1 00:00:02,430 --> 00:00:04,000 - Welcome to The Bootloader, I'm Tod Kurt. 2 00:00:04,700 --> 00:00:05,520 - And I'm Paul Cutler. 3 00:00:06,140 --> 00:00:07,140 The show works like this. 4 00:00:07,500 --> 00:00:09,340 Tod and I have each brought three things to share 5 00:00:09,710 --> 00:00:11,820 and we'll discuss them for about five minutes each. 6 00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:13,720 What's your first one for us, Tod? 7 00:00:14,220 --> 00:00:16,460 - I have aspirations for making things out of wood. 8 00:00:17,060 --> 00:00:18,800 I've taken a few classes at the local wood shop 9 00:00:18,900 --> 00:00:19,940 but I've never really made anything. 10 00:00:20,410 --> 00:00:22,700 I don't have the tools at home and you need so many tools. 11 00:00:23,300 --> 00:00:24,640 And most of the things I want are pretty basic 12 00:00:24,780 --> 00:00:26,000 like benches or boxes. 13 00:00:26,110 --> 00:00:27,860 I don't think I really need the nice tools. 14 00:00:28,740 --> 00:00:30,980 But I think I need some sort of built-in skill 15 00:00:31,100 --> 00:00:32,759 that I don't have, which I just can't get 16 00:00:32,860 --> 00:00:35,600 from watching all the woodworking YouTube videos 17 00:00:35,900 --> 00:00:36,320 that I watch. 18 00:00:37,060 --> 00:00:38,140 And so I just recently learned 19 00:00:38,410 --> 00:00:39,880 of this website called Hyperwood. 20 00:00:40,580 --> 00:00:42,060 Hyperwood is a way of making furniture 21 00:00:42,420 --> 00:00:44,660 using standardized materials and minimal tools. 22 00:00:45,260 --> 00:00:47,400 With a handsaw and fasteners of your choice, 23 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:50,220 screws, nails, glue, you can make benches, 24 00:00:50,540 --> 00:00:52,000 plant pots, chairs, and more. 25 00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:53,880 Think of it as Lego for furniture. 26 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:57,560 The core material of Hyperwood designs are wood slats, 27 00:00:58,300 --> 00:00:59,640 which you can get more per tree 28 00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:01,280 than any other type of wood product. 29 00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:03,020 And these slats are pretty cheap 30 00:01:03,380 --> 00:01:04,780 and they come in some nice wood types. 31 00:01:05,780 --> 00:01:08,020 And the way that the HyperWood design works 32 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:10,000 is that it's a description 33 00:01:10,700 --> 00:01:12,940 of how to attach these slats together. 34 00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:16,360 And for each of the HyperWood designs, 35 00:01:16,700 --> 00:01:17,340 the furniture designs, 36 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,280 the HyperWood author provides GitHub repos for each one 37 00:01:20,700 --> 00:01:23,160 with a text-based data interchange format 38 00:01:23,340 --> 00:01:25,520 called the HyperWood Exchange Format, HEF, 39 00:01:26,260 --> 00:01:28,480 And command line tools let you customize the design 40 00:01:28,660 --> 00:01:30,000 based on the particulars of what you want, 41 00:01:30,050 --> 00:01:30,860 the materials you have. 42 00:01:30,900 --> 00:01:32,880 Like if your slats are slightly different dimensions, 43 00:01:33,390 --> 00:01:36,400 or if you want the bench to be taller, shorter, or wider. 44 00:01:37,140 --> 00:01:41,440 So it's a really interesting approach to making furniture 45 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:43,160 that I'd not really considered. 46 00:01:43,360 --> 00:01:44,940 The end result looks a little bit like 47 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:46,540 the Ikea Ivar stuff. 48 00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:47,300 You've ever seen that? 49 00:01:47,300 --> 00:01:49,320 The sort of like blonde wood, 50 00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:50,980 but you could use darker wood or stain it 51 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:52,820 and make it look a little bit different. 52 00:01:53,220 --> 00:01:55,940 but it does look kind of like a Lego piece of furniture. 53 00:01:57,050 --> 00:01:57,140 (laughs) 54 00:01:57,140 --> 00:01:57,780 That's kind of interesting. 55 00:01:58,290 --> 00:02:00,400 And thanks to our previous guest, Andy Piper, 56 00:02:00,540 --> 00:02:02,540 for pointing this out to me like a week or so ago. 57 00:02:03,100 --> 00:02:03,880 - Yeah, it's pretty neat. 58 00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:06,720 Like you, I don't have any woodworking skills. 