1 00:00:04,740 --> 00:00:05,580 Welcome to The Bootloader. 2 00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:06,420 I'm Todd Kurt. 3 00:00:07,020 --> 00:00:07,780 And I'm Paul Cutler. 4 00:00:08,060 --> 00:00:09,180 The show works like this. 5 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:14,000 Todd and I have each brought three things to share with you that will chat about for about five minutes each. 6 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:16,320 For detailed show notes and transcripts, 7 00:00:16,580 --> 00:00:17,760 visit the bootloader.net. 8 00:00:18,420 --> 00:00:19,960 Todd, what's up first for us? 9 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:22,140 Free media, heck yeah. 10 00:00:23,020 --> 00:00:27,840 When I was younger, the Internet's promise was that it was to be this infinite playground of all humanity's knowledge. 11 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:32,680 For the last decade or more, it seemed like a small collection of members-only big box stores instead. 12 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:34,760 That's not very techno-utopian, 13 00:00:35,520 --> 00:00:38,820 but the FMHY.net site brings that feeling back for me. 14 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:42,400 FMHY.net or Free Media, 15 00:00:42,580 --> 00:00:42,860 heck yeah, 16 00:00:43,480 --> 00:00:45,920 is a hand-cured categorized repository, 17 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:47,640 sort of like the Yahoo of old, 18 00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:49,480 of all kinds of free software, 19 00:00:49,780 --> 00:00:50,760 videos, audio, 20 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:52,740 video games, tips and tricks, and more. 21 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:54,200 For instance, 22 00:00:54,580 --> 00:00:57,800 there's a huge book section with links to many free e-book repositories. 23 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:01,920 By the way, did you know that the Internet Archive has a huge collection of e-books? 24 00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:03,100 They're all free, 25 00:01:03,300 --> 00:01:06,260 and the modern ones you can check out for a bit, like a library book. 26 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,020 There's links to a bunch of different e-book reader apps so you can find the one you like, 27 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:14,740 but there's also these great lists of repositories of audiobooks, comics, 28 00:01:15,020 --> 00:01:15,540 STEM books, 29 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:16,040 history, 30 00:01:16,540 --> 00:01:18,280 and even academic paper repositories. 31 00:01:18,780 --> 00:01:22,660 Almost all these academic papers that are out there, you can read. 32 00:01:23,220 --> 00:01:23,760 It's all free. 33 00:01:24,180 --> 00:01:26,040 You just got to know where to find them, and this place has it. 34 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:27,380 And in the gaming section, 35 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:30,000 there's a long list of places to find abandoned games. 36 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:32,960 Ever wanted to play the Windows 7 version of MindSweeper? 37 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:36,060 Or play the old Commodore 64 games? 38 00:01:36,540 --> 00:01:37,600 This site has links for you. 39 00:01:38,860 --> 00:01:45,060 And of course, there's a Linux macOS section that leads to the various Linux distros and how to install them, 40 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:48,800 but it also contains a bunch of great general command line how-to guides. 41 00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:52,220 A favorite one I found is called, You Don't Need GUI, 42 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:56,400 that's showing you how to do things in the terminal that you normally would do with a GUI. 43 00:01:57,399 --> 00:02:01,880 And yes, the FMHY site also has sections on torrenting, 44 00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:05,020 which is a very efficient way to support the distribution of free media. 45 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:09,039 But it can also be used to acquire not exactly legal copies of media. 46 00:02:09,500 --> 00:02:10,280 Be warned, 47 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:11,020 be informed. 48 00:02:12,140 --> 00:02:13,200 Torrentine is not illegal. 49 00:02:13,740 --> 00:02:18,120 And it's a great way to take the pressure off big downloads from the kind people that are hosting those big downloads. 50 00:02:18,980 --> 00:02:19,320 And it's a great, 51 00:02:19,500 --> 00:02:22,080 like, for instance, it's a great way of getting a full copy of Wikipedia. 