1 00:00:02,280 --> 00:00:04,480 Welcome to The Bootloader. I'm Paul Cutler. 2 00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:15,200 And I'm Tod Kurt. The show works like this. Paul and I have brought three things to share, and we'll discuss them for about five minutes each. For detailed show notes and transcripts, visit thebootloader.net. Paul, 3 00:00:15,300 --> 00:00:16,379 what's your first one for this week? 4 00:00:17,140 --> 00:00:27,580 So for the first time ever, I hit the explicit language button when uploading this podcast episode. And that's all because I would like to say is, tariffs are bullshit. 5 00:00:28,459 --> 00:00:28,900 (laughing) 6 00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:32,759 - Unless you've been living under a rock, 7 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:34,260 you've heard about the massive tariffs 8 00:00:34,340 --> 00:00:36,360 the current American administration has imposed 9 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:37,720 on goods from across the world, 10 00:00:38,120 --> 00:00:39,700 and it's killing the maker community. 11 00:00:40,410 --> 00:00:43,480 Wanna order a handful of PCBs or make a small run to sell? 12 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:47,080 That'll be an extra 145% due to tariffs. 13 00:00:48,300 --> 00:00:51,040 Carrie Sundra of Alpenglow had an idea a few weeks ago, 14 00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:53,300 and that was for someone to create the website 15 00:00:54,199 --> 00:00:55,080 tariffsarebullshit.com, 16 00:00:55,530 --> 00:00:57,420 and she posted her idea on social media. 17 00:00:57,980 --> 00:01:00,500 By the time I saw the post and checked with my registrar, 18 00:01:01,180 --> 00:01:02,880 the domain had already been snapped up 19 00:01:02,960 --> 00:01:05,780 by friend of the show, Jason Kuhn of Evil Genius Labs. 20 00:01:06,600 --> 00:01:08,740 The website is meant to share stories from the news 21 00:01:08,740 --> 00:01:10,740 of how tariffs are impacting small businesses. 22 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:14,300 From the readme, it asks if you've received any emails, 23 00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:17,260 watched any videos, or read social media posts 24 00:01:17,320 --> 00:01:18,680 from manufacturers and suppliers 25 00:01:18,820 --> 00:01:20,440 on how the tariffs are affecting them. 26 00:01:20,940 --> 00:01:23,440 So if you've seen a story in the news or on social media, 27 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:25,280 or you have a story to tell yourself, 28 00:01:25,980 --> 00:01:27,960 start a discussion on the GitHub repo 29 00:01:27,960 --> 00:01:28,900 and add a pull request. 30 00:01:29,740 --> 00:01:32,040 There are already more than a handful of stories 31 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:34,020 and I'm hoping more get added 32 00:01:34,110 --> 00:01:36,180 as I think it's important to share the impact 33 00:01:36,220 --> 00:01:37,280 of these bullshit tariffs. 34 00:01:37,830 --> 00:01:40,360 And if you read just one article or watch one video, 35 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:42,440 check out Carrie's YouTube video 36 00:01:42,570 --> 00:01:45,360 on how the tariffs are impacting her at Alpenglow. 37 00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:47,800 The video is just over 40 minutes long, 38 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:49,740 but she takes two of the products she sells 39 00:01:49,740 --> 00:01:51,780 and breaks down where all the parts come from 40 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:52,980 from around the world 41 00:01:53,100 --> 00:01:54,880 to show how tariffs are going to affect her. 42 00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:56,560 My favorite part of the video 43 00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:59,860 when she was talking about manufacturing the PCB for the Skein Twister. 44 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:04,360 This one small one inch by two inch PCB has 27 different parts. 45 00:02:04,730 --> 00:02:08,300 And she compares how much it was to have it manufactured in the US versus China. 46 00:02:08,820 --> 00:02:09,960 It's pretty mind blowing. 47 00:02:11,039 --> 00:02:14,160 We need more makers and small business owners sharing their stories, too. 48 00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:16,340 And if you happen to see one, share 49 00:02:16,340 --> 00:02:18,220 it with tariffs or bullshit dot com. 50 00:02:18,860 --> 00:02:20,180 Yeah, yeah, that's that's so good. 51 00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:23,620 It's in some way I'm glad that at least the concept of tariffs 52 00:02:23,620 --> 00:02:27,660 are being sort of talked about more because of the, there's this, 53 00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:31,280 there's this, this exception for low price shipments called the de minimis 54 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:35,300 exception where you didn't get charged import fees for other countries if your 55 00:02:35,460 --> 00:02:36,080 shipments were small. 56 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:39,300 And that's how places like AliExpress and a lot of drop shippers from 57 00:02:39,460 --> 00:02:41,080 Kickstarter were able to like do their things. 