's probably got the Valley Girl accent. Right. Is that what it's called? The Valley Girl? Yeah. Well, hopefully guys don't have the Valley Girl accent, I guess. Right.

Dave Jones: Well, you know, you never know these days. Anyway, let's jump straight into some news. We've got some very sad news. Unfortunately, somebody who we've talked about many times on the Amp Hour here, because he's one of Chris's heroes and one of our heroes as well. I'm sure he's one of yours as well. Jim Williams, unfortunately, has passed away suddenly. Terrible news.

Jeff Kaiser: Too bad. Yes. That's a big loss. Big loss for the industry.

Dave Jones: For the analog industry. And if you've ever read linear technology application notes, data sheets, it's full of Jim Williams. Yep. That's right.

Jeff Kaiser: Actually, my favorite is there's an application note. I think it's something like DC to DC Converters for Poets. Right. That's the name of it. And I think it's that application note that the last page says something like, they wouldn't let me leave this page blank. And it has a drawing of like a sailboat and an ocean and a whale.

Dave Jones: Brilliant. Brilliant. They always let Jim. Yeah. They always gave him liberty to sort of do stuff like that, which is fantastic.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. It seemed like he had a long leash. And I would have loved to have worked with him because I've seen pictures of his workspace. Oh, it's famous. Is it not? It is amazing. I mean, even the picture I'm looking at right now, the E.E. Times story shows him. And I think his bench is like, it looks like a landfill. It's like an electronic landfill. It's hilarious.

Dave Jones: It's just covered in parts. Literally. Like he, I don't think he actually believes in component drawers. All the components are just literally like inches deep on his bench there. It's just incredible. And how would you move those power supplies he's got? I don't think he's moved anything in 30 years. It's all just sat there. And the components are built up around the equipment on the bench. It's just hilarious.

Jeff Kaiser: It's like an electronic soil.

Speaker ?: Right.

Jeff Kaiser: It's a very fertile ground for new inventions. Yeah. It is pretty amazing. You know, I've got one of his books sitting on my shelf. I think it's the, what is it? The personalities book, Analog Circuit Design. And I've skimmed through it a couple of times. It's been on my list of things to read. And it's one of these books that's got anecdotes. And I really, really like hearing about these guys, you know, in the 60s and 70s. Oh, absolutely. And they were holed up in their labs. And you get to hear all these stories. And if you think about the test equipment that they were working with and the conditions that they had. And they didn't have good simulators.

Dave Jones: Well, they didn't have, yeah. Well, they didn't have simulators. They didn't have computers. They didn't have calculators even. Back there, you know. It's really amazing. Something we take for granted. Like a pocket calculator. They're still using slide rules.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. Yep. These are like the cowboys of the electronics industry. Yeah. Totally amazing.

Dave Jones: And that's probably where all the electronics rules of thumb and, you know, just winging it, you know, actually wetting your finger. And just all of the intuition type stuff. Because doing electronics calculations without a calculator is quite hard. So I think that's where a lot of, you know, all of the rules of thumb came from and things like that. Because you don't want to sit down and have to get out your slide rule and do it. And calculate some stuff just to choose a resistor value. No. You know, you just pick one up off your bench and stick it in there. Does it work? Well, yeah, I know the behavior. It's, you know, I need to tweak it a bit in this direction or this direction.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. You know, these guys inspire me to get like an old Tektronix analog oscilloscope. You know, it's like. Yep. That's what the tools that they had. You know, they didn't have fancy digitizing oscilloscopes or anything like that. They just had really crude test equipment. And yet they were able to make state-of-the-art products. And designs. And it's just. Absolutely. I'm totally amazed by what these guys were able to accomplish.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's just remarkable. And that's very sad. Because I don't believe he was ill. Anyway, I don't know the details of his passing. But it was sudden, apparently. So. And we're only just talking about him. You know. Four or five episodes back, I think. So.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I don't know how old he was. But. I mean. I saw some videos of him fairly recently. So. I was really surprised. Yeah.

Dave Jones: He's been doing. Quite a bit. I think he. He was going to that analog. Reunion thing that they have. Every year. Or even every month. I think there's quite a few people who sort of. You know. Meet up at the local pub. All these old analog designers. If you're in the know. And you know. Where you know. Where they meet up. You can. Yeah. Get in the same room as you know. 20 of the world's most famous analog IC designers.

Jeff Kaiser: And this is in Silicon Valley, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. There's a lot of famous people. I think in the analog industry. That are in that area.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. It'd be interesting just to be a fly on the wall and to listen to what these guys talk about.

Dave Jones: Speaking of some of the old timers. Wyn Hill. The famous author of The Art of Electronics. It's been talked about on the EEV blog forum. One of the EEV blog forum members actually contacted Wyn Hill directly. Um. And asked him when the third edition of the book is coming out. And.

Jeff Kaiser: Yes. I will believe that when I see it.

Dave Jones: Right. When the cows come home. When the fat lady sings.

Jeff Kaiser: They've been talking about that for years and years and years. I mean.

Dave Jones: It is the Duke Nukem of the electronics world. If you haven't heard. That is also news. Duke Nukem Forever is coming out. The famous video game. I spent many hours in my youth playing Duke Nukem. Um. I'm not sure about yourself. But.

Jeff Kaiser: Uh. You know. I. I didn't have a PC at that time. Right. I. I was always an Amiga user. Oh. And we didn't have anything like that on the Amiga. I. I missed out on the whole Castle Wolfenstein. Oh. Okay. Yeah. I came on board around the time that Quake came around. Right. Yeah. That was a pretty big deal. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That was way past it. But. Uh. Hey. The Amiga. The Commodore Amiga was quite a cultish. Um.

Jeff Kaiser: It was. Yeah. And wasn't it? I. I didn't really know much about it. But. Uh. You know. My father bought a computer for the family. And it was the family computer. This was. Uh. Uh. Probably in the. Early 90s. And. Uh. I had no money. You know. I was a student. I just. Yeah. Hung on to it. And by the time I stopped using it. I think I was one of the few people. That was actually using it to go online. On the internet. And. Wow. I had mosaic. You know. I had. Yeah. Uh. Uh. TCP IP running on it. And the whole thing.

Jeff Kaiser: Nice. It's funny. It's actually. Uh. I. It was just. Uh. This week. I was looking at a website. Somebody has created a complete Amiga computer in an FPGA. Uh. Sort of like. Uh. Jerry Ellsworth's. Uh. Commodore 64. Uh. Joystick. The DTV thing. Well. Somebody's done that for the Amiga. And I think. Brilliant. It's a. There's a video on FPGARcade.com. And.

Jeff Kaiser: That kind of. Makes me a little bit nostalgic. Yeah. You know. I've definitely got a lot of good memories of. Playing games. And demos. And things like that. On the Amiga. And. You don't see that kind of stuff anymore. You know. No.

Dave Jones: You don't. It's all too. You know. They spend. 20 million dollars. Is like the average budget for a video game these days. It's. It's just. You know. It's crazy. They get famous actors in. And they act it out on the green screen. And they. Oh. It's just. Yeah. It's. It's a movie production. Well. What about the gameplay? It's all I want.

Jeff Kaiser: You know. I think it used to be where. Like. One guy. Could sit down. And write a video game. Right. You know. There's. There's stories about these guys. You know. Hot shot. Kid programmers. They. Yep. Go. Stay up all night for a weekend. And they write a game. And I think that's how. A lot of these. Games for the Amiga. And the. The demos. And. For anybody that doesn't know. Demos were. I don't know how you would describe it. It was like a. A demonstration of the capabilities of. Vintage computer. You know. It wasn't vintage at the time.