52 00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:25,400 So, yeah, so FMHY is huge. 53 00:02:25,420 --> 00:02:25,960 It's wonderful. 54 00:02:26,900 --> 00:02:29,260 I've had a lot of fun this last week poking around in it. 55 00:02:29,620 --> 00:02:30,280 Highly recommended. 56 00:02:31,340 --> 00:02:34,880 I specifically haven't gone there yet because I know that if I do, 57 00:02:35,150 --> 00:02:37,520 I will get lost in it for hours. 58 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:39,080 That kind of nostalgia. 59 00:02:39,190 --> 00:02:40,740 I just love that kind of stuff. 60 00:02:41,270 --> 00:02:50,300 And even the old Linux distros that you threw out there, it would be fun to throw those in a virtual machine and just go back and see what those old operating systems and UIs look like. 61 00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:52,860 Not to mention the games and the books. 62 00:02:53,100 --> 00:02:53,240 So, 63 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:55,140 yeah, I can't get into that. 64 00:02:55,180 --> 00:02:56,560 I'm just too busy at the moment. 65 00:02:57,540 --> 00:03:00,260 Yeah, for me, for me, I'm a big educational, 66 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:01,180 like, 67 00:03:01,420 --> 00:03:04,700 documentary video essays sort of person. 68 00:03:04,710 --> 00:03:06,720 I love watching those things on YouTube or on Nebula. 69 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:12,720 Also, I learned that, like, through this, that archive.org has a bunch of really cool documentaries, 70 00:03:12,980 --> 00:03:19,520 some of which are pretty recent, but some of which are things from, like, the 40s and 50s that were made that are really interesting and, like, 71 00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:25,140 how clay pots were made in England in the 1950s, in the 1950s, 72 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:26,020 an industrial scale. 73 00:03:26,180 --> 00:03:28,580 They've got a documentary that's all in black and white. It's really cool. 74 00:03:31,420 --> 00:03:31,500 So, 75 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:33,500 Paul, what's your first one for this time? 76 00:03:34,380 --> 00:03:35,660 You may have heard of the Flipper Zero, 77 00:03:35,860 --> 00:03:38,060 a small handheld piece of hardware that was even 78 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:43,000 banned at the New York City mayoral inauguration earlier this year because organizers don't 79 00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:43,820 understand it either. 80 00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:47,500 If you visit their website, they describe the Flipper Zero as a tiny 81 00:03:47,620 --> 00:03:51,500 piece of hardware that can help you explore any kind of access control system, 82 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:52,540 RFID, 83 00:03:53,060 --> 00:03:53,300 radio 84 00:03:53,380 --> 00:03:56,260 protocols and even exposes some GPIO pins. 85 00:03:56,730 --> 00:03:57,460 It has wireless, 86 00:03:57,720 --> 00:03:58,140 RFID, 87 00:03:58,420 --> 00:03:59,100 NFC, Bluetooth, 88 00:03:59,540 --> 00:04:01,800 infrared, and more all powered by an STM 89 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:03,960 Cortex M4 microcontroller. 90 00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:08,160 Lifehacker had an article about all the fun things you can do with the Flipper 91 00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:12,300 Zero from using it as a universal remote to listening in on walkie-talkie conversations 92 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:14,240 to taking your pet's temperature. 93 00:04:15,020 --> 00:04:17,600 But it also highlights some of the things that you can do that can cause a little 94 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:20,579 mischief like cloning keyless entry cards, 95 00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:23,280 crashing Android phones, or reading credit 96 00:04:23,300 --> 00:04:24,060 credit card information. 97 00:04:24,820 --> 00:04:27,520 This all comes in a tiny package that fits in your hand for $200. 98 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:31,060 And now they want to build the Flipper One. 99 00:04:31,500 --> 00:04:33,740 In a blog post from late last month, 100 00:04:33,980 --> 00:04:34,620 the Flipper team 101 00:04:34,940 --> 00:04:38,260 outlined their project goals and gave an overview of the hardware. 102 00:04:38,840 --> 00:04:39,460 They specifically 103 00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:42,660 call out that the Flipper One isn't an upgrade to the Flipper 0. 104 00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:43,880 It's a completely different 105 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:45,360 project with different goals. 