58 00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:44,500 But usually you have to pay some tariffs and usually it's, you know, 59 00:02:44,780 --> 00:02:47,160 a couple of percent, five, 10% or something. 60 00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:51,560 And everyone kind of prices that into their, their business model. 61 00:02:51,700 --> 00:02:53,980 Like I've got a small business and I've had to price that in. 62 00:02:54,220 --> 00:02:58,220 Like when the first Trump administration charged, 63 00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:01,460 increased the tariffs from China to 25% 64 00:03:02,180 --> 00:03:04,980 that was implemented irregularly on one big shipment, 65 00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:08,400 no tariffs, on another big shipment, 25%. 66 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:10,820 And suddenly, you know, there goes most of my margin 67 00:03:11,100 --> 00:03:11,940 for selling the product. 68 00:03:12,300 --> 00:03:15,480 And luckily I priced it so that I still had some margin 69 00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:16,860 available to me. 70 00:03:16,860 --> 00:03:19,140 So I made some money off of those, you know, 71 00:03:19,180 --> 00:03:22,120 But it's just like, I've heard again and again, 72 00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:24,500 that like tariffs are charged to the company 73 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:27,080 of the products that we're importing from. 74 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:28,900 It's like, no, no, no, it's on the people 75 00:03:29,420 --> 00:03:31,420 in the country that the tariffs are from. 76 00:03:31,500 --> 00:03:33,880 So like, I am paying the tariffs. 77 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:34,640 - Right. 78 00:03:35,740 --> 00:03:36,880 - If I buy something from China. 79 00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:39,140 And like some of these, like most of these things 80 00:03:39,180 --> 00:03:40,780 we cannot buy in America. 81 00:03:41,140 --> 00:03:44,060 Like you could say maybe that, oh, PCBs, 82 00:03:44,500 --> 00:03:47,640 there are PCB companies that will make PCBs in America. 83 00:03:47,820 --> 00:03:48,460 Yes, that's true. 84 00:03:48,860 --> 00:03:51,260 But all the parts that go on the PCBs, 85 00:03:51,620 --> 00:03:53,100 all of those come everywhere else 86 00:03:53,420 --> 00:03:55,880 because there's hardly nothing made in America 87 00:03:56,700 --> 00:03:57,400 for those components. 88 00:03:57,580 --> 00:04:00,880 And so you have to go outside of US anyway for the parts. 89 00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:04,640 - And Carrie talks about that a little bit in her video 90 00:04:04,780 --> 00:04:06,100 and even just the price difference 91 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:09,840 between what the PCB fabs here in the US charge versus China. 92 00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:11,080 And she shares 93 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:12,940 that a lot of the PCB fabs here in the US 94 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:14,500 are part of the defense industry. 95 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:15,120 They can 96 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:15,580 charge 97 00:04:15,580 --> 00:04:17,219 much higher prices 98 00:04:17,220 --> 00:04:19,000 than the average consumer is willing to pay. 99 00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:20,000 And those 100 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:21,380 were things that I didn't know 101 00:04:21,500 --> 00:04:24,020 that were kind of eye opening and just watching one video. 102 00:04:24,580 --> 00:04:26,340 - Yeah, that's how I first got into 103 00:04:26,780 --> 00:04:28,140 like knowing how to make PCBs 104 00:04:28,240 --> 00:04:32,260 was with US based aerospace focused PCB suppliers. 105 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:35,480 And so the step up from just making a PCB 106 00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:38,880 is a PCB assembly where they put parts on. 107 00:04:40,360 --> 00:04:42,260 And there are these companies in the US 108 00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:44,220 that back in the 90s, 109 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:49,740 you had to fax them a document and they would get back to you with a quote. 110 00:04:49,860 --> 00:04:52,440 And pretty much the API to them is still the same. 111 00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:54,740 You send them an email and they'll come back to you. 112 00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:59,540 Whereas these other companies and mostly China, you go to a website 113 00:04:59,700 --> 00:05:02,520 and you can you upload your CAD output files. 114 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:04,100 You get an immediate quote. 115 00:05:04,220 --> 00:05:05,620 You can pay for it right then. 116 00:05:06,420 --> 00:05:09,380 And, you know, and then like in a week later or two weeks later, 117 00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:13,500 whatever you get, you get the products that you've designed and specified. 118 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:16,300 because they can do all this because it's all robots. 