Dave Jones: No. That's right. It was. It was showing.

Jeff Kaiser: You know. Yeah. It was graphics and music. And it would show. You know. A coder. Or a programmer. Would use it to show. That he was the best programmer. Because he could make the coolest. You know. Five minute demo. That did all these. You know. It was always like a rotating cube. Or.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Rotating 3D. Yeah. Stuff was very big. Yeah. You know. It required mathematical computation. Yeah. Yeah. So you know. Floating point. Ooh. You know. That was.

Jeff Kaiser: A lot of these machines didn't have floating point.

Dave Jones: No. Well. That's. Well. It had to be done in software. Look up tables. So. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't actually have dedicated floating point chips. I can remember buying a. You know. A floating point co-processor chip. And plugging it in. And wow. Everything goes so much quicker. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Oh. It's just. Yeah. Terrific. Yeah. But I don't know about all this FPGA stuff. It's just not the same. I want. You know. I want to know that my circuits running on old fashioned dedicated chips. I. You know. It's not just about the gameplay. For me. Being an electronics guy. I like knowing that it's running on old hardware. You know. Individual chips.

Jeff Kaiser: I. I agree with you to a point. I. I am all for the old hardware and seeing old games. You know. I. I've got a collection of Commodore 64 stuff. And. You know. I. I really enjoy booting up the old Commodore 64. But the thing that you learn. Yeah. If you do this. Is that computers used to be really. Really. Really. Slow. Oh. Yes. And. And. And. And so. You know. It's cool for about five minutes. And then you realize. You know. Wouldn't it be cool if I could just download any program I wanted. And run it on this computer. And for the Commodore 64. Yeah. You know. You've got to write it to a floppy. And that takes literally. Nine.

Jeff Kaiser: Nine. Ten or twenty minutes to write it to a floppy. And then you've got to load it in. And of course. You know. The original hardware is unreliable. And the floppy drives are crap. Yeah. So then you think. Well. You know. If you do it on the FPGA. You can put an SD card with all your programs in there. Exactly. And I have to admit. You know. Using the emulated. Or. It's not even emulated. It's the. I don't even know what the word for that is. But the FPGA implementation. They get some little frills. That I think make it.

Dave Jones: A little bit nicer. Yeah. I have to agree there as well. Although. There's a lot of people who. As you said. Like you know. Loading stuff onto floppy drives. And things that you know. Even tape. Even. You know. The old fashioned. Old fashioned tape drive. Yeah. That's. You know. That's really tiresome. Troublesome. It's hard to get those things anymore. You know. To actually buy those discs. And to still. Still be reliable. So. Yep. There's a lot of people out there. Who keep the traditional. Actual processing hardware. But then they might. Use an. SD card. Like they actually build. An SD card. I think that makes a lot of sense. So they can put. You know. A thousand games. Yeah. Into the thing. But it still runs on the traditional processor. You know.

Jeff Kaiser: I personally like it both ways. I like. Right. I like to see. You know. If I was to buy a stand up arcade game. I would want to get the original hardware. Because that's just cool. You would. You know. Yeah. Because. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You see. I'm the opposite. Strangely. When it comes to computers. I'm different. But arcade games. I have no problems with getting. You know. The MAME console.

Speaker ?: Or.

Dave Jones: Not MAME. Which is the software emulation. But the. What's the. Jammer. You know. The Jammer. Processing console.

Jeff Kaiser: Sure. Sure.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That has. You know. 50 different games on it. So I've got no problems with that. I've been thinking about building my own for a while. One of those cocktail. Arcade machines.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I. You know. To each his own. Yeah. I think. There's benefits to both ways of doing it. You know. I think. I definitely can understand the appeal of having that old hardware. It's just the smell and the feel of it. Yeah. And the. The perfect. You know. Cycle to cycle. Because a lot of the emulators are not perfect. Right. You lose. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well. That's why the Jammer one is different. The MAME emulator is. Yeah. That's not as perfect as it could be. Because it's an emulator. Whereas the Jammer thing is actually the original hardware. Just recreated on an FPGA or something like that.

Speaker ?: Oh.

Jeff Kaiser: So the Jammer boards. I actually. I'm not familiar with this. So the Jammer boards have an FPGA on them.

Dave Jones: Jammer is the interface. I believe. Jammer was like the plug in. Like an S100 type plug in interface. Okay. I don't quite. I could be talking out my ass here. But I believe it's the interface. That. At one point. You could buy your arcade console. And you could. If it was Jammer compatible. You could plug in any game card you wanted. Okay. That came in the Jammer format. So. Yeah. These new Jammer. You can buy the Jammer board. And it has an FPGA on there. And it's got 50 games programmed into it. Okay. Okay. It is actually. They actually went through and emulated it gate by gate.

Jeff Kaiser: So. This is. This is kind of like. You know. Your console. Like a Nintendo. Where you plug in a cartridge. Yeah. In this case. The cartridge is the Jammer thing. And it's got 50 games on it.

Dave Jones: Ah. Yes. Yeah. The Jammer was the interface. Which had like a processing board. Then it had a game board. Or something like that. Wow. Yeah. So. Cool. Yeah. Jammer is better than the MAME. MAME you can run on your PC. You can just download it. And you can run all the old. You know. A thousand different arcade games on your. Just. On your normal PC. So. So. But Jammer is different. Jammer is actually. A physical. Hardware. Implementation of the original. Hardware. Arcade console. So. Oh.

Jeff Kaiser: That's pretty cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It is. My hat's off to the people who do that. To reverse engineer the arcade consoles. You know. Gate by gate. And it's just.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. I was looking at this. The FPGA arcade site. Just the other night. And there was a picture of somebody who was reverse engineering. I think it was. The Amiga chipset. And. There's a picture of. Like a motherboard with a logic analyzer connected to it. And there's about a million little wires.

Speaker ?: Right.

Jeff Kaiser: It's like he's looking at a couple 16 or 32 bit. Interfaces. And just the cables that he has to his logic analyzer is amazing.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. Yeah. And those guys just. Yeah. Those guys just stay up all night. Just. You know. Like they're plugged into the matrix. You know. And. Yeah. And they're just going for it. That's just. Ah. I love it.

Jeff Kaiser: I think it's pretty cool. Yeah. It is. It's pretty cool.

Dave Jones: And we got there from. That was a bit of a non sequitur from the art of electronics.

Jeff Kaiser: Well. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Back to the art of electronics. Like I said before. They've been talking about a third edition. It's been on Wikipedia for a couple years now. Yeah. I heard about it before that even. So I've probably heard about these rumors three years ago. But. Well I've heard about it about 10 years ago.

Dave Jones: It was talked about on the. On the Usenet news group. Oh wow. Where Winn Hill actually frequents. He's actually a frequent. So what do you. What do you think that they'll change? Oh well. Well he has actually. He told this user very specific things. Which I've heard. I've heard before as well. In that. It will be. It will be. It will be. It will be. Essentially. A new. Fully revised book. As in. It'll have. Pretty much all new content. It'll have extended chapters. So there'll be chapter five. Which might be op amps or something. And then there'll be chapter five X. Which will be all the advanced. You know. Secret stuff. You know. Of using op amps. So that sounds very exciting. So I'll have all these. Extended chapters. And. And Winn Hill says that. Really. You've got to keep both books. It won't be a replacement. For the second edition. Really. I see. I see. It's got so much new content. That they have to drop. A lot of stuff. From the second.