106 00:04:46,100 --> 00:04:48,740 One of their main goals is to have the Flipper One working as a 107 00:04:48,900 --> 00:04:53,260 standalone Linux computer with the ability to plug in modules like an SSD or 108 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:54,200 a cellular modem. 109 00:04:55,100 --> 00:04:57,120 And they want it to be truly open 110 00:04:57,360 --> 00:04:59,140 in one that works out of the box with an 111 00:04:59,400 --> 00:05:00,260 upstream Linux kernel. 112 00:05:01,100 --> 00:05:03,140 No binary blobs, no closed source 113 00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:04,360 or proprietary firmware, 114 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:05,000 but truly 115 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:05,520 open. 116 00:05:06,020 --> 00:05:07,040 They go on to share how the 117 00:05:07,140 --> 00:05:08,520 state of arm Linux is depressing, 118 00:05:08,900 --> 00:05:09,420 their words, 119 00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:11,200 that every vendor has closed 120 00:05:11,320 --> 00:05:11,920 source component. 121 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:13,300 Look at the 122 00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:15,320 Pico, the Bluetooth stack is closed source 123 00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:15,960 for example. 124 00:05:17,500 --> 00:05:19,140 If you're into Linux, you may have heard of 125 00:05:19,340 --> 00:05:21,200 Collabora, a consulting company that does a lot 126 00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:23,240 of work with GStreamer as well. They've partnered 127 00:05:23,260 --> 00:05:27,080 with the Flipper team to get the Rock Chip RK3576 chip 128 00:05:27,820 --> 00:05:29,260 into the mainline Linux kernel, 129 00:05:29,780 --> 00:05:31,580 and they shared a neat article about the process 130 00:05:31,740 --> 00:05:33,040 which I've linked to in the show notes. 131 00:05:34,060 --> 00:05:34,880 With all that said, 132 00:05:35,380 --> 00:05:36,920 the specs in the Flipper One are crazy 133 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:38,760 for a small handheld cyberdeck. 134 00:05:39,340 --> 00:05:40,560 I've already mentioned the chipset, 135 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:41,920 but it has networking support 136 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:43,940 with two gigabit Ethernet ports, 137 00:05:44,300 --> 00:05:45,840 USB Ethernet, 138 00:05:46,660 --> 00:05:47,500 Wi-Fi 6E, 139 00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:50,520 and you can add a 5G modem using an M.D2 module. 140 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:52,900 With this, you could use the Flipper One as a router, 141 00:05:53,220 --> 00:05:54,400 gateway or even a bridge. 142 00:05:55,050 --> 00:05:59,000 It features two co-processors, the eight-core rock chip processor I mentioned 143 00:05:59,220 --> 00:06:00,100 earlier for running Linux, 144 00:06:00,490 --> 00:06:05,180 and a two-core Raspberry Pi 2350 that controls the display buttons, 145 00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:08,060 touchpad, and LEDs running its own firmware. 146 00:06:08,380 --> 00:06:10,320 They've launched a developer portal that includes 147 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:14,280 everything you would want to know about the flippers from PCB designs, the enclosure design, 148 00:06:14,500 --> 00:06:14,820 software, 149 00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:15,300 firmware, 150 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:15,840 docs, 151 00:06:16,770 --> 00:06:17,940 and more. But that's not all. 152 00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:19,880 If it's compatible with the Linux kernel, 153 00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:21,760 it will need its own operating system, 154 00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:23,500 and they have a plan for that too. 155 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:26,260 They're building Flipper OS on top of Debian. 156 00:06:26,860 --> 00:06:28,620 It also includes FlipCTL, 157 00:06:28,820 --> 00:06:31,820 a UI for small screens such as Cyberdecks like this. 158 00:06:32,900 --> 00:06:34,880 You should check out the blog post for all the details. 159 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:36,920 I've only covered some of it, believe it or not. 160 00:06:37,500 --> 00:06:40,440 Towards the end of the article, they talk about the uses for the Flipper Zero, 161 00:06:40,620 --> 00:06:43,940 and one that jumped out at me is the fact that they've put a full-size 162 00:06:44,180 --> 00:06:45,340 HDMI port on it. 163 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:49,920 You could take your Flipper One with you while traveling and have your own personal TV entertainment 164 00:06:49,940 --> 00:06:53,540 built in just by installing Cody on it and outputting it to your TV. 165 00:06:54,100 --> 00:06:54,820 That's pretty awesome. 