119 00:05:17,060 --> 00:05:17,220 - Right. 120 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:17,520 - There's 121 00:05:17,520 --> 00:05:19,220 very little human intervention. 122 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:22,440 And if you know how to design your products 123 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:26,280 to use the robots more, it's a lot faster too. 124 00:05:27,220 --> 00:05:29,380 And there's nothing like that in the US yet. 125 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:31,680 Like every time I do a big production run, 126 00:05:32,180 --> 00:05:37,140 I look to see, hey, how's the US PCBA facilities? 127 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:39,560 And like, you know, they're all way too expensive 128 00:05:39,620 --> 00:05:42,440 'cause they've never had to focus on that. 129 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:48,580 And who knows if this will ever, like, there's the one upside is that maybe this will cause the U.S. 130 00:05:48,840 --> 00:05:51,640 PCB industry to happen more, but I don't know. 131 00:05:52,460 --> 00:05:55,100 It's going to take them years, even if it were to happen. 132 00:05:55,720 --> 00:05:56,840 Yeah, exactly that. 133 00:05:58,270 --> 00:05:59,780 All right. What's your first one for us? 134 00:06:00,280 --> 00:06:06,840 Well, sort of, sort of related in a way. It's about desoldering tricks. So if you've ever 135 00:06:07,260 --> 00:06:11,199 soldered together electronic circuit boards yourself, you've probably wanted to unsolder 136 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:14,300 some of those components. And normally, unsoldering PCBs, 137 00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:18,500 unsoldering parts from PCBs is a pain. And for some parts, it's almost impossible. You just like, 138 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:21,720 we'll start again from a fresh board because it's like, I'm just going to mess the board up if I 139 00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:25,760 try to unsolder this. And that's not the most cost effective solution, especially nowadays, 140 00:06:26,900 --> 00:06:31,320 when parts supplies are a little bit unknown because of this ever shifting tariff landscape. 141 00:06:32,620 --> 00:06:37,560 And so it might become more cost effective for all of us hackers to desolder parts from 142 00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:39,220 existing boards and to repurpose them. 143 00:06:40,140 --> 00:06:43,960 Back in the Covid chip shortage, I knew a small manufacturer who did this because they 144 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:48,040 were able to get these little demo boards, these little dev boards for pretty cheap and 145 00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:53,080 it was cheaper for them to buy these dev boards, unsolder the main chip they needed from it, 146 00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:56,620 and then solder it down onto their own project that they were then having to kickstart it 147 00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:56,880 for. 148 00:06:57,580 --> 00:07:00,620 So I'm always on the lookout for techniques that are quicker and cheaper than what I normally 149 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:01,740 do for desoldering. 150 00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:04,900 And I recently came across two videos to do that. 151 00:07:05,280 --> 00:07:07,580 The first is from YouTube channel Tinkering Daily 152 00:07:08,050 --> 00:07:10,440 that shows this really clever low cost technique 153 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:11,980 for removing surface melt components. 154 00:07:12,610 --> 00:07:14,840 To start, you get a soda can, no really, 155 00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:17,960 and using tin snips, cut a piece of the can out 156 00:07:17,980 --> 00:07:20,140 a few inches long, about as wide as your finger, 157 00:07:20,780 --> 00:07:24,660 taper down one end of that strip that you've cut 158 00:07:25,260 --> 00:07:26,940 so that it's about less than a centimeter across, 159 00:07:27,260 --> 00:07:28,600 and then using sandpaper, 160 00:07:29,500 --> 00:07:31,620 reduce the thickness of the aluminum 161 00:07:32,100 --> 00:07:34,500 till it's about.08 millimeters thick. 162 00:07:34,900 --> 00:07:35,820 so you have to have some calipers, 163 00:07:36,380 --> 00:07:38,040 but now it's a thin desoldering shim. 164 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:40,260 That thickness means it can slip underneath 165 00:07:40,580 --> 00:07:41,380 soldered down parts. 166 00:07:41,730 --> 00:07:44,440 So the process to unsolder the part 167 00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:46,820 is you stick the little shim in there, 168 00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:50,440 unsolder one side, slide the little shim 169 00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:51,800 a little bit farther underneath the thing 170 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:54,260 you just heated up, and then unsolder the other side 171 00:07:54,420 --> 00:07:56,540 and move the shim over to get underneath 172 00:07:56,700 --> 00:07:57,960 the part you just heated up again, 173 00:07:58,340 --> 00:07:59,320 and the part's now unsoldered. 