Jeff Kaiser: You know. Edition. So. I was telling this to someone. Recently. The Art of Electronics. For me. Is a wonderful. Reference book. I've got it on my shelf. I've had a copy. Since I was in high school. But it's also a very humbling book. Because. I've. I've taken. Several. Analog design classes. You know. I've got a degree. In electrical engineering. And. Some of the circuits. That are in that book. You know. They're good circuits. Bad circuits. Example. I could stare at those. For hours. Yep. I know. So. It makes you really feel. Like you don't know anything. Because you look at this book. And here's these guys. That. I mean. They really know. What they're talking about. Whenever it comes to. Analog circuit. Design. And. You know. I go in there. And I. It. It makes me feel like. I don't know anything. It's really. A very humbling. I. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I totally agree. And if you want more detail. Here it is. 20 chapters. In all. The second edition. Had 15 chapters. There's. Two chapters. With advanced. Transistor stuff. Three on FETs. Advanced. JFET info. JFETs. Sorry. They still make JFETs. They still make JFETs. Actually. Sorry. These are just the advanced chapters. So there will be advanced chapters on BJTs. JFETs. MOSFETs. Advanced op amps. And advanced power stuff as well. So. So I guess.

Jeff Kaiser: The real question I have is. Are they going to talk about microcontrollers? Ah.

Dave Jones: Yes. Exactly. I always found that a bit. Weird. That they had. You know. They. I think they had like the Z80 in there. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They. I always found that. Why. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I always thought that was interesting too. Yeah. That the examples that are in the book are so ancient. I mean. Yeah. And it's because the book is an old book. Oh. 1989. I think it was first published. Yeah. The field of electronics. I mean. Transistors haven't changed a whole lot. They've just gotten better.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. But the state of integrating computers into your electronic equipment. Oh. Yes. Has completely changed. And that to me is the one thing that makes that book feel like an old book. It does.

Dave Jones: I totally agree. Yeah. And I think that's what they're saying. Well. There will be digital stuff here. There'll be detailed info. Digital in the real world. But they don't say anything about micro controllers. Unfortunately. But yeah. They should drop all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Nobody's using a 68,000 series CPU. No.

Dave Jones: Exactly. With a separate RAM chip. Yeah. Yeah. Teach basic digital gates. Yeah. You know. And Boolean logic. And you know. Kano maps. And all that sort of stuff. But yeah. I mean. Gosh.

Jeff Kaiser: It's probably even getting hard to find like 74,000 series logic now. Right. Like.

Dave Jones: Oh. No. You can still get it. Still very popular. Many of the manufacturers still make it. That's good to hear. There's a market out there for it. So. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. I mean. They wouldn't be making it for. You know. The sake of nostalgia. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Well. They certainly have made a lot of it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Jeff Kaiser: Even if they stop making it. It'll probably take a while for the world to use up the stores of like. You know. LS series logic. Yep.

Dave Jones: Well. In fact. It has. I mean. They've branched out so much in that area. You can get all these bizarre logic families now. You know. BCX or something. Yeah. Yeah. And they're in some little tiny chip scale package. And they've got like one gate or something like that. You know. And it's just in one package. Which is handy. Because often. You know. In your circuit. You just need one gate. Oh. I don't want to have to use a 7400 with four gates in it.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know. I just want that one gate in a tiny package.

Jeff Kaiser: Well. You have to have four gates. You have the one that you use. And there's the three that start oscillating at some point. Right. Because you forgot to tie the inputs. Because you forgot to tie them. Those are important.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: Oh. I love it. Anyway. Wynn Hill claims. The big news is that he claims. He's working on it full time. Or both of them. Working on it full time. And their aim is to get it out by the end of the year.

Jeff Kaiser: Wow. Sorry. I couldn't remember. You know. I'm working on a book. And I said that last year also.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So. Well. Believe it if you will. But that's directly from Wynn Hill. Well. Cool.

Jeff Kaiser: I'll definitely try to sign up for. You know. To hear whenever that comes out. Because I'll be one of the first customers.

Dave Jones: Oh. Absolutely. I would love to get one beforehand. Get a scoop. Get a review copy. Oh. That would. You know. That'd be like getting Duke Nukem forever before everyone else. And playing it. You know. So. Wynn Hill. If you're listening. Please send me an advanced review copy. I'll have to have it.

Jeff Kaiser: I'll take one too.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm sure Chris would too.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah. Forget Chris.

Dave Jones: Oh. That's great. Anyway. Believe it if you will. But. It is coming out. More news. Agilent. Have. I. If you've seen my blogs. I. Criticize the Agilent. U1272A. Multimeter. I found a. Problem with it. And it turned out to be a fairly big problem. With the rain switch. You would actually turn it. And it'll lock up the meter. And do all sorts of weird. And wonderful things. And I. Put a video up. Demonstrating that. And within three weeks. Which is the amazing thing. For a company the size of Agilent. I mean. We're talking. You know. The world's biggest test equipment. Making here. Right. Yeah. They're a monolith. I mean. They're like the IBM of the. Maybe that's a bit harsh. But you know. In terms of size. They're probably the IBM of the test equipment. Industry. And. They actually investigated. Responded. Within three weeks. They've fixed the problem. Turned out to be firmware. So they claim. I haven't tested this. Myself. But they've fixed the firmware. And they've uploaded it to their site. And now they're offering. Every. Owner. Of that meter. And the other one in the series. A free USB. Programming. Cable. The optical. Interface programming cable. To go with it. To upgrade their. Firmware. They will. Ship that to you. For free. So. Wow. I thought that was just an excellent. Response. It was perfect. They fixed it in record time. And they're giving. You know. They could have just gone. Well. If it's a problem for you. Ship it back to us. And we'll. Reprogram it for you. You know. Yeah. But they just went. No. Bugger it. We'll give everyone. A free programming cable. And.

Jeff Kaiser: Actually. What they could have done. Is they first. Could have fully tested. Their product. So that this didn't make it. Into the marketplace.

Dave Jones: They could have. But. I mean. Yes.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I say. That's a. That's a great. That's a great thing. For them to have done. Yeah. And to do it that quickly. Is pretty impressive. That means that. You know. The. The feedback that you gave them. Went straight to engineering. You know. Went through. Ten levels of. Bureaucrats. Yep. Straight to the engineer. There was some engineer. Who's probably listening to the show. Who said. That's right. I know how to fix this. This is what we've got to do. And somehow. Somehow. Convinced management to. That they're. They were going to spend a little money. To send out these. USB cables. So that's great.

Dave Jones: That's great. I know. It's fantastic. And. I. Talked to Agilent. Agilent directly on this. And they. Have told me that they're. That they're trying to figure out. How to. Respond to this social media. You know. This. Kind of. New world of social media. Which is what we are. Really. These days. I hate. You know. I don't necessarily like the term. But it's an all encompassing. Kind of thing. And I guess it's what I do.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I'd say so. Yeah. And they're trying to. It's a term. It's a term. Frequently misused. By marketing professionals.

Dave Jones: It is indeed. You've got to be very wary of that. Yeah. And. So they're trying to figure out.