59 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:09,039 My father-in-law is actually a master woodworker 60 00:02:09,050 --> 00:02:10,880 and passed all those skills down to my wife. 61 00:02:11,310 --> 00:02:11,580 So if 62 00:02:11,580 --> 00:02:11,860 I ever 63 00:02:11,860 --> 00:02:14,520 need something done, she's on top of it 64 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:15,960 and I've never had to learn them. 65 00:02:16,060 --> 00:02:17,020 So this is pretty interesting. 66 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:17,860 - Oh, that's great. 67 00:02:17,860 --> 00:02:18,700 You got that in the house though. 68 00:02:18,940 --> 00:02:19,400 (laughs) 69 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:19,940 - Yes. 70 00:02:21,780 --> 00:02:23,980 There's a question of who's really built my arcade, 71 00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:25,500 her or me at this point. 72 00:02:26,380 --> 00:02:27,380 - Well, you know, she did the wood, 73 00:02:27,420 --> 00:02:29,120 you did all the non-wood electronics. 74 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:30,240 - Exactly. 75 00:02:32,420 --> 00:02:34,020 - So what's your first one for this week? 76 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:37,300 - I generally try and keep the stories I pick positive, 77 00:02:37,540 --> 00:02:40,160 but sometimes the company I love does something so dumb, 78 00:02:40,220 --> 00:02:41,700 I just have to rant about it. 79 00:02:42,920 --> 00:02:44,820 I'm lucky that I've had a few network-attached 80 00:02:45,060 --> 00:02:46,280 storage devices over the years, 81 00:02:46,340 --> 00:02:48,400 and two of my last three have been from Synology. 82 00:02:49,100 --> 00:02:51,240 I've also recommended them to a number of folks, 83 00:02:51,660 --> 00:02:55,220 but no longer as in shitification raises its ugly head once again. 84 00:02:56,200 --> 00:02:57,960 Now, NAS devices aren't for everyone, 85 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:00,280 but I have a large media collection which I've ripped. 86 00:03:00,540 --> 00:03:04,780 I have all my podcast backups and my live over the air TV service has a DVR that 87 00:03:04,860 --> 00:03:07,520 runs on my NAS. So what did Synology do? 88 00:03:08,220 --> 00:03:11,980 They recently announced that to use one of their plus series NASs, 89 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:16,140 it would also require a Synology branded hard drive to unlock all of the 90 00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:19,960 features. And these just are optional features you might not care about. 91 00:03:20,100 --> 00:03:25,040 These are core features including hard drive health reports, lifespan analysis, and automatic 92 00:03:25,140 --> 00:03:26,020 firmware updates. 93 00:03:26,820 --> 00:03:30,940 Synology doesn't make their own hard drives, they're rebadged enterprise drives from the 94 00:03:30,980 --> 00:03:32,480 likes of Toshiba and Seagate. 95 00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:37,680 And you pay extra for what those drives would normally cost, and I would assume that's due 96 00:03:37,700 --> 00:03:40,940 to Synology doing all kinds of product testing to make sure they're compatible. 97 00:03:41,740 --> 00:03:45,720 And they also add a little DRM chip so they can unlock these extra features. 98 00:03:46,740 --> 00:03:50,140 But now it feels like you're having to pay for that privilege twice, once in the cost 99 00:03:50,180 --> 00:03:52,080 of the NAS and in the hard drives. 100 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:57,280 And when you're buying four 6/8 hard drives for a large NAS, that cost adds up quick. 101 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:02,500 Synology's made some vague promises that third-party drives might be certified sometime in the 102 00:04:02,580 --> 00:04:07,740 future, but claim that Synology-branded drives paired with Synology systems are at less risk 103 00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:08,580 of drive failure. 104 00:04:09,320 --> 00:04:12,360 But now you're going to pay a premium for that and not be able to buy some of the best 105 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:14,460 hard drives on the market that you might want to buy. 106 00:04:14,820 --> 00:04:19,480 Yeah, I've heard about this too and I've been on the verge of getting a Synology NAS. 107 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:25,520 I had an older no-name brand NAS many years ago and I hadn't had one for the longest time 108 00:04:26,220 --> 00:04:30,860 relying on a really old Apple time capsule as my main backup solution. 