166 00:06:55,680 --> 00:06:57,000 One thing that I really like is it is, 167 00:06:57,340 --> 00:07:00,940 so it's called often a cyberdeck, but like usually 168 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:03,360 when I think of cyberdecks, I think something with a screen and a keyboard. 169 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:07,920 And this is not, this is like a little handheld thing that looks kind of like some sort 170 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:13,080 of sci-fi gizmo you'd see some character use, but it has in it, 171 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:13,960 you know, it's got a bunch 172 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:14,640 of ports around it. 173 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:16,520 You mentioned the full-size HTML. 174 00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:18,780 It's also got full-size Ethernet. 175 00:07:18,940 --> 00:07:19,960 And it's got Wi-Fi, 176 00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:20,600 which means, 177 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:23,000 oh, this would be perfect if you're traveling a lot. 178 00:07:23,100 --> 00:07:27,500 And you want to use the hotel internet that has got like maybe an Ethernet cable come out of the wall, 179 00:07:28,100 --> 00:07:28,960 which is a much better, 180 00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:32,100 usually more fast connection than the hotel Wi-Fi. 181 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:37,160 And then now you can also got the HTMLI, so you can plug it into the hotel TV. 182 00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:38,000 Right. 183 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:43,620 You've got a really good mobile hotspot plus also entertainment device. 184 00:07:44,380 --> 00:07:48,900 So, yeah, I'm really curious about this because there's all these Raspberry Pi Lodels. 185 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:53,120 like single board computers that use these weird arm chips, 186 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:56,200 like the rock chip that this is using is one of them. 187 00:07:56,560 --> 00:07:59,460 And it's always a real dicey thing to use them 188 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:01,380 because they don't use mainline Linux. 189 00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:03,280 They use like their own custom weird fork of Linux. 190 00:08:03,860 --> 00:08:05,020 And if they stop supporting it, 191 00:08:05,060 --> 00:08:06,820 you're kind of out in the cold. 192 00:08:06,960 --> 00:08:10,020 And so this is one of the reasons why a lot of people don't use these things 193 00:08:10,479 --> 00:08:12,380 that look like raspberry pies but aren't, 194 00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:14,040 even though they're actually pretty good. 195 00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:17,560 Because it's like, well, where does the firmware for it come from? 196 00:08:17,660 --> 00:08:25,400 And so it's really cool that they're working to get the rock chip core into the mainline Linux kernel. 197 00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:26,200 That's really cool. 198 00:08:27,060 --> 00:08:33,440 Yeah, that'll just enable support for everyone and just make it that much easier to install it, fork it, and do really interesting things with it. 199 00:08:33,940 --> 00:08:34,099 Yeah. 200 00:08:34,300 --> 00:08:37,200 And this seems like just finally, 201 00:08:37,500 --> 00:08:39,900 like one of the thing is that bugging me of the flipper zero is it had no Wi-Fi. 202 00:08:41,540 --> 00:08:44,540 There was like these things you kind of cobble onto the back to give a Wi-Fi. 203 00:08:44,540 --> 00:08:45,500 I'm just like, come on, guys. 204 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:46,060 Like, 205 00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:49,640 what's the main thing we're all using as the wireless networking protocol? 206 00:08:50,540 --> 00:08:51,820 Well, they're about to fix that. 207 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:52,380 Yeah, 208 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:52,800 totally. 209 00:08:53,620 --> 00:08:54,700 What's your next one for us? 210 00:08:55,220 --> 00:08:55,560 All right. 211 00:08:56,100 --> 00:08:57,520 You don't need an R-TOS. 212 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:04,180 If you've programmed embedded boards with Arduino and CircuPython, you hear about RTOS or real-time OS 213 00:09:04,740 --> 00:09:06,600 and how you should be using it to organize your code. 214 00:09:07,020 --> 00:09:08,940 But relax, you do not need one. 215 00:09:09,220 --> 00:09:09,960 You probably don't need one. 216 00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:14,760 Nathan Jones on Embedded Related, wrote a blog post series titled, You Don't Need an R-Tos, 217 00:09:15,260 --> 00:09:18,860 describing the problem that Artas has solved and some simpler alternative techniques. 