174 00:07:59,590 --> 00:08:00,780 And since it's made of aluminum, 175 00:08:01,460 --> 00:08:02,680 solder doesn't stick to aluminum. 176 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:04,580 It'll just like kind of peel off when it cools. 177 00:08:05,300 --> 00:08:06,520 So this is really clever. 178 00:08:07,060 --> 00:08:08,920 The person Tinker Daily shows, 179 00:08:09,820 --> 00:08:11,480 removing multiple different kinds of parts 180 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:13,560 like SD card sockets, audio jacks, 181 00:08:14,020 --> 00:08:15,740 large flash storage chips. 182 00:08:16,170 --> 00:08:18,760 It seems like a really, really kind of cool, 183 00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:20,600 almost like street vendor technique. 184 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:24,220 Like you can almost imagine someone is gonna upgrade 185 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:25,960 the memory of your phone using a technique 186 00:08:26,080 --> 00:08:26,660 like this or something. 187 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:27,280 - Sure. 188 00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:28,920 (laughing) 189 00:08:29,190 --> 00:08:31,140 - So last week I got a soda can and tried this out myself 190 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:31,820 and it works. 191 00:08:32,180 --> 00:08:36,159 I'm not very good at it yet, but I'm going to totally add it to my toolkit of techniques 192 00:08:36,260 --> 00:08:37,260 whenever I need to unsolder stuff. 193 00:08:37,979 --> 00:08:42,180 And then later in the video, Tinker Daily also shows how to make unsoldering through-hole 194 00:08:42,260 --> 00:08:45,900 components with one of those little solder suckers, those spring-loaded solder suckers. 195 00:08:46,460 --> 00:08:51,460 And those solder suckers I've always had problems with, but if you really need to desolder a 196 00:08:51,460 --> 00:08:56,060 lot of through-hole parts and you have $200, check out the recent video from Jeff Geerling 197 00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:58,780 about the Hakko FR-301. 198 00:08:59,620 --> 00:09:03,860 This build is a portable desoldering tool, but it's really just a motorized solder sucker 199 00:09:04,100 --> 00:09:04,940 with some better engineering. 200 00:09:05,410 --> 00:09:07,840 It solves the two main problems I've had with solder suckers. 201 00:09:08,680 --> 00:09:10,660 The solder sucker is a separate thing from your soldering irons. 202 00:09:10,700 --> 00:09:13,160 There's always a little bit of a gap in both time and space. 203 00:09:13,250 --> 00:09:17,880 You have to heat up the joint and then move the solder sucker in and push the plunger. 204 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:19,460 Hopefully you'll do that fast enough. 205 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:24,420 Usually it doesn't, so you always leave some behind and the solder will cool down. 206 00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:27,380 The other is that the solder sucker will clog. 207 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,780 a couple of uses it clogs up you have to say kind of stop what you're doing take 208 00:09:31,860 --> 00:09:36,520 the solder sucker apart clean it out the FR-301 has solves both these problems it 209 00:09:36,580 --> 00:09:40,800 has a tip that's both the heater and the sucker and when it sucks up the solder 210 00:09:40,860 --> 00:09:44,020 it stores it in this little chamber that's separate from the nozzle so it 211 00:09:44,020 --> 00:09:47,280 didn't so it never gets clogged in normal use it looks really well designed 212 00:09:47,340 --> 00:09:49,920 it looks like a little it looks kind of soldering gun but it's got this little 213 00:09:50,660 --> 00:09:54,780 whirring air pump that activates when you pull the trigger and so if 214 00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:57,760 you're gonna do a lot of through-hole rework you just need to unsolder a bunch 215 00:09:57,680 --> 00:09:59,900 to parts, it's literally as fast as going 216 00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:03,180 dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk to unsolder about five joints. 217 00:10:03,300 --> 00:10:05,640 It's like, I don't need to do it very often, 218 00:10:05,690 --> 00:10:07,960 but if I do need to, I'm going to get one of these. 219 00:10:08,780 --> 00:10:10,920 - Yeah, I was just thinking for $200, that's a lot. 220 00:10:10,940 --> 00:10:13,200 But if it's really that easy, this chunk, chunk, chunk, 221 00:10:13,300 --> 00:10:15,340 and it's coming off just like that, 222 00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:18,540 I can see the making an investment like that. 223 00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:19,340 - Totally. 224 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:21,320 So Paul, what's your next one? 225 00:10:22,020 --> 00:10:23,600 - Philips, the company that makes everything 226 00:10:23,700 --> 00:10:25,580 from light bulbs to electric razors, 227 00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:27,720 has announced a new program they call Fixables. 