Jeff Kaiser: What to do.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And. Yeah. So they're trying to actively. You know. Respond to these sort of things. And. Well. Keep doing that. Because that's the right way forward. You know. Yeah. That's great. Admit that you make a mistake. You know. We understand that. These. These. Equipments. Complex to develop.

Dave Jones: You know. It's going to have the occasional problem. Slip out. So.

Jeff Kaiser: That's great. Yeah. Yeah. It's really encouraging to hear. I've got a nice shiny. Agilent. Oscilloscope. On my bench here. And. If I ever had a problem with it. I would hope that I would get the same response. But. Then again. Maybe I'd have to create a video blog. That has. Right. How many viewers. 100,000 followers. Yeah. That's right. But. That's. That's great. You know. It's. Yeah. It's. I. I think it's interesting. Companies are taking this approach now. I. I think maybe they realize the. How. How badly this can go. If some guy. Yeah. Comes along and complains about this feature. And then. You know. A few other people. Kind of gang up together. And start talking. Crap about the company. And it goes viral. Yeah. And it goes viral. That's what they're probably worried about. So. They're trying to figure out. How to nip this in the bud. And just avoid it turning into a bigger problem. And if that results in the product. Being a better product. Then I say. That's great. Absolutely. That's one way to do it.

Dave Jones: And. That's a bouquet. Okay. Now for a brick bat. For. Fluke. Who. I mentioned in my video. They. Swept. The GSM thing. Under the carpet. The problem with the GSM mobile phone. Next to the fluke multimeter. Yeah. Sends it haywire. And. I've gotten. No response out of them. In eight months. Or something. So there you go. That's the difference in. Corporate attitude to this kind of thing. I guess. So. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: Well we just have to keep working on fluke.

Dave Jones: Right. I think so. But yeah. They're more. Elusive. Company. Fluke. Yeah. You know. They've. They've wanted to do things like. Oh. Can you review our latest product? Yeah. Sure. But. Oh. Can we. Watch the video beforehand. And. And. And. Put it through. No. Go away. You know. Yeah. Oh. But it's. It's for your own good. We don't want any mistakes to slip out there. Yeah. Bullshit. You know. No. It's. You just want to protect your ass. That's what's. That's what it's all about. So. Anyway. Interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. Another follow up. From the other week. We goofed up. Chris and I. Goofed up. If you were listening. To the episode. Jeff. The. Talk about the. We were talking about. Electric cars. And we totally goofed up the. Terminology. So. See.

Jeff Kaiser: This is why. This is why you've got to have me on the show every week. Because I. I could put this straight.

Dave Jones: You're a car man. Are you?

Jeff Kaiser: I know. I'm not. I'm not an expert. But I have taken a couple engines apart. I have. Oh. Engines together. You know. I know.

Speaker ?: That's.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. I know my crankshaft for my camshaft. I'll say.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Malcolm. Fade. He offered to take me in a. It's a bishy. I. Meev. Or. I think that's how you pronounce it. And it was great. I went. Last night. He came over. Actually drove it. Into the lab. And a video will be forthcoming shortly. So I had an I. Meev. In my lab. Which was fantastic. Yeah. That's awesome. Lab slash garage. Because my lab's not big enough. And the first thing he did when he walked in. He went. That lab looks much bigger on video. Everyone says the same thing.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. You know. I got a test ride in a Nissan Leaf. A few weeks ago at the Maker Faire. Oh. Awesome. Yeah. And that car is a pretty cool piece of kit. Yeah. It's actually startlingly fast. And it's also almost completely silent. Yeah. Which is an interesting combination. But talk about cramming, you know, every feature possible into an automobile. Right. I didn't even get the full tour. But, you know, it's got computer displays for everything. You could sit there punching buttons for an hour. Right. You know.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the difference to the Mitsubishi one. Yeah. It had practically nothing. It's got a fuel gauge. It's got a speedo. And it's got a, and it has a mileage meter to tell you how many miles you've got left before you. Tank runs out. Tank. You know, I'm using, still using the old terminology, but your battery tank, I guess, runs out. And that's it. It does have like a big, you know, heads up, like a big, huge touchscreen display. But that's not integrated with the car at all. Surprisingly. It's just the GPS and the radio. That's it. So I found that very disappointing. Whereas it sounds like your one, the one you went in, was all, you know, whiz bang for the integrator. Which is what I was expecting. So, yeah. But I didn't get that in this one. So I was very disappointed. You know. I just wanted lots of buttons to push. And, well, yeah. Very disappointing. It was very basic. So the one you went in, the Leaf, that's fully electric? That doesn't have a petrol backup motor?

Jeff Kaiser: I think it, you know, I should know these things before I say about that. Not the Tesla. The Volt. It's 100% electric. 100%.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: So pretty cool. I don't know if I would go for, you know, I'm a little bit of a, I don't know. I like old cars. I've got a thing for 1970s cars. Nice. And really, I don't know if I could ever replace my addiction to the gasoline engine with an electric car.

Dave Jones: Gasoline engine and getting one mile to the gallon. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Jeff Kaiser: You know, but I do think that electric cars. You know, actually, the perfect thing for me would probably be to have an electric car to, you know, drive around town and go to work. Yeah. And then have the pleasure car, you know, the second car. For cruising on Sundays. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would probably be the best thing for the environment, at least. But, you know, until then, I'll continue to drive my 1972 car to, you know, all around every day. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I think that's really their prime use. You know, you've really, they're pretty much designed for the two-car family. You know, the car, they, you have your normal petrol car, which you can go on holiday with, and then you have your daily commute car, which can be fully electric. Now, the new Volt, the new Chevrolet Volt, sorry, I'm thinking Holden, because in Australia, General Motors is Holden, not Chevrolet. So, yeah, the Chevy Volt is a dual combination petrol electric car, and it's trying to be, you know, it's trying to be both things. And I can understand the concept, but I think most people will end up being lazy and just run it on petrol or gas, sorry, gas. And, yeah, I don't know. I think, you know, like they'll buy it thinking, oh, yeah, it's fully electric car, and then they just won't bother. They'll just find, oh, it's a bit inconvenient. I'd just run it on petrol.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, I could see that happening.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I think that's disappointing.

Jeff Kaiser: If you don't plug it in, you're not going anywhere, so you're forced to. No, exactly.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, it's a fully, yeah, so that's, I would only buy a fully electric one, so.

Jeff Kaiser: Can you imagine that being your excuse while you're late to work? You know, I forgot to plug in my car. Absolutely.

Dave Jones: That's all the more reason to get one.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, you know, it's great. America has had a rough time since the EV1 was killed. I don't know if you've ever seen the documentary about that.

Dave Jones: Who killed the electric car?

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, it's really sad and kind of makes you angry about the state of the industry, and I guess now hopefully things are changing. You know, I remember back whenever the EV1 came out, I was in college, I think. I test drove one while I was in college, and there was a guy, I think it's Phil Karn in San Diego, California. He was one of the first guys that figured out how to tap into the computer interface for the EV1. Nice. And he had this Palm Pilot application that would give him state of charge and all this, like, information that they were trying to keep from the consumer. And so before long, they had figured out how to plot, you know, efficiency and all these things. Oh, brilliant. And there were a bunch of these geeks that got a hold of him, because obviously, you know, the first electric car, it's all the geeks, you know. Oh, absolutely. These are the guys that really ran and tried to get that car immediately after it came out. And so I still remember that back whenever the EV1 came out. So I wonder how long it is until somebody hacks the Leaf.