218 00:09:19,500 --> 00:09:22,000 Most notably, he favors the technique of the super loop, 219 00:09:22,620 --> 00:09:25,000 or putting all your code in the main loop and seeing if that works. 220 00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:27,940 The posts target embedded C and C++ plus, 221 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:31,420 but the techniques, concepts, and math he uses to show how things work. 222 00:09:31,900 --> 00:09:34,200 Behind these concepts are valuable for any language you use. 223 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:35,920 But for his super loop, 224 00:09:36,420 --> 00:09:39,240 you issue the complexity of schedulers of the Artas 225 00:09:39,700 --> 00:09:42,240 or interrupts or any of those kinds of things, state machines, 226 00:09:42,680 --> 00:09:43,940 and just go as simple as possible. 227 00:09:44,180 --> 00:09:45,960 How much can you do in one big loop? 228 00:09:46,500 --> 00:09:49,020 Do you really need a complex scheduling system 229 00:09:49,420 --> 00:09:51,460 if all you're doing is reading some sensors every minute 230 00:09:51,580 --> 00:09:53,200 and logging that data to an SD card? 231 00:09:53,940 --> 00:09:55,060 With everything in a single loop, 232 00:09:55,340 --> 00:09:57,380 huge conceptual areas where bugs can live, 233 00:09:57,460 --> 00:09:59,480 like race conditions or resource contention, 234 00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:01,260 are absent by design. 235 00:10:01,940 --> 00:10:03,420 If you need explicit periodicity, 236 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:06,620 a task with a super loop can check the current time 237 00:10:06,740 --> 00:10:08,300 and run only when a certain time is passed. 238 00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:11,660 I have to hear this called the blink without delay pattern 239 00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:13,379 in the Arduino world from learners 240 00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:15,700 one is to blink an LED without blocking the main loop. 241 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:17,940 The problem with super loops could be, 242 00:10:18,140 --> 00:10:20,700 like the first problem we might encounter with super loops is jitter, 243 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:23,780 where a periodic task doesn't happen as regularly as you want. 244 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:27,860 In many cases, this is where you start deviating from the super loop with hardware interrupts. 245 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:29,820 But it's like a small delta change. 246 00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:34,040 You'll see this with fast data streams like audio or video output, 247 00:10:34,560 --> 00:10:37,640 or sensors with critical timing requirements like neopixels say. 248 00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:40,880 But notice there's still no explicit schedule needed. 249 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:43,360 There's just like one tiny change to your main. 250 00:10:43,380 --> 00:10:44,300 super loop idea. 251 00:10:45,620 --> 00:10:48,860 So what good is a real-time operating system and why would we need one? 252 00:10:49,680 --> 00:10:49,860 At its 253 00:10:50,100 --> 00:10:50,240 basic, 254 00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:54,420 an R-TOS is just a scheduler for tasks you define. But importantly, 255 00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:55,580 when you schedule those 256 00:10:55,860 --> 00:10:57,600 tasks, you define a period of your task, 257 00:10:57,760 --> 00:10:58,520 how often it's called, 258 00:10:58,920 --> 00:11:00,320 and the deadline of the task. 259 00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:05,520 For instance, you might have a task that checks a sensor once a second, it's period, 260 00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:06,420 but it can 261 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,440 take no longer than 10 milliseconds to do it, its deadline. 262 00:11:10,120 --> 00:11:11,779 You're specifying a contract to the 263 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:15,100 R-Tos, and if your task breaks that contract, it gets killed. 264 00:11:15,900 --> 00:11:19,000 Normal OSs are best effort, and we'll let processes run a little longer, 265 00:11:19,370 --> 00:11:20,120 but Rtoss is 266 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:23,120 guarantee that no tasks can overtake a higher priority one. 267 00:11:23,780 --> 00:11:28,800 In a car, you must guarantee the anti-lock brake sensor be read exactly every 500 nanoseconds. 