228 00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:30,080 If you followed the right to repair movement, 229 00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:31,520 it's, and I'm quoting, 230 00:10:32,140 --> 00:10:33,760 "a legal right for owners or devices 231 00:10:33,940 --> 00:10:36,480 "to freely modify or repair products they own 232 00:10:36,810 --> 00:10:38,940 "and stop making everything disposable." 233 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:41,440 For example, without the right to repair initiative, 234 00:10:42,020 --> 00:10:44,040 we might not have been able to unlock our mobile phones 235 00:10:44,100 --> 00:10:45,380 and take them to another carrier, 236 00:10:45,750 --> 00:10:47,900 like the law passed in 2014 in the US. 237 00:10:48,380 --> 00:10:50,760 There are right to repair bills in all 50 states, 238 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:53,040 and a handful of states have already passed legislation, 239 00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:55,220 including California, Massachusetts, 240 00:10:55,440 --> 00:10:56,440 and my home state of Minnesota. 241 00:10:57,300 --> 00:11:00,000 So it's pretty cool to see a large corporation jumping in. 242 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:02,420 Now Philips is starting very small 243 00:11:02,540 --> 00:11:05,240 with the first part being one three millimeter comb 244 00:11:05,340 --> 00:11:08,240 for the Norelco OneBlade, a men's electric shaver. 245 00:11:08,780 --> 00:11:10,360 According to an article at Tom's Hardware, 246 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:13,100 the program is primarily for the Czech Republic at launch 247 00:11:13,540 --> 00:11:16,180 and Prusa Research and LaPub have partnered with Philips 248 00:11:16,540 --> 00:11:18,620 to help with the local maker community adoption. 249 00:11:19,400 --> 00:11:20,820 Philips has also added a webpage 250 00:11:20,820 --> 00:11:22,439 where you can submit a request 251 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:24,240 for them to add a specific part. 252 00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:27,060 Too many electronic devices are disposable these days 253 00:11:27,060 --> 00:11:28,680 and I love seeing a company dive 254 00:11:28,690 --> 00:11:28,840 into 255 00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:30,000 something new like this. 256 00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:31,640 - Yeah, this is so cool. 257 00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:36,400 It's like if you've ever been on Thingiverse, Printables, 258 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:40,120 any of these other 3D printer sort of model websites, 259 00:11:40,260 --> 00:11:42,680 or if you've been on the 3D printing subreddit, 260 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:44,280 the functional print subreddit, 261 00:11:44,660 --> 00:11:47,980 there's all these little add-ons that sometimes, 262 00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:50,020 oftentimes they're for home grooming things. 263 00:11:50,060 --> 00:11:52,420 They're like things to make your toothbrush easier to hold 264 00:11:52,420 --> 00:11:56,860 or like I've seen add-ons for different kinds of blade things 265 00:11:56,920 --> 00:11:57,260 like this. 266 00:11:57,360 --> 00:11:58,000 Like this is for-- 267 00:11:58,000 --> 00:11:59,880 I think it's a motorized razor, and it turns it 268 00:11:59,960 --> 00:12:02,500 into a beard trimmer is what the fixables thing. 269 00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:07,220 And this is sort of the perfect application for a 3D printer 270 00:12:07,300 --> 00:12:09,480 because you can customize it pretty easy for different 271 00:12:09,620 --> 00:12:10,480 lengths if you want. 272 00:12:11,020 --> 00:12:13,620 And it doesn't need that much physical strength 273 00:12:13,780 --> 00:12:15,640 because it's just this little plastic thing that goes 274 00:12:15,700 --> 00:12:17,520 between the razor and your face. 275 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:20,220 There's not a lot of physical stress on the part. 276 00:12:20,300 --> 00:12:23,460 So it can be a thin, a thin kind of delicate looking thing. 277 00:12:24,310 --> 00:12:27,680 And yeah, and the fact that Philips is supporting this means that we get 278 00:12:27,980 --> 00:12:29,060 good, accurate measurements. 279 00:12:29,060 --> 00:12:30,660 We don't have to like reverse engineer it. 280 00:12:31,260 --> 00:12:31,680 Exactly. 281 00:12:32,340 --> 00:12:33,120 And you 282 00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:34,620 mentioned Thingiverse and Printables. 283 00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:37,840 They have their own Printables page, so you can actually subscribe 284 00:12:38,020 --> 00:12:41,080 and follow them too to see them add more parts over time. 285 00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:43,100 Oh, that's cool. That's awesome. Yeah. 286 00:12:43,660 --> 00:12:44,900 So what's your next one for us? 287 00:12:45,250 --> 00:12:45,620 All right. 288 00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:49,140 So you ever are you up for a two and a half hour 289 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:51,600 documentary about a 1980s video game. 290 00:12:52,620 --> 00:12:55,960 I always am up for a video game documentary. 