Dave Jones: Oh, I'm sure it's not that long at all. I'm sure it's pretty easy. Don't they? Well, it'll go through. It'll have some sort of standard interface, or at least it'll have an interface plug on it.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, OBD2 connector.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. One of those things. Yep. And if you don't know the story behind the EV1, General Motors, you know, they're deemed to be evil because they actually killed the car. I mean, I don't know how many they made, a couple of hundred or a thousand?

Jeff Kaiser: Good question. Yeah. It was at least a few hundred. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And they actually recalled them all, and they physically scrapped them. They actually crushed them. They did not want, you know, they did not want this thing taking off.

Jeff Kaiser: I think they decided that the car was not profitable for them. And so they decided that rather than...

Dave Jones: Well, yes, but why crush it? You know, and you had big celebrities like Mel Gibson, I think, at the time. He's in the documentary. He was an owner of one, and he offered to pay him, you know, a shitload of money if he could keep the car. And they went, no, we're going to take it back from you, and we're going to crush it. Yeah. And that's what they did. And I think only one original, one survives to this day or something. There's at least one.

Jeff Kaiser: I think there might be a few of them. There might be a couple. There might be a couple. That end up in the hands of universities. And I think there's one at a couple museums. Yeah. And I actually, every once in a while, you'll see a news story that some university or museum brought one out and actually put it on the road. And then GM will come and yell at them for it and tell them they can't do that because apparently part of GM's, the legal stuff surrounding the discontinuation of the car is that it is not allowed on public roads anymore. And they prohibit all these, anybody that's got one from actually driving it. And so there was a story not that long ago. I think it was a university in the United States that had one, and they went joyriding around on it. And, of course, GM came in and said, nope, can't do that. Just adding insult to injury. That is pathetic. That really is. Yeah, I agree. You know, of course, they've cited some safety concerns or something like that.

Dave Jones: Oh, of course they do. Yeah, and they pull out a rule in the Balkan law. And I know, it's a joke. It's pathetic. If it was good enough to get on the road in the first place, it should be, you know. I mean, here, you can build your own car from scratch and put it on the road.

Jeff Kaiser: You know, you can actually do that here, too. You can do that here. It's just hard. You have to jump through a lot of hoops. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. Here, you have to get an engineering certificate to sign it off, you know. But you can't be a Joe Bloggs engineer and just, oh, yeah, I'm an EE. I'll sign off my own car. And, you know, you've got to get some automotive, some officially government-approved automotive engineer to sign it off as being roadworthy. Right, right. But apart from that, yeah. Well, actually, no, probably not from scratch. I'm probably lying there. But if you take an old car and you modify it, it already meets certain safety standards. Right, yeah. Things like that.

Jeff Kaiser: There's a long history of that in the United States. Yeah. Taking a chassis from some car and then chopping it up. Okay. And I think you're right. I think it's far easier if you start with something that once was on the road because then... And it's all just legal BS. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, how safe can a 1930s Ford be, right? Well, that's right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. It's all full steel and, you know. Yeah, yeah. So... Alloy and plastic rubbish. Unbelievable. Anyway, we've got some more news. It's a whole news show. Have you heard about the new Apple building there? Mothership.

Jeff Kaiser: I heard somebody had alluded to this, but I don't know anything about it.

Dave Jones: Right. Well, I'll post a link to a video where Steve Jobs actually himself, got himself in person, actually turns up to a local council meeting in Cupertino. Am I pronouncing that? Yep.

Jeff Kaiser: Cupertino. Yep.

Dave Jones: Cupertino. And yeah, the local council. He turns up to the council meeting and he gives this one hour or half hour presentation, like a PowerPoint kind of presentation about this new building. That they want to build. Apple have purchased the old HP buildings, you know, on a hot, not just one building, but a whole bunch of buildings on a huge, you know, one square block or something like that. And they want to tear them all down and turn it into this mothership. One huge building that holds 12,000 people in one building. So it's just absolutely remarkable.

Jeff Kaiser: You know, I'll say that sounds pretty cool.

Dave Jones: And it looks, take a look at the photos. It's like a big ring. It's a circular building with a big, you know, like a donut shape.

Jeff Kaiser: I'd love to see it. But you know, the first part makes me kind of sad though. So the HP buildings that they're knocking down to put this there. Yeah. HP was once a great company. And it's really sad. It's really sad that now Apple is knocking down their former headquarters in order to build, or not their headquarters, but a former design center or whatever it was in order to build their headquarter, whatever this thing is. That's kind of sad. Whenever I lived in the South Bay, in the Bay Area, I used to drive by a lot of abandoned HP buildings because there are a lot of them. And it always made me kind of sad.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, Steve mentioned that in the video, actually. In the presentation, he mentioned, well, you know, he's got a lot of, he used to work for HP, of course. Bill Hewlett, or I think it was Bill Hewlett, personally gave Jobs his first job, no pun intended, at HP. So, yeah, he was, you know, very well aware of the history of the whole thing and all that sort of stuff. So, anyway, he wants to tear it all down and completely turn it into all green space. There's the building and there's green space. All the parking is underneath and the public transport infrastructure. And they want to power the thing from its own local power source as well and use the grid as a backup, not the other way around.

Jeff Kaiser: I wonder if this is the HP campus that was on Homestead near Lawrence Expressway, because if that is, I used to live right across the street from it.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Well, I'm not sure. There's a map of it. If you have a look at the images on the left-hand side there, this makes good radio. There's actually a bunch of photos from the slides and you can actually see there's a map of where it was and there's no street names in that. Anyway, if you watch the whole video, which I highly recommend, it's a good presentation, then, yeah, I think it's fantastic. It's going to be like one of the world's top buildings, one of the biggest, one or two, you know, like the biggest or the second biggest building, single building in the world or something like that. And it's going to be, yeah. And it's going to have no straight glass on it. The whole thing, completely curved glass. And as Steve Jobs said in his video presentation, he said that they're actually experts, Apple are experts in making the world's biggest curved glass. For their stores, all of their Apple stores apparently use, I don't know, I've never walked into an Apple store, but apparently they're experts in using massive sheets of curved glass and they're experts at actually making that sort of thing. So the entire building will just be curved glass.

Jeff Kaiser: So as someone who primarily works out of his garage, as I know you do, I have to say, yeah. Wow.

Dave Jones: It's very impressive. Yeah. And he said like, it'll like architectural students will come there. It'll be like the world's biggest, you know, oh, got to see the Apple building. You know, it's the penultimate design architecture thing. So yeah, it sounds fantastic. Yeah. And there's all this, you know, he promotes all the benefits of, you know, keeping people local and all that sort of stuff. And that's why he went into council personally and tried to get them to actually approve it, which I'm sure they will. They're not going to say no to Apple. And he made the point that they are, Apple are actually the biggest taxpayers in the local council. So, yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: So they can do whatever they want.

Dave Jones: Pretty much. Yeah. But I've got to say this. Here's a little rant. Oh my. Not that I'm the least bit surprised, but watch the end of it. And then it's question time from the people on the council, the councillors, right? You would think these would be intelligent people. Oh, no. Fail. They ask the dumbest questions. It's like these people never even graduated primary school. I mean, what's it called in the US? Well, it's called primary school here, which is before high school.

Jeff Kaiser: You mean elementary or high school? High school would be, you know.