268 00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:29,860 For instance, 269 00:11:30,170 --> 00:11:30,960 in a Mars lander, 270 00:11:31,300 --> 00:11:34,100 reaction thrusters must be fired exactly 64 milliseconds. 271 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:38,220 There can be no pauses for file rights or other tasks taking over. 272 00:11:38,820 --> 00:11:40,020 Artas keep us alive. 273 00:11:41,180 --> 00:11:42,780 So they are very, very, very critical. 274 00:11:43,340 --> 00:11:44,920 But in maker-level projects, 275 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:46,600 R-tosses are usually not needed. 276 00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:48,760 We don't have those critical concerns. 277 00:11:49,220 --> 00:11:50,020 But if you want to learn, 278 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:51,760 there are several event-scheduled libraries 279 00:11:51,940 --> 00:11:53,860 for our do we know that lean towards R-TOS behavior. 280 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:56,860 And there is a very minimal free R-TOS 281 00:11:57,400 --> 00:11:59,860 that works great on ESP-32 and RP2040 chips. 282 00:12:00,420 --> 00:12:04,380 In fact, if you use the ESP-IDF SDK for ESP-32, 283 00:12:05,020 --> 00:12:06,680 it uses free R-TOS under the hood 284 00:12:07,100 --> 00:12:09,480 to make dealing with the vagaries of Wi-Fi a little bit easier. 285 00:12:11,020 --> 00:12:13,800 In CircuitPython, a MicroPython, you can investigate async I.O. 286 00:12:14,620 --> 00:12:16,560 It's a sort of DIY method of event scheduling. 287 00:12:17,220 --> 00:12:20,700 It's a little bit more abstract than just doing it by hand in a super loop. 288 00:12:21,280 --> 00:12:23,460 It won't be as precise as performance as in Arduino, 289 00:12:23,620 --> 00:12:25,080 but you can get used to the ideas. 290 00:12:26,100 --> 00:12:27,120 I used to work in aerospace hardware, 291 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:28,840 and now I play with making synthesizers. 292 00:12:29,840 --> 00:12:30,700 In CircuitPython and Arduino, 293 00:12:31,180 --> 00:12:33,120 most of the time, I use something like a super loop. 294 00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:37,180 In CircuitPython, it's a must as you can't schedule things at the hardware level. 295 00:12:37,780 --> 00:12:40,340 CircuitPython is almost an OS unto itself. 296 00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:42,600 with its own scheduler and device drivers. 297 00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:45,120 And the user task that runs your code.PI 298 00:12:45,300 --> 00:12:47,340 is just one of the many tasks it's dealing with. 299 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:48,640 Usually that's fine, 300 00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:49,520 and it's really nice 301 00:12:49,620 --> 00:12:50,880 that you don't have to deal with setting up 302 00:12:51,300 --> 00:12:53,800 DMA buffers and interrupts for audio and display output. 303 00:12:54,580 --> 00:12:57,080 But if you want more precise timing, 304 00:12:57,580 --> 00:12:58,800 maybe CircuitPython is not for you. 305 00:12:59,860 --> 00:13:00,720 This blog post about, 306 00:13:01,060 --> 00:13:02,580 you don't need an Rtos, really resonating with me 307 00:13:02,740 --> 00:13:04,580 because I've seen folk get bogged down 308 00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:07,160 and frustrated trying to set up an Rtos 309 00:13:07,240 --> 00:13:08,100 for their embedded project 310 00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:10,300 when it's overkill before they're trying to accomplish. 311 00:13:10,700 --> 00:13:18,800 This blog post series is almost a college-level course in computer concurrency and uses math and examples to show exactly how much you can do with simple setups, 312 00:13:19,260 --> 00:13:24,700 while also giving directions for more complicated concurrency models like interrupt state machines and finally R-tosses. 313 00:13:25,540 --> 00:13:26,820 But if you're starting a new project, 314 00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:30,060 I would say see how far you can get with a super loop and then go from there. 315 00:13:30,900 --> 00:13:34,480 You mentioned async and await for MicroPython and CircuitPython. 316 00:13:35,820 --> 00:13:39,120 And right, CircuitPython doesn't have interrupt level control on that kind of stuff. 317 00:13:39,260 --> 00:13:42,900 But once you learn async and can wrap your head around it, 318 00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:46,940 it can do so many things to avoid blocking, for example. 319 00:13:47,640 --> 00:13:48,760 And it's really powerful. 