109 00:04:31,620 --> 00:04:37,740 But recently I got a Ubiquiti U-NAS Pro, which is a rack mount, seven drive thing, which 110 00:04:37,740 --> 00:04:38,260 is really nice. 111 00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:44,040 But like with the Synology, you have this problem of which drives do I put in it? 112 00:04:44,180 --> 00:04:46,160 I had to spend all this time researching drives. 113 00:04:46,180 --> 00:04:47,100 And one of the things I liked about 114 00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:48,920 that Synology did for so long 115 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:50,420 is they had these hard drive reports 116 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:53,100 of which drives are good for our products. 117 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:56,860 And it was really which drives are good as NAS drives. 118 00:04:57,160 --> 00:04:59,420 So like using any other NAS, 119 00:04:59,420 --> 00:05:01,380 you could rely on the Synology report. 120 00:05:01,820 --> 00:05:04,120 And so on the one hand, I'm like, 121 00:05:04,780 --> 00:05:07,180 well, I could have saved myself a lot of time 122 00:05:07,740 --> 00:05:12,060 if I just would have bought a NAS with drives in it. 123 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:14,160 You know, it's like, don't even think about the drives 124 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:17,760 thing that's separate from the NAS, which is kind of one way you 125 00:05:17,780 --> 00:05:21,500 could think about the new Synology move. It's like, oh you just buy the 20 126 00:05:21,740 --> 00:05:25,160 terabyte NAS and it happens to have four drives in it or whatever. 127 00:05:26,420 --> 00:05:30,940 So it's like, well yeah okay, and how often do you upgrade drives? 128 00:05:32,260 --> 00:05:35,840 It's like this is a problem I'm now going to be wondering now that I've 129 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:39,340 got a NAS. How often have you swapped the drives out on your Synologies? 130 00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:40,880 So I put 131 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:43,300 my Synology, my last one in when we built the house. 132 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:45,640 So that was probably eight, nine years ago. 133 00:05:45,860 --> 00:05:49,380 In that time, I've had one of my eight hard drives go bad. 134 00:05:49,620 --> 00:05:50,980 So I've only had to swap out one. 135 00:05:51,660 --> 00:05:55,300 And I got to tell you, it's one of my worst fears is when that thing dies. 136 00:05:55,900 --> 00:05:57,200 I've got so much stuff 137 00:05:57,200 --> 00:05:57,600 on it. 138 00:05:57,900 --> 00:05:58,620 And I know I can, 139 00:05:58,840 --> 00:05:59,200 you 140 00:05:59,200 --> 00:05:59,320 can 141 00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:02,180 reclaim it using another Synology NAS. 142 00:06:02,780 --> 00:06:05,460 But still, I don't want to go through data loss at all. 143 00:06:06,120 --> 00:06:10,060 When I had a normal job, that was one of the things we'd do every once in a while, was 144 00:06:10,140 --> 00:06:12,840 to pull out one of the drives in the NAS to make sure it would still work. 145 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:15,620 You know, it's just like, it's like, okay. 146 00:06:18,020 --> 00:06:22,760 So I don't, yeah, I don't, I don't know, like how much more expensive are these Synology 147 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:24,640 rebadged drives? 148 00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:29,560 Because if they're about the same price as the Enterprise drives, you know, I'd maybe 149 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:31,320 be okay with just buying the Synology drives. 150 00:06:32,060 --> 00:06:34,880 You know, I've linked to articles from Hackaday and, 151 00:06:35,220 --> 00:06:37,340 or not Hackaday, ours is Technica and Tom's Hardware 152 00:06:38,100 --> 00:06:39,280 with coverage out of them. 153 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:40,680 And they've got some prices in there. 154 00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:44,240 I wanna say that on about a roughly $300 drive, 155 00:06:44,280 --> 00:06:47,000 there's about a 10% Synology charge. 156 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:47,360 So you're 157 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:47,880 paying about 10 158 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:48,500 % more. 159 00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:49,700 So to 160 00:06:49,700 --> 00:06:51,660 your point, yeah, that peace of mind 161 00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:53,200 might be worth it for some folks, 162 00:06:53,740 --> 00:06:53,800 but 163 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:54,540 for some 164 00:06:54,540 --> 00:06:56,360 folks who are doing all that kinds of research 165 00:06:56,420 --> 00:06:59,040 and know, hey, these drives are compatible, 166 00:06:59,340 --> 00:07:01,280 these drives last longer than this brand. 