Dave Jones: Elementary school would be the thing. Great school. Yeah, great. Yeah. They just appear so dumb. They really do. It's embarrassing. How do these people, you know, these people are running the council and it's just, oh. Anyway. I don't know. Not that I'm surprised. They're just politicians. So, anyway.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, pretty cool. That's fantastic. The pictures, the artists' renditions are very impressive.

Dave Jones: They are very impressive.

Jeff Kaiser: If you're listening to this, go check them out. Pretty cool.

Dave Jones: Go check out the video. It's worth the half hour watch or 40 minutes or whatever it is. I watched it the other day and it was, yeah, it was nice. Steve Jobs is looking a little bit on the frail side. Yeah, yeah. I won't speculate on his demise anytime soon as most people have. There's whole websites. We've talked about that before. There's whole websites devoted to speculating when Steve Jobs is going to kick the bucket, you know, because it's such an important event.

Jeff Kaiser: Well, it will be a profound event for the company. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I'm sure there's a lot of people who are very, very, very concerned about that. People who have a financial interest in the company. Yeah. That's, yeah. No comment.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And speaking of the other half of Apple, the was. I've got a rant. Bloody UBM Electronics, who ran the ESC. E-Times or something like that. They actually promoted two weeks ago that they're going to put up the video of the was talking, you know, giving his keynote fireside chat, they call it, at the thing. And they didn't put up the video. They said it'll be out on June 16th. You know, it'll be a virtual event. You know, give me a break.

Jeff Kaiser: So, they're basically trying to milk this keynote.

Dave Jones: They're trying to milk this keynote. And, oh, look, it's coming soon on June 16th. Sign up for our virtual event. And you can watch the video.

Jeff Kaiser: Watch a few ads while you're waiting. Yeah, while you're at it. Oh, give it.

Dave Jones: Just put the bloody video up on the website, please.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh. It's just pathetic. It really is. They try and have these virtual. People hate these virtual events. Just put the content up there and I can watch it anytime I want. I don't have to sign. I don't want to sign up to the damn thing. Yep. And, you know. Anyway, it's crazy. Don't like it at all. Unimpressed. EE Times. And, yeah, they're famous for doing, you know. Their website is PopUpAdCity, really. PopUpAdCentral.

Jeff Kaiser: So that actually reminds me. I get the ESC people put out a magazine. It's actually a very thin magazine. It's hardly even. It's like a pamphlet almost. Right. And I get it amongst, you know, all the other trade journals that I've got. And the most recent issue, which I don't have it in front of me, so I'm not sure if it's like the June issue or what, but it just came in the mail a couple days ago. So there's a section in the back. The name of the guy who does the column escapes me. Isn't it Gansel? Gansel?

Dave Jones: Jack Gansel. Jack Gansel. Gansel. Which is a hero of Chris. Oh, okay. Okay.

Jeff Kaiser: So his column, he always talks about, you know, kind of interesting little odds and ends in the industry. And one of the things he points out in the most recent column is the ex-proto lab, which I don't think you've talked about on the show before. No, I don't think so. So the only reason I bring this up is because I actually have one. So it's just a little bit bigger than a postage stamp sized oscilloscope.

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. Yeah. Apparently, I think they sent one to Chris.

Jeff Kaiser: Ah, okay. So I just got one. I actually had to pay for mine. Oh, right. Okay. The local hackerspace here in Austin put together a group order. And I don't think they're doing this anymore. But for a while, if you bought 10, you could get them for $35 each. Yeah. And it's this beautiful little OLED display. Yeah, I've seen it. It's super cool. I mean, just... Yeah. And it's got a rudimentary, you know, obviously low bandwidth, low performance.

Dave Jones: It's a toy.

Jeff Kaiser: You know, it is a toy. It's pretty much a toy. And I will say that right up front. It is a toy. Of course. But man, it is a cool toy. It's cool. Yeah. It's smaller than a 9-volt battery. There's a picture on the site. It's by a company called Gabo or Gabotronics. Gabotronics, I guess. And this thing has an X-Mega, AVR, Atmel, X-Mega microcontroller on it. It's got a little micro USB port that you give power. And then it has this little tiny 1-inch 128x64 pixel display. And it's super crisp. And it's kind of a neat toy. So we got a bunch of them to the hackerspace, and we're just going to try to do, you know, whatever we can with them. Just use it as a development board for the X-Mega. Because the X-Megas haven't really made much inroads into the hobbyist market. No, they haven't. And so, you know, for $35, or if you buy one, I think it's $49, you get this super cool. I mean, you could easily spend that much for the OLED display alone if you were buying it from, you know, SparkFun or from somewhere like that. So to get a little tiny display, it's super sexy. And it plugs into a breadboard. It's got headers on the bottom.

Dave Jones: That's a big bonus. Yeah.

Jeff Kaiser: So it's this kind of cool little module. And so I literally just got mine last night. And then I opened up the magazine whenever I got home. And sure enough, there it was. So if anybody's interested in playing with X-Megas, that might be a good way to go. It's certainly one of the cheaper eval boards I've ever seen for an X-Mega that includes an LCD or an OLED display even. So yeah, kind of cool. And I actually had one other thing that I wanted to mention before I forget. I actually have been evaluating an FPGA board, which, you know, people that know me are thinking, you know, I do microcontrollers. What am I doing with an FPGA board?

Dave Jones: Oh, you know, it's not too much of a stretch.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I actually, I've worked with not FPGAs, but I have actually done some work in VHDL. And I always wanted to play with FPGAs, but I always felt like they were really expensive. And, you know, you're very familiar. The eval boards for FPGAs tend to be in the what? Usually $300 to $500 US dollar range, right?

Dave Jones: Well, traditionally, but they have come down in recent last three, four years. Even Xilinx and Altera themselves make, you know, $50, $80 boards. So, you know, they're not out of the reach of the hobbyists now.

Jeff Kaiser: Yep. So full disclosure, I was sent one of these boards for evaluation. So it's not a paid advertisement, but Jack, I can't remember his last name, from Papilio. This is a Papilio board. It's P-A-P-I-L-I-O dot C-C. He's got this little FPGA board that is actually, whenever you get it, it's running an AVR or soft core on the FPGA. So you can actually run Arduino sketches on it, which I think is kind of hilarious. Yeah. That kind of cracks me up. Like, what lengths will we go to to run Arduino on things that do not need to run Arduino? You know, it's like, wow. So somebody actually coded up an AVR soft processor to do this. But the board, if you buy it, it's like $50, I think, for the cheaper one. And I think it may be one of the cheapest ways to actually get started in FPGAs, because it comes with a JTAG programmer on board. So you don't have to spend, like, $100 on a JTAG programmer.

Dave Jones: On a separate adapter. Yeah. Just plug it straight into USB.

Jeff Kaiser: Just plug it into your USB. And so he sent me a couple of these boards, and he's got a few demo applications. But, you know, I'm planning to use it to play with FPGAs. And I've got a friend who wants to build a software-defined radio. And I told him, hey, you know, you could use one of these to get started. And even if it doesn't have all the fancy, you know, DSP features, it's cheap. And it's kind of a cute little board. It's small. You can get these expansion shields for it.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Are they Arduino-compatible shields?

Jeff Kaiser: No, no, it didn't quite go to that. Right, that length, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's not.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, so anyway, it's the Papilio board. And the company is called the Gadget Factory. And it's Jack Gasset who runs the company. It's a pretty cool little. He's the guy that did Dangerous Prototypes. I think he worked on the Bus Pirate and also on that Logic Analyzer project that Dangerous Prototypes did. This is the same guy. So I guess he's into FPGA stuff.