320 00:13:48,900 --> 00:13:52,160 It's just really hard to wrap your head around it the first time. 321 00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:55,820 Yeah, it's a different way of thinking about writing your code. 322 00:13:56,440 --> 00:14:00,680 And it's the step to what you have to do to start thinking about using these R tosses 323 00:14:01,340 --> 00:14:03,360 because you've got a chunk of, you've got your little function. 324 00:14:03,900 --> 00:14:07,040 And you think of, oh, my functions is going to run from top to bottom. 325 00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:09,240 But in an RTOS, 326 00:14:09,460 --> 00:14:14,700 your code could get suspended at any point in that flow. 327 00:14:14,940 --> 00:14:16,520 And you have to know how to deal with that. 328 00:14:16,600 --> 00:14:19,960 Like if you've got any sort of timing critical things or if you're dealing on the 329 00:14:20,940 --> 00:14:23,720 dealing, if you're requiring sort of certain efficiency of like, oh, 330 00:14:24,020 --> 00:14:25,700 these values will be in these CPU registers. 331 00:14:26,380 --> 00:14:32,000 That might not be the case because your code could get all entirely swapped out for some other code and then swap back in again. 332 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:33,920 So, yeah, 333 00:14:34,220 --> 00:14:36,860 one of the problems why I don't like to recommend ASync I.O. 334 00:14:37,020 --> 00:14:39,560 for CircuitPython is because a lot of people will think, 335 00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:40,840 oh, this will make my, 336 00:14:41,060 --> 00:14:41,300 say, 337 00:14:41,500 --> 00:14:43,360 display updates more regular 338 00:14:44,540 --> 00:14:47,540 because I'm like, oh, I'm reading buttons 339 00:14:47,780 --> 00:14:48,860 and I'm updating the display. 340 00:14:48,940 --> 00:14:50,860 Well, it turns out on CircuitPython, 341 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:54,720 I'm pretty sure the I squared C and SPI stuff, 342 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:57,000 the data transfers are still blocking. 343 00:14:57,280 --> 00:14:59,820 So even though you're using ASync IO, 344 00:15:00,500 --> 00:15:02,020 when you say display that update or whatever, 345 00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:04,160 it's just, it'll just block everything 346 00:15:04,580 --> 00:15:05,360 until that update finishes. 347 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:07,780 But just like, it's like, dang it. 348 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:09,900 No, you're absolutely right. 349 00:15:09,980 --> 00:15:10,420 That's correct. 350 00:15:11,980 --> 00:15:16,760 But yeah, so, I mean, there are some PRs in CircuitPython to maybe make this a little bit better. 351 00:15:17,540 --> 00:15:18,760 But it's a complicated problem. 352 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:19,540 So we'll see. 353 00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:22,160 All right, Paul, what's your next one? 354 00:15:22,940 --> 00:15:27,040 If you've ever wanted to plug in your microcontroller and use the web to install new firmware or code, 355 00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:30,900 your only choice up till now has been to use a chromium-based browser like Chrome, 356 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:32,300 Microsoft Edge, or Vivaldi. 357 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:34,000 But as of late May, 358 00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:36,300 Mozilla has joined the party and now support. 359 00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:38,920 It supports WebSereal and Firefox with help from ATAFruit. 360 00:15:39,660 --> 00:15:46,220 WebSereal is a web API that uses JavaScript to read and write to serial devices like microcontroller boards or 3D printers. 361 00:15:46,220 --> 00:15:51,160 It's been available for years in Chrome and it's nice to see AtaFruit Mozilla partnering up to deliver this. 362 00:15:51,500 --> 00:15:57,600 For example, if you visit CircuitPython.org's download section and pick almost any ESP32-based board, 363 00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:02,300 there will be an option to download the UF2 or the bin files with the firmware, 364 00:16:02,300 --> 00:16:06,260 or there's a button to open installer, and you can do it right over the web. 365 00:16:06,860 --> 00:16:12,280 One of the things that surprised me reading the article on Mozilla.org is that web serial is still not a standard. 366 00:16:13,060 --> 00:16:19,380 It resides in the Web Incubator Community Group, and Mozilla mentions their pursuing standardizing web serial in a new proposal. 367 00:16:20,460 --> 00:16:23,120 I'm glad to have another option for using web serial in a browser. 368 00:16:23,250 --> 00:16:31,120 I was a longtime user of Firefox until earlier this year when they started shoving all this AI features that no one wanted into it. 369 00:16:31,700 --> 00:16:34,940 I've since switched to Vivaldi, who doesn't have any AI baked in. 370 00:16:35,540 --> 00:16:39,460 but kudos to Mozilla for adding support for web serial and giving users another choice. 