167 00:07:01,740 --> 00:07:02,100 It's kind 168 00:07:02,100 --> 00:07:03,620 of frustrating not having that flexibility 169 00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:05,940 that you've had for years and years with this brand. 170 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:07,660 - Totally, yeah, 'cause if you don't agree 171 00:07:07,740 --> 00:07:11,420 with Synology's choice, like if they're using Seagate drives 172 00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:13,220 and you're a real Western Digital person, 173 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:14,980 you know, maybe you've got a contract 174 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:16,720 with Western Digital even, so you get like 175 00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:19,120 a thousand drives from them or something. 176 00:07:19,620 --> 00:07:19,980 (laughs) 177 00:07:20,380 --> 00:07:20,580 - Yep. 178 00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:22,600 - Yeah, that's tough, that's tough. 179 00:07:22,680 --> 00:07:24,480 I don't like what they're doing. 180 00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:26,300 I hope they will change that, but we'll see. 181 00:07:26,820 --> 00:07:27,960 - What's your next one for us? 182 00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:30,620 - Okay, so I'm gonna talk about the Terminal, 183 00:07:31,639 --> 00:07:35,740 TRMNL, battery-powered Wi-Fi e-paper wall display. 184 00:07:37,419 --> 00:07:40,360 So there's lots of these things that are out there. 185 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:43,220 This one's got a twist, and that twist is open source. 186 00:07:44,530 --> 00:07:47,960 So these things, they're these ambient displays. 187 00:07:48,010 --> 00:07:50,500 You put them on your wall and they display your calendar 188 00:07:50,980 --> 00:07:53,260 or weather or like stock prices or whatever. 189 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:54,400 They're totally standalone. 190 00:07:54,470 --> 00:07:55,520 They don't require a computer, 191 00:07:56,060 --> 00:07:57,480 but they do require an internet connection. 192 00:07:58,280 --> 00:07:59,979 And most of the other ones that are out there in the world 193 00:07:59,980 --> 00:08:04,400 require a persistent subscription to the server that it talks to. 194 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:07,960 And if you stop paying, your device that hangs on your wall, 195 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:09,920 that gives all this information, turns into a brick. 196 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:13,880 Where Terminal, T-R-M-N-L, is not that. 197 00:08:14,340 --> 00:08:18,160 Terminal has a website that you log into, you configure the device, 198 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:20,980 selecting which plugins of information you want to display and 199 00:08:21,020 --> 00:08:21,860 wear out on the device. 200 00:08:22,340 --> 00:08:23,700 But unlike the other devices, 201 00:08:24,140 --> 00:08:27,720 Terminal's website lets you easily create your own plugins with an open API. 202 00:08:28,540 --> 00:08:31,900 And you can make those plugins public on the Terminal's site 203 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:32,940 for other people to use. 204 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:35,900 So if you make something that's really cool, like a-- 205 00:08:35,900 --> 00:08:38,479 I don't know, for some Steam game that you use, 206 00:08:38,539 --> 00:08:41,820 it has an API, you want to reflect your stats of that game 207 00:08:42,219 --> 00:08:43,840 to the world, well, you could set that up 208 00:08:43,880 --> 00:08:46,020 and then let other people put in their data 209 00:08:46,420 --> 00:08:48,080 so they could see their stats for the game. 210 00:08:49,060 --> 00:08:50,660 Not only is Terminal's protocol open, 211 00:08:51,180 --> 00:08:52,980 but it's open in its entirety. 212 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:55,259 The folks behind Terminal recognize that their box is 213 00:08:55,260 --> 00:08:57,740 just an ESP32 with an ink display. 214 00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:00,320 So they provide a set of docs that you create 215 00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:03,520 your functionally identical DIY terminal out of 216 00:09:03,560 --> 00:09:05,780 a WaveShare e-paper display and 217 00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:08,980 ESP32 dev board or whatever other parts you have laying around. 