Dave Jones: Absolutely.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, check it out. Yeah. Speaking of which, this one's been on here for ages. Are 8-bit micros dead? This comes up time and time again on the EAV blog forum and every other forum I visit. But people have been talking about the death of 8-bit micros for, well, ever since they've come out, really. And the argument is that, you know, the 32-bit ARM micros are so cheap these days. So why would you bother with 8-bit micros?

Jeff Kaiser: It turns out there are plenty of reasons. Yeah, yeah. And as someone who's writing a book about working with 8-bit micros, I guess I'm a little bit biased in this area.

Dave Jones: But there are, you know, you can't, somebody made the argument just the other day on the forum that, well, you know, it's only $3 for an ARM 32-bit micro. And, well, it costs $3 for a pick chip as well. You know, just an 8-bit, you know, 18F series pick chip or something. Well, you're not really comparing, you know, apples to apples. There's a lot of reasons to use 8-bit micros. One is they are actually cheaper. They will always be cheaper because when you actually manufacture your silicon wafer, the 32-bit die is always going to be bigger than an 8-bit micro die. It's just, you know, it physically has less transistors. It's only 8-bit. So, really, the die is always going to be smaller. So the chips are ultimately, in volume, always going to be cheaper. But there's just no, you know, there's no doubt about that. And there's many other things like they, a lot of the 32-bit ARM micros, they require, like, multiple voltages to work from. Yep. You know, they'll have a separate, you know, a core voltage. You know, it might run at 1.8 volts and the IOs at 3.3 and et cetera, you know. And that just adds to your system cost and complexity and all that sort of stuff. Yep.

Jeff Kaiser: And often the development tools are not free. So you've got a factoring...

Dave Jones: Well, the argument is that they are for a lot of these ARM, a lot of these 32-bit ARM devices. So, you know, yeah, there is a development tool thing there. But you sort of put that aside just from a purely chip point of view. And the 32-bit micros don't come in small, you know, go out and try and buy an 8-pin, a tiny 8-pin 32-bit micro. You can't. You know, they're always reasonably complex devices with large amounts of memory and stuff like that. So they're going to be physically large. And one of the benefits of 8-bit is that you use them for just simple, cheap stuff. Yeah, and you don't need... And you can get them in tiny packages.

Jeff Kaiser: You don't need 50 lines of code to configure them. You don't need... Yeah, well, yeah. You know, I actually think that ultimately it's really up to what you're trying to do. It's the application that decides what microcontrollers should be. And I still think that there's lots of applications that 8-bit microcontrollers are perfect for. And yeah, sure, you know, I've seen... I mean, what is it? The LPC Espresso board. There's a lot of Cortex-M3 stuff now that I've heard people pushing. And it's funny. People make a lot of talk about it. But I have yet to see any of those boards really make significant inroads into the hobbyist community. Now, if you're doing contract design, yeah, maybe you...

Dave Jones: Oh, of course.

Jeff Kaiser: It's a different story, right? Horses for courses, right? As soon as you... Yeah, I don't know. I think 8-bit micros are cheap, easy to use, simple, easy to understand. The data sheets aren't 500 pages long. And sometimes that's really... That's good for a hobbyist or a beginner. You want to start fairly simple. And I think it's fairly easy to wrap your mind around an 8-bit micro. 32-bit micros just don't have that easy learning curve, I don't think. Now, that's not to say that I won't play with them.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I probably would go in that direction to argue that they can be just as simple as 8-bit micros. But, yeah, I... You know, the whole question is, is are these 32-bit ARM, etc. devices going to push out 8-bits from the micro? And the answer is no. It's just never going to happen. There are reasons why 8-bit micros will... Are good, and they will still survive. And a lot of people claim that the ARM will dominate the world. And it's better to go to ARM because then you can seamlessly move from one manufacturer to... You know, like if they actually discontinue your chip, well, you can just move to another ARM micro. Well, sorry, it ain't quite that easy. Because a lot of your code, regardless of which micro you use, is going to be specific to the built-in peripherals in the micro. And they aren't the same. Sure, the ARM core might be exactly the same. But a lot of your code is built around the peripherals built into that specific chip from NXP or from TI or someone like that. So, you know, there's this myth that, oh, if you choose ARM, you're safe. Because then you won't have to redesign. It's a real easy redesign if you want to move from one chip to another. No, it can actually be easier if you, say, stick with that pick. They're actually pin and package compatible actually between 8 right up to 32-bit micros. So you can move from 8 bits, you know, they discontinue your 8-bit. Well, you can whack in a 16-bit or a 32-bit part in the same package, in the same pinout, with the same names for the peripherals. And, you know, there's very little you have to do. So, yeah, I wouldn't be falling for that one anytime soon. Anyway, there's a whole talk about it on the forum if you want to check it out. So I think that's a bit of a myth that ARM is, you know, the safe, well, you know, it's a fairly safe option. But it's not any safer than sticking with a single big company like, you know, Atmel or PIC or something like that. So, yeah, I don't know. We could argue the various merits of 8 and 32-bit until the cows come home.

Jeff Kaiser: They're certainly not going away anytime soon. That's for sure. Yeah, they're going to be around for a while.

Dave Jones: Absolutely. Well, I think they'll be around forever until magically the die size is exactly the same, really. Because if you're making, you know, a million of something or 10 million of something and you only want to do one specific little task, well, you're not going to stick in a 32-bit ARM chip with that big die. So you're just going to put in, you know, the 8, heck, you can even still buy 4-bit micros, I think. But that's going a bit, that's going a bit too far. So, anyway, just quickly, our time's up, but we've probably got time for one more. Chris, I put this on the list. I told Chris the other week that these headhunting consulting, you know, agencies, these job agencies, they actually charge, typically, here in Australia anyway, 20 to 30% of your first year's salary for finding you that job. They don't charge you that, but they charge the company that. So, if you're, you know, if your job's worth $100,000 a year, they're going to take $20,000 to $30,000 fee just for getting you that job. This does not surprise me at all. He was staggered. Chris was staggered by it. So, what's the thing in the U.S.? Do you have any idea? I actually don't know what the numbers are.

Jeff Kaiser: I have not worked with a headhunter, and even if I had, I doubt they would tell me.

Dave Jones: Right, okay.

Jeff Kaiser: How much of my salary they were getting. But I have definitely heard that they get a sizable chunk of your first year salary. So, 20 to 30% sounds perfectly reasonable to me. And I think that's part of why people get into difficult situations with headhunters sometimes. I actually had a coworker that had an experience very early in my career where she had talked to a headhunter and ended up independently contacting a company. That the headhunter claimed that he had told her about position. And he ended up suing the company that hired her. Oh, really? Looking for, because, I mean, 20 to 30% is a sizable chunk of change. Absolutely. I think in the end he didn't get anything. But it's a real problem. Because these guys, if you think about it, if they place just a few people a year, they get the equivalent of what an engineer is getting for their salary. So they could potentially get a lot of money. Absolutely.