291 00:12:57,040 --> 00:13:00,960 All right. So on YouTube, there's this there's this video called Resurrecting 292 00:13:01,140 --> 00:13:04,900 Sinistar. It's a documentary by nom de plume musician Synamax 293 00:13:05,460 --> 00:13:09,920 about the revolutionary and scary as heck to me as a kid coin up game Sinistar. 294 00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:14,360 Sinistar was created by Williams Electronics, makers of other famous video 295 00:13:14,580 --> 00:13:16,660 games like Defender, Robotron and Joust. 296 00:13:17,160 --> 00:13:18,780 I played all these when I was a kid. I loved them. 297 00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:23,700 It was the first game to feature real sampled voice audio, like... 298 00:13:24,300 --> 00:13:26,080 "I am Sinistar. 299 00:13:26,820 --> 00:13:28,400 Beware, I live." 300 00:13:28,620 --> 00:13:29,240 And... 301 00:13:31,500 --> 00:13:31,980 "RUN!" 302 00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:34,500 And it would play this while you're playing the game, 303 00:13:34,900 --> 00:13:38,640 when the big Sinistar monster's coming after you. It was terrifying. 304 00:13:39,100 --> 00:13:43,240 It also had a 49-way joystick and blistering fast gameplay. 305 00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:44,740 It was like one of the hardest games ever played. 306 00:13:45,340 --> 00:13:47,980 If you've never seen it, gameplay is vaguely Asteroids-like, 307 00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:52,140 but you shoot the rocks to mine bombs that use against this growing, 308 00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:54,220 sentient planet called Sinistar. 309 00:13:54,810 --> 00:13:56,500 The documentary is quite long at over two hours, 310 00:13:56,810 --> 00:13:59,700 but it goes into the history of the team that created these games, 311 00:14:00,100 --> 00:14:02,920 the challenges of making video games at all in the 1980s, 312 00:14:03,400 --> 00:14:06,120 some of the assembly language tricks needed for certain game features 313 00:14:06,700 --> 00:14:09,160 and some of the technical hurdles that made Sinistar unique. 314 00:14:10,220 --> 00:14:11,280 How did how did they do audio? 315 00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:13,520 How did they make that 49 way joystick work? 316 00:14:14,220 --> 00:14:17,539 It also discusses the challenges of reconstructing a modern 317 00:14:17,540 --> 00:14:20,560 working build of the game from 40-year-old source code. 318 00:14:20,900 --> 00:14:24,220 This is because a couple of years ago, the source code for several Williams 319 00:14:24,340 --> 00:14:26,400 video games appeared anonymously online. 320 00:14:27,260 --> 00:14:31,400 I have a link to the GitHub repo for all this if you want to look at what 321 00:14:32,580 --> 00:14:33,860 1980s source code looked like. 322 00:14:34,820 --> 00:14:37,200 Along the way, the documentary has exclusive interviews of members of the 323 00:14:37,260 --> 00:14:40,640 Williams game team, project lead software engineer Noah Falstein, sound 324 00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:43,400 engineer Mike Metz, and game designer John Newcomer. 325 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:48,620 You can track Synamax's work, who made the documentary, on his public GitHub repo, so 326 00:14:48,620 --> 00:14:52,640 you can see how he's been modifying the code to work with modern tools. 327 00:14:53,180 --> 00:14:57,920 Also, the video has chapters, so even though it's two hours long, you can think of it as 328 00:14:57,980 --> 00:15:01,639 maybe an eight-episode miniseries. 329 00:15:02,990 --> 00:15:03,140 Yeah, 330 00:15:03,240 --> 00:15:03,600 you should. 331 00:15:04,180 --> 00:15:07,300 It's closer to three hours than two hours at that, too. 332 00:15:07,710 --> 00:15:07,820 Yeah, totally. 333 00:15:07,820 --> 00:15:08,660 I started watching 334 00:15:08,660 --> 00:15:12,399 it, and the next thing I knew is I was two or three chapters into 335 00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:14,420 A half hour had gone by just like that. 336 00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:16,380 And it's it's engaging. 337 00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:20,320 And it's very nostalgic and takes me back to when I was very young 338 00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:20,760 and playing in 339 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:21,260 arcades. 340 00:15:22,020 --> 00:15:24,900 Yeah, no, it like like CineStar would always call to me. 341 00:15:24,950 --> 00:15:26,840 I mean, like literally because it's a track mode 342 00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:28,620 as it would occasionally play these scary 343 00:15:29,480 --> 00:15:31,420 vocal sounds as you're just walking by. 344 00:15:34,340 --> 00:15:35,060 All right, Paul, 345 00:15:35,060 --> 00:15:35,760 so what's your next one? 346 00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:40,220 I recently came across Kiwix, thanks to Alex Glow on the social networks. 347 00:15:40,900 --> 00:15:44,940 Kiwix is a non-profit dedicated to providing offline access to free content. 