218 00:09:09,940 --> 00:09:11,820 Because the terminal firmware is totally open-source. 219 00:09:12,220 --> 00:09:14,060 It's up on GitHub, you can poke around and look at it. 220 00:09:14,680 --> 00:09:16,660 I highly recommend anyone do that because 221 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:20,000 just the read me for the firmware repo is 222 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:22,480 a really good explanation as to what it takes to 223 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:24,640 make a long-lived Internet-connected device. 224 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,420 This thing has a battery and you can charge it up via USB-C, 225 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:31,780 but it will last for half a year on 226 00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:33,460 its battery because it's really 227 00:09:33,700 --> 00:09:35,480 smart about how it pulls the data off the Internet, 228 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:37,700 which is a problem that we've all had. 229 00:09:37,700 --> 00:09:39,920 If you ever use the Adafruit MagTag, 230 00:09:40,560 --> 00:09:44,320 which is a very similar device to USB 32 with a little E-ink display, 231 00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:47,040 it's hard to make that thing last for a month 232 00:09:47,959 --> 00:09:51,280 because most people aren't used to writing low-power code. 233 00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:53,239 The README and the firmware itself has 234 00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:54,960 a good explanation as to how to do some of that stuff. 235 00:09:55,740 --> 00:09:57,340 I've had a terminal for a few weeks now, 236 00:09:57,820 --> 00:09:58,960 and it was super easy to set up. 237 00:09:59,540 --> 00:10:02,100 Even though my company thing was an early proponent 238 00:10:02,420 --> 00:10:03,780 of what we now call Internet of Things, 239 00:10:03,810 --> 00:10:05,920 I don't really have many IoT devices in our house, 240 00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:09,080 because most are just e-waste waiting to happen. 241 00:10:10,380 --> 00:10:11,440 But terminal will keep on 242 00:10:11,680 --> 00:10:13,840 working long after the company servers go away, 243 00:10:13,980 --> 00:10:16,000 because you could just go to their repo that has 244 00:10:16,100 --> 00:10:18,100 the server functionality and open it up, 245 00:10:18,380 --> 00:10:19,360 start it up, start up your own server. 246 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:21,100 You could even set up, I think, 247 00:10:21,180 --> 00:10:22,520 the server on your own LAN, 248 00:10:22,580 --> 00:10:27,060 so the traffic for it never leaves your local network, 249 00:10:27,060 --> 00:10:28,640 it could just be on your home network. 250 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:31,160 Yeah, there's links to this in the show notes. 251 00:10:31,470 --> 00:10:33,300 It's really cool. You get to see how 252 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:36,260 a productized thing gets made as well, 253 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:39,060 because it started out just as 254 00:10:39,060 --> 00:10:41,780 an ESP32 Dev Board and an E-Ink display module, 255 00:10:42,390 --> 00:10:43,540 and they turned it into a full product, 256 00:10:43,550 --> 00:10:45,240 which you can just buy. 257 00:10:45,920 --> 00:10:46,980 >> I love companies that 258 00:10:46,980 --> 00:10:47,900 get open source. 259 00:10:48,180 --> 00:10:50,440 They're doing it from beginning to end. 260 00:10:51,060 --> 00:10:51,820 You know, it's 261 00:10:51,820 --> 00:10:53,140 the firmware, the server. 262 00:10:53,740 --> 00:10:56,580 It's just so great to see so many times these companies go belly up 263 00:10:56,590 --> 00:10:59,280 and then they open source the server components at the last minute 264 00:10:59,380 --> 00:11:00,280 so people can do this. 265 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:03,980 But here, you know, the community can give back and add new features 266 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:07,820 like you were saying, or new stock tickers or, you know, whatever, 267 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:08,860 whatever they want to 268 00:11:08,860 --> 00:11:09,160 write. 