Dave Jones: And that's why they'll try and push you into any job they can.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, and that's why they hound you, too. You know, there have definitely been points in my career when I've received calls regularly, like on almost a weekly basis. And it's interesting because in certain industries you'll have headhunters which specialize in those industries. So whenever I was working in RF design, I used to have, like, the same set of guys used to call me all the time. And it's funny because they would call everyone in my office. And so everybody knew who they were. Oh, that's great. And I can actually see, you know, that might be one instance where I would work with a headhunter is that if he's so established in the industry that he knows everybody and what they're working on and what projects they're doing, then he's actually adding quite a bit of value. You know, he knows the industry better than I do, you know, at that point. They're the real good ones. Yeah, they're the good ones. Most are just the guys that are, like, cold calling you and don't give a shit about what you end up doing and whether it's in your focus. And those guys, yeah, run away. No offense to headhunters.

Dave Jones: But sometimes, no, well, I've done a whole rant on recruitment consultants slash headhunters. But the thing is, a lot of companies, some companies will not deal with the individual. They'll only deal. They have a corporate policy to only deal through a specific agency. So the only way to get it, really, the only way to get a job in that company is through that agency. So sometimes if you want to get in that company, you've got no choice, really.

Jeff Kaiser: The trend that I've actually seen in the industry is that companies will hire former headhunters to work in their staffing departments. Right. Because I know of a couple headhunters that I had had contact with, you know, whether I wanted to or not earlier in my career. And then, you know, through the magic of things like LinkedIn, you can actually see where people wind up. And a couple of these girls and guys have ended up at high-tech companies, you know, companies that are famous. Interesting. And like large corporations. So I think the corporations are pretty savvy because they know that these guys are invested in the industry. But yeah, whenever you are required to go through an agency, that gives me kind of a weird feeling. I don't like dealing with a third party.

Dave Jones: Same here. So if you know how much your headhunters in your country charge, please add a comment. Yeah, I'd love to know. Especially in the U.S. I'm very curious to know. In the U.S. It's about 20% to 30% here.

Jeff Kaiser: I wouldn't be surprised if that's an industry standard.

Dave Jones: Yep. And usually there's a minimum. Like you've got to stay for three months. Oh, yeah. Right, right, right. You know, so they can't just place you and bang, the company pays up. You know, the companies are smart enough to know, well, the person has to stay at least three months before I'm going to pay you your fee.

Jeff Kaiser: So interesting.

Dave Jones: And the interesting thing is if you know this, if you know that the company is going through an agency like this, a headhunter, and if you bypass them and go straight in, you can go, hey, I know you're trying to hire through, you know, an external headhunter. Give me 10% more and we'll bypass them. And, you know, I'll save you a bunch load. You know, I'll save you a bunch of money. So it can be a bargaining chip there.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah, yeah. I've never done that.

Dave Jones: Right.

Jeff Kaiser: But I'll believe it. I'll believe that someone has managed to finagle that.

Dave Jones: I've certainly done it myself. So, you know, because it's just a natural part of the industry, really. Everyone knows that they charge a huge fee. So, yeah, it's basic economics. So anyway, I think our amp hour is up. Thank you very much, Jeff.

Jeff Kaiser: You're very welcome. Thanks for having me on the show again. And it's always fun. That's right. And it is indeed. And where does the time go? I know.

Dave Jones: We're five minutes past, actually. Yeah. Crazy. Anyway, we're a bit liberal here at the amp hour. We don't care too much about deadlines.

Jeff Kaiser: It's the amp hour and change.

Dave Jones: The amp hour and change. Yes. And because Chris is not here this week and I have to do the editing. What will we get this time? I wonder what's coming up.

Jeff Kaiser: Yeah. I.

Dave Jones: Ah. Hmm.

Jeff Kaiser: We'll see. Thanks for joining us. I will look forward to hearing what you come up with, Dave. But thanks for having me on the show. It was a lot of fun. And I always love being on. You know, even if you call me the same day, it's always just a lot of fun. There's always a lot of cool things to talk about. So.

Dave Jones: There is indeed. Thanks. And we certainly appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff. All right.

Jeff Kaiser: Cool.

Dave Jones: Catch you later, Dave. See ya. Bye. Bye. So, Chris is in Vegas and I'm left here to do the editing. So you know what that means. I can choose anything I like. And for today, we have the Australian classic, Australiana by Austin Tatecious. And yes, you Yanks will have no idea what any of this means. And that's the point.

Chris Gammell: Sitting at home last Sunday morning, me mate Boomerang. Said he was having a few people around for a barbie. Said he might cook a burr or two. I said, sounds great. We'll wallaby then. He said, yeah, and veggie might come too. So I said to the wife, you want to go, Anna? She said, I'll go if Dean goes. So I said to Boomer, what will we do about Nullar? He said, Nullar bores me to tears. Leave him at home. We got to the party at about two. Walked straight out the kitchen to put some booze in the fridge. And you wouldn't believe it. There's Boomer's wife, Wara, sitting there trying to plait a puss. Now, I don't like to speak Illawarra. But I was shocked. I mean, how much can a koala bear? So I grabbed a beer, flashed me wenger at her and headed out to join the party. Pretty soon airs rocks in and things really started jumping. This Indian girl, Marsu, turns up, dying to go to the toilet. But she couldn't find it. I said to me, mate, Al, where can Marsu pee, Al? He said, she can go out back with her fella. She's probably seen a cockatoo. Well, just then, Wara comes out of the kitchen with a few drinks for everybody. Fair dinkum, you've never seen a cooler bar, mate. I grabbed a beer and said, thanks, Wara. Ta. A couple of queens landed at the party. One smelling pretty strongly of aftershave. He sat down next to me. I turned to him. I said, you know, mate, you reek of stockade. It was a really hot day. Oscar felt like a swim. He said to Ena, you want to have a dip in the river in her? She said, I haven't got my cossey, Oscar. Well, Bo says, come in starkers, what a lake here. Ena says, what, without so much as a thread, Bo? I'll perish, I thought. Has Vucum been in yet? Well, a few of the blokes decided to play some cricket. Boomer said, why doesn't Wombat? Yeah, and Lieutenant Field. And he said, I should have a bowl, but I was too out of it to play cricket, so I suggested a game of cards. I said, the liptus, you want a game of eucalyptus? He said, there's no point, mate. Dart wins every time. Well, Bill said he'd like a smoke. Nobody knew where the dope was stashed. I said, I think Marinos. But I was just spinning a bit of a yarn. Barry pulls a joint out of his pocket. Bill says, great, Barry, a reefer. What is it, mate? I'm Noosa Heads, of course. Me mate Adelaide, am I me? And it was a great joint, too. Blue Mountains away and his three sisters. Well, I thought I'd roll by myself. I said, chuck us the telly-ho, Bart. He said, they're out of the lawn. Seston, can you get them for us? Bernie said, it's okay, mate. She's apple, I'll get them for you. Just then, Alice springs into action. Starts to pack Bella Bong. Bet you wouldn't believe it, the bong's broken. I said, Lord, ow. Hey, man. Somebody said, well, a didgeridoo. I said, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, maybe it'll have to. I look in the corner and there's Bass sitting there, not getting into it, not getting out of it. I said, what, is Bass straight or something? Boomer said, as a matter of fact, mate, he's a cop. I said, you're joking, mate, a cop? I'm getting out of here, let's go, Anna. She said, no way, I'm hanging around all gum leaves. Besides, I don't want to leave Jack around to party on his own. Have you seen him? I think he's trying to crack on to Woomba. He's already tried a Mount Isa. And he'll definitely try to lead you, Australiana. Thank you, and good night!

Speaker ?: Thank you.