348 00:15:45,740 --> 00:15:49,660 It's free and open source and allows you to make compressed copies of entire websites like 349 00:15:49,820 --> 00:15:55,340 Wikipedia or Project Gutenberg. Their homepage mentions 50% of the world doesn't have access 350 00:15:55,340 --> 00:15:59,840 to reliable internet and this is one way to bring the world's content to those areas without good 351 00:15:59,970 --> 00:16:05,779 internet. Kiwix supports the whole stack. They have a Kiwix server, you can run on a Raspberry 352 00:16:05,780 --> 00:16:11,680 Pi or any other major OS like Windows, Mac, or Linux. But if you use a Raspberry Pi, you 353 00:16:11,700 --> 00:16:15,780 can also use it as a wireless hotspot to serve these local websites to anyone connecting. 354 00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:20,860 Almost any model of Raspberry Pi will work from the Model 3b on up except for the Zero 355 00:16:20,980 --> 00:16:27,560 2W. Or you will soon be able to buy a Pi hotspot right from Kiwix that comes with an SSD, Pi5, 356 00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:28,920 real-time clock, and more. 357 00:16:30,020 --> 00:16:35,760 So what does Kiwix do? It allows you to download entire websites and serve them offline. You 358 00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:40,680 which I think is only about 57 gigs for the English version and host it locally. 359 00:16:41,490 --> 00:16:45,760 You can visit library.kiewix.org to see the websites they make available for 360 00:16:45,940 --> 00:16:49,280 offline use and it includes a thousand books as they call it. 361 00:16:49,770 --> 00:16:53,540 They have tons of documentation available from Linux distro docs to Python 362 00:16:54,319 --> 00:16:57,740 documentation to all of the free code camp to teach you how to code. 363 00:16:58,310 --> 00:17:05,740 They use the Zim file format, which is an open document format with excellent 364 00:17:05,740 --> 00:17:10,760 audience. I was amused when I was on the Kiwix hotspot page and they have multiple personas 365 00:17:11,360 --> 00:17:16,300 that come with the Kiwix preloaded. One who wants all of Wikipedia, someone that might want medical 366 00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:22,540 information, someone who might want TED talks, computer docs, and my favorite, Doomsday preppers. 367 00:17:23,140 --> 00:17:24,800 Because when World War III starts, someone 368 00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:26,459 has to save mankind's knowledge. 369 00:17:29,940 --> 00:17:35,720 This is amazing. As someone who's tried to mirror a website by hand with like clever invocations of 370 00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:38,660 you get and getting a somewhat functional site, but not really. 371 00:17:39,340 --> 00:17:41,900 This is a really cool, really cool set up 372 00:17:42,380 --> 00:17:47,700 because so many of our documentation setups now aren't just a single linear page, 373 00:17:47,700 --> 00:17:49,460 but rather these like complicated websites. 374 00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:52,320 So we need something like this. This is this is really neat. 375 00:17:53,060 --> 00:17:55,640 Yeah, I agree. And what's your last one for us? 376 00:17:56,600 --> 00:18:01,300 All right. So it's about a hardware thing for for musical synthesizer stuff. 377 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,380 It's called Euronob. It's a knob. It's a jack. 378 00:18:04,420 --> 00:18:06,680 It's a knob. No, it's Euro knob. 379 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:08,400 So what is this? 380 00:18:08,940 --> 00:18:13,500 The talented hacker, Mitzella, perhaps most famous for his self-proclaimed 381 00:18:13,780 --> 00:18:16,860 smallest and worst MIDI sense that fit inside of a USB 382 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:20,480 A jack or USB C jack, recently posted this really clever hack 383 00:18:20,580 --> 00:18:25,700 that allows you to plug a knob into a headphone jack and turn it to adjust values. 384 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:27,320 How how does this work? 385 00:18:27,620 --> 00:18:31,740 You so imagine you get this Eurorack modular synth set up with wires going all over. 386 00:18:31,780 --> 00:18:36,240 some of the wires carry these control voltages, maybe from a slow oscillator module, a low 387 00:18:36,300 --> 00:18:40,340 frequency oscillator or LFO, that alters the behavior of another module like a filter. 388 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:44,760 Thus this wire is what's making the sound rhythmically go "wow wow wow wow". 389 00:18:45,050 --> 00:18:49,800 But now you can just unplug that wire, plug in a knob, and turn the knob to change the 390 00:18:49,840 --> 00:18:52,480 filter directly, make it "wow" or however you want. 391 00:18:52,990 --> 00:18:53,780 So what is this magic? 392 00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:57,980 The Euronob solves a common problem in modular synths like Eurorack systems. 393 00:18:58,540 --> 00:19:04,040 Some of these synth modules have jack inputs, but no corresponding knob on their front panel 394 00:19:04,040 --> 00:19:05,160 to change the value. 395 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:09,580 So you have to just wire stuff up even to just see what this input does. 396 00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:18,060 And the way he does this is his hack has behind the jack a special type of magnetic position 397 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:18,480 encoder. 