269 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:14,000 Yeah, it's been it's been I've been I've been chomping to dive more deeply into it 270 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,280 and actually write some my own little plugins for like things in the house, 271 00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:19,240 like, oh, if the cat door is unlocked or something. 272 00:11:19,260 --> 00:11:19,980 (laughs) 273 00:11:21,260 --> 00:11:22,440 - Well, you have to keep us in the loop 274 00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:25,220 and further episodes about how those adventures go. 275 00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:26,280 - Oh, definitely. 276 00:11:27,350 --> 00:11:28,220 So what's your next one, Paul? 277 00:11:28,940 --> 00:11:31,660 - Hackaday recently covered the Rockbox 4.0 release 278 00:11:31,660 --> 00:11:33,480 and it took me for a trip down memory lane. 279 00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:36,080 Rockbox is an open source project 280 00:11:36,140 --> 00:11:38,300 that replaces the firmware on an MP3 player 281 00:11:38,440 --> 00:11:39,720 from many different manufacturers. 282 00:11:40,100 --> 00:11:42,220 And if you know me, you know I love music 283 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:44,040 and I know I'm dating myself 284 00:11:44,090 --> 00:11:47,379 as I fondly remember having a slew of MP3 players 285 00:11:47,380 --> 00:11:49,320 before smartphones and streaming took over. 286 00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:53,000 Looking at the Rockbox list of support for MP3 players, 287 00:11:53,140 --> 00:11:56,280 such as the early Arcos, iRiver, and SantaSansa, 288 00:11:56,700 --> 00:11:58,480 those were all MP3 players I owned 289 00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:00,760 and probably put Rockbox on back in the day. 290 00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:03,640 Rockbox was also known for its iPod support, 291 00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:05,460 though I never personally owned an iPod. 292 00:12:06,280 --> 00:12:08,720 Rockbox adds a number of features to MP3 players, 293 00:12:08,860 --> 00:12:10,620 such as support for other music formats 294 00:12:10,680 --> 00:12:13,260 like AugVorbis or Flac, Gapless playback, 295 00:12:13,620 --> 00:12:15,640 Last.fm support, and the list goes on. 296 00:12:16,420 --> 00:12:20,100 Rockbox was started in 2001 with its first release in June of 2022. 297 00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:24,840 It's pretty cool to see a project that's still going strong with major releases after over 298 00:12:25,100 --> 00:12:25,640 20 years. 299 00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:27,220 That's really great. 300 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:31,680 I think I remember looking at this website because I had an old, one of those old early 301 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:37,220 MP3 players before the iPod and was really frustrated with the really bad UI it had. 302 00:12:37,820 --> 00:12:39,340 Oh, they were terrible back in the day. 303 00:12:39,420 --> 00:12:42,560 You know, those companies were just slapping the cheapest thing they could put together 304 00:12:42,680 --> 00:12:43,440 and shipping it out. 305 00:12:44,100 --> 00:12:45,120 Their primary 306 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:46,120 focus at all. 307 00:12:46,980 --> 00:12:52,260 I love I love that the rockbox.org website still even looks like it comes from the from the mid 308 00:12:56,220 --> 00:12:59,880 If it works why change it no exactly this is my philosophy 309 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:03,460 All right, what's your number three for us? 310 00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:07,440 All right, little shameless plug incoming for the last few months 311 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:11,199 I've been working off and on on a circuit Python synth. I owe tutorial website 312 00:13:11,660 --> 00:13:15,880 For those unaware, synthio is a CircuitPython core library for musical synthesis. 313 00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:19,880 It pretty much lets you turn your CircuitPython board into a modular synthesizer. 314 00:13:20,820 --> 00:13:23,540 Back two years ago when the synthio 315 00:13:24,280 --> 00:13:28,700 library first came out, I made a CircuitPython synthio tricks page. 316 00:13:29,180 --> 00:13:33,220 It was sort of a quick tips guide for fun things to do, kind of like my CircuitPython tricks page. 317 00:13:34,140 --> 00:13:41,640 But over time, synthio has evolved thanks to Jeff Epler, the original synthio author, and 318 00:13:41,640 --> 00:13:45,020 Dalrymple and Mark Comis to make Synthio even better. 