398 00:19:18,930 --> 00:19:23,340 So on axis, it's got the jack and the encoder below it. 399 00:19:23,650 --> 00:19:27,240 So when you plug a cable in, the jack just acts like any old jack. 400 00:19:28,120 --> 00:19:34,380 But if you plug in his special knob, the shaft of which looks like a plug, but it has a small 401 00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:35,360 embedded magnet in it. 402 00:19:35,590 --> 00:19:41,240 So as you plug the jack, sorry, plug the knob into the jack and turn the knob, the magnet 403 00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:44,160 rotates which the magnetic position encoder can read. 404 00:19:45,120 --> 00:19:47,260 And these magnetic encoders are incredibly precise. 405 00:19:47,610 --> 00:19:50,280 The cheap ones he's using is the AS5600. 406 00:19:51,110 --> 00:19:56,360 It provides 12 bit position accuracy and they're effectively noiseless, unlike the DACs of 407 00:19:56,380 --> 00:19:57,180 most of the microcontrollers. 408 00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:00,040 if you ever hooked up a pot to an Arduino or something, 409 00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:02,100 even when you're not touching it, 410 00:20:02,220 --> 00:20:06,400 the value will like oscillate around like five or six values 411 00:20:06,420 --> 00:20:08,320 because there's just like inherent noise in the system. 412 00:20:08,740 --> 00:20:09,480 And this doesn't have that 413 00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:11,180 because it's just measuring the magnetic field 414 00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:12,240 and that doesn't really change. 415 00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:15,360 There's no magnetic noise in our lives usually 416 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:16,780 is to cause it to do that. 417 00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:18,900 And I've been wanting to use some of these 418 00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:21,700 AS5600 magnetic position encoders for a while 419 00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:24,780 because they seem like a really good knob solution. 420 00:20:25,360 --> 00:20:26,780 They're little I squared C devices. 421 00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:27,520 you can just talk to it. 422 00:20:28,060 --> 00:20:29,780 One thing that's been stopping me is trying to figure out 423 00:20:29,860 --> 00:20:31,620 how do you mount the magnet? 424 00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:32,600 'Cause you need a magnet 425 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:35,620 and it needs to be on the shaft of the knob. 426 00:20:36,340 --> 00:20:38,320 So I'm thinking of using his idea, 427 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:41,940 not even using the jack aspect of the jack, 428 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:44,200 but just using the jack and the plug 429 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:46,720 as a mechanical system to hold the magnet. 430 00:20:48,020 --> 00:20:51,440 So if you wanna look up this project, 431 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:56,259 Mitsula has published a blog post on how it all works 432 00:20:56,260 --> 00:20:58,660 and then a GitHub repo with his PCB design, 433 00:20:58,900 --> 00:20:59,720 software, and CAD files. 434 00:21:00,340 --> 00:21:01,600 - Yeah, the write-up is fantastic. 435 00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:05,260 He walks through how he built the whole project 436 00:21:05,300 --> 00:21:07,060 and shares the CAD files in it and everything. 437 00:21:07,700 --> 00:21:09,680 The only disappointment I had was towards the end, 438 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:11,660 he's like, "This is a prototype, 439 00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:13,560 "but I don't plan on moving forward with it 440 00:21:13,590 --> 00:21:16,160 "'cause it's probably not viable long-term," 441 00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:16,920 or something like that. 442 00:21:16,940 --> 00:21:18,840 And I'm like, "Oh, you went to all this work." 443 00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:19,600 (laughing) 444 00:21:20,500 --> 00:21:22,680 - Yeah, all of his projects are like this. 445 00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:26,120 everyone go to his webpage. 446 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:27,760 He's been doing these things for like 10 years. 447 00:21:28,340 --> 00:21:30,960 They're like little art pieces almost, and they could be 448 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:33,200 manufacturable and productizable, but no. 449 00:21:35,660 --> 00:21:36,580 He does it for the fun of it. 450 00:21:37,100 --> 00:21:38,620 Well, why else would you do it? 451 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:39,580 Right. 452 00:21:41,220 --> 00:21:42,260 Well, that's our show. 453 00:21:42,980 --> 00:21:46,900 For transcripts and detailed show notes, visit thebootloader.net and 454 00:21:46,900 --> 00:21:47,300 check out 455 00:21:47,360 --> 00:21:50,000 the show notes to also follow us on all the different social networks. 456 00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:52,220 Until next time, stay positive. 457 00:21:52,540 --> 00:21:53,440 [MUSIC 458 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:54,960 PLAYING]