319 00:13:45,180 --> 00:13:50,580 And also Mark and Cooper were key to making these new guitar inspired audio effects libraries, 320 00:13:51,070 --> 00:13:54,760 which we chatted about in the CircuitPython show in a panel a couple weeks ago. 321 00:13:55,560 --> 00:13:57,380 But I've only had really cursory experience with. 322 00:13:58,150 --> 00:14:02,800 So given all these changes, I felt like I'd be well served to come at Synthio fresh and 323 00:14:03,100 --> 00:14:04,720 reteach it to myself from the ground up. 324 00:14:05,560 --> 00:14:09,420 And since I learn best when I document as I go, I figured this would be a great excuse 325 00:14:09,420 --> 00:14:11,820 to create something more structured than a tricks document, 326 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:15,460 and instead have a set of goal posts and then a final destination. 327 00:14:16,700 --> 00:14:18,380 This tutorial is the result. 328 00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:19,840 It's about two-thirds done. 329 00:14:20,660 --> 00:14:21,860 It's broken up into sections, 330 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:24,940 starting from you just have a bunch of parts on your desk, 331 00:14:25,280 --> 00:14:27,720 and it's heading toward a fully featured synthesizer. 332 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:30,820 Along the way, you learn some synthesis techniques like 333 00:14:31,020 --> 00:14:34,220 filter envelopes and wave tables and how to deal with controls like MIDI. 334 00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:37,660 For each of the examples at each stage, 335 00:14:37,700 --> 00:14:40,780 it was important to me that the code blocks in the guide 336 00:14:40,980 --> 00:14:42,680 do something musically kind of cool, 337 00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:44,560 and that they be fully functioning, 338 00:14:45,220 --> 00:14:46,960 although they might use like some modules 339 00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:47,760 from past sections, 340 00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:50,180 and there'd be a small accompanying video 341 00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:52,120 for each code block showing what the code does 342 00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:53,100 and how you interact with it. 343 00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:55,640 So eventually there'll be over 50 small programs 344 00:14:55,680 --> 00:14:56,220 with videos. 345 00:14:56,660 --> 00:14:59,560 It's been fun to try to learn how to record those 346 00:14:59,600 --> 00:15:02,840 and document them, that's both clear and short. 347 00:15:03,880 --> 00:15:04,560 So if anyone's interested 348 00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:06,400 in making a CircuitPython synthesizer, 349 00:15:06,940 --> 00:15:08,200 See if this tutorial guide is useful. 350 00:15:08,350 --> 00:15:10,400 To get started, all you need is a Raspberry Pi Pico, 351 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:13,800 a cheap I2S DAC, and a couple of potentiometer knobs. 352 00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:15,640 Please let me know if you have any suggestions 353 00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:17,700 on these things, on things that I missed, 354 00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:18,580 and ways to make it better. 355 00:15:19,380 --> 00:15:20,980 Links to it are in the show notes. 356 00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:23,540 - I was lucky enough that you gave me a preview of it 357 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:25,480 a couple weeks ago, and like you mentioned, 358 00:15:25,760 --> 00:15:27,660 I think it's really important to call out 359 00:15:27,740 --> 00:15:29,280 because it's really neat that you did it. 360 00:15:29,710 --> 00:15:31,840 You start with the hardware and the circuits, 361 00:15:32,290 --> 00:15:34,560 and then you teach a little bit about what synthesis is, 362 00:15:34,740 --> 00:15:36,920 and then all those code samples just continue 363 00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:41,620 on each other, and to your point, they actually play a little bit of music in an interesting 364 00:15:41,740 --> 00:15:41,840 way 365 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:42,680 for every sample. 366 00:15:42,840 --> 00:15:44,200 So you've done a hell of a job on it. 367 00:15:44,700 --> 00:15:45,200 Oh, thank you. 368 00:15:45,380 --> 00:15:50,900 Yeah, it's a, I'm like, one of my problems is I get, I will make a little thing that 369 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:55,140 does a little random, random melody, and I'll just let it play for a while because I kind 370 00:15:55,160 --> 00:15:56,860 of zone out and like, Ooh, that sounds kind of neat. 371 00:15:58,900 --> 00:16:01,580 So hopefully someone else will, will have that fun as well. 372 00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:04,600 Okay, Paul, what's our final one for today? 373 00:16:05,020 --> 00:16:06,960 Lastly, there is Moby Gratis. 374 00:16:07,420 --> 00:16:10,620 Do you remember the artist Moby? You may know him from such hits as 375 00:16:10,720 --> 00:16:16,540 Go and Southside. He's just released 500 different songs for free and they come with only two 376 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:21,820 restrictions. You cannot use Moby Gratis songs to promote meat, dairy, or other animal products. 377 00:16:22,040 --> 00:16:27,860 Moby's a vegan and it's one of his rules. You cannot use Moby Gratis songs to promote right 378 00:16:27,940 --> 00:16:33,980 wing causes, which is something I can get right behind. Other than that, Moby encourages any 379 00:16:33,980 --> 00:16:38,900 creators, whether that's filmmakers, musicians, students, remixers, and the list goes on to 380 00:16:39,060 --> 00:16:39,900 grab those songs. 381 00:16:40,060 --> 00:16:41,340 There's 500 songs total. 382 00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:43,840 These are songs, not just fragments. 383 00:16:44,250 --> 00:16:49,000 You can filter by genre or by mood and the list shows you the song name, a description 384 00:16:49,300 --> 00:16:53,720 such as energetic, uplifting, or happy, and the beats per minute. 385 00:16:54,500 --> 00:16:59,200 You can just click to play right in your browser or you can favorite it or download it as well 386 00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:00,200 if you create an account. 387 00:17:01,020 --> 00:17:05,400 So if you have a music or a film project or maybe even a synthio project in CircuitPython 388 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:07,480 and want some samples, check out 389 00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:08,560 mobygratis.com. 390 00:17:09,540 --> 00:17:10,439 This is really nice. 391 00:17:11,319 --> 00:17:16,680 As a big fan of the various Creative Commons song libraries that are out there, because 392 00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:20,260 it's like sometimes it's hard to find a good piece of background music for some piece of 393 00:17:20,319 --> 00:17:23,420 video content you're creating and just be able to find something that's nice that you 394 00:17:23,439 --> 00:17:24,500 know is legally clear. 395 00:17:25,079 --> 00:17:25,339 Right. 396 00:17:26,100 --> 00:17:26,540 It's really handy. 397 00:17:27,819 --> 00:17:31,260 But I've always kind of wished that there was an extra add-on for the Creative Commons 398 00:17:31,460 --> 00:17:35,300 licensing that was sort of like the no jerks clause, you know, which he kind of has. 399 00:17:36,060 --> 00:17:37,460 Yep, some kind of morals clause. 400 00:17:37,600 --> 00:17:37,900 I'm right there 401 00:17:37,900 --> 00:17:38,200 with you. 402 00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:39,200 Totally. 403 00:17:41,020 --> 00:17:41,360 So that's awesome. 404 00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:46,400 I totally want to dig into this and see like the fact that it's all is free for remixing 405 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:49,800 as well, which some of the licenses don't let you do means you can like take out the 406 00:17:49,860 --> 00:17:54,059 real some really cool bits of sound that he might have in some of the songs and use them 407 00:17:54,060 --> 00:17:58,080 as basses for your own weird little sounds you want to make, which is something that 408 00:17:58,080 --> 00:17:58,560 I like to do. 409 00:17:59,050 --> 00:18:02,680 Yeah, you can download WAV, MP3, or Multitrack. 410 00:18:02,740 --> 00:18:05,720 And I don't know if Multitrack is the actual stems or not. 411 00:18:06,220 --> 00:18:07,180 I think that might be the stems. 412 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:09,560 Oh yeah, that's cool that he gives you his Multitrack. 413 00:18:09,860 --> 00:18:10,280 Fun. 414 00:18:10,540 --> 00:18:11,520 All right, I'm digging into this. 415 00:18:11,550 --> 00:18:11,980 This is cool. 416 00:18:13,500 --> 00:18:15,780 Well, now we know what Tod's going to be up to until our next show. 417 00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:16,460 And that 418 00:18:16,460 --> 00:18:17,300 is our show. 419 00:18:18,220 --> 00:18:22,440 For detailed show notes and transcripts, visit www.thebootloader.net. 420 00:18:22,980 --> 00:18:24,500 Until next time, stay positive.