371 00:16:40,420 --> 00:16:40,560 Yeah, 372 00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:42,500 I'm a big Firefox proponent. 373 00:16:42,620 --> 00:16:45,760 I have turned off all the AI stuff via the config, 374 00:16:46,090 --> 00:16:48,180 the sort of secret hidden config screen. 375 00:16:49,170 --> 00:16:52,840 But yeah, it's been really a bummer that like for many browsers, like Safari, 376 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:55,020 Firefox until recently, 377 00:16:55,560 --> 00:17:03,160 that if you wanted to do this really cool configuration of little gizmos via Cereo port, you couldn't do that on these browsers, 378 00:17:03,620 --> 00:17:14,660 which is like one of the best ways of dealing with a lot of ESP 32 stuff is you just go to like a special URL and you can reflash the entire ESP 32 from the browser window, 379 00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:16,760 not needing a special program to download or whatever, 380 00:17:17,100 --> 00:17:18,699 but that requires USB serial. 381 00:17:19,220 --> 00:17:19,620 Sorry, sorry, 382 00:17:20,600 --> 00:17:20,959 web serial. 383 00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:21,800 So, 384 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:22,600 yay. 385 00:17:23,260 --> 00:17:23,760 This is great. 386 00:17:23,839 --> 00:17:25,600 I've been using a little bit and it's like, oh, finally. 387 00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:28,120 Yeah, no kidding. 388 00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:30,480 Finally is the right way to put it. 389 00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:33,580 Yeah, it's been in Chrome for like a over and. 390 00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:34,440 a decade, I think. 391 00:17:34,780 --> 00:17:35,800 Wow, that's just crazy. 392 00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:36,760 That's been that long. 393 00:17:38,420 --> 00:17:39,700 All right, what's your next one for us? 394 00:17:40,360 --> 00:17:40,560 All right. 395 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:42,060 Speaking of USB things, 396 00:17:42,230 --> 00:17:43,060 I wrote a new app. 397 00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:46,680 Well, you know, wrote in quotes with the help of my junior assistant Claude. 398 00:17:47,140 --> 00:17:48,720 It's called USB Probester. 399 00:17:49,700 --> 00:17:51,180 And it replicates as much as possible, 400 00:17:51,340 --> 00:17:52,320 the beloved to me, 401 00:17:52,900 --> 00:17:54,480 creaky MacOS developer tool, 402 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:54,920 USB 403 00:17:55,140 --> 00:17:55,380 Prober. 404 00:17:56,440 --> 00:17:58,880 So USB devices are really fascinatingly complex. 405 00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:03,560 When you plug in a USB device, it sends several different packets of information. 406 00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:04,420 to your computer, 407 00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:06,380 telling the computer all about it. 408 00:18:07,020 --> 00:18:08,460 First, there's the device descriptor, 409 00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:11,620 telling the PC roughly what kind of device it is and who makes it. 410 00:18:12,500 --> 00:18:13,820 Then there's the config descriptor, 411 00:18:14,500 --> 00:18:18,180 telling the computer how much power your device needs, 412 00:18:18,780 --> 00:18:21,280 and how many different kinds of interfaces it has, 413 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:23,320 and what those are, like keyboard, 414 00:18:23,540 --> 00:18:24,040 thumb drive, 415 00:18:24,240 --> 00:18:24,460 Ethernet, 416 00:18:24,700 --> 00:18:25,340 dongle, display, 417 00:18:25,540 --> 00:18:25,780 so on. 418 00:18:26,660 --> 00:18:29,220 Each of these interfaces has its own little descriptor packet. 419 00:18:29,980 --> 00:18:31,700 For instance, for human interface devices, 420 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:32,620 aka HID, 421 00:18:33,120 --> 00:18:37,380 There's a HID report descriptor that indicates if it's a keyboard or a mouse or both, 422 00:18:37,900 --> 00:18:40,400 and if that keyboard has the volume up, up, down buttons, 423 00:18:40,740 --> 00:18:42,160 and if it's got LEDs to light up, 424 00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:43,940 to indicate like caps lock, scroll lock. 425 00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:45,700 And that's just one kind of interface. 426 00:18:45,900 --> 00:18:48,240 There's interface descriptors for all the different kinds of devices, 427 00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:50,780 too, like disk and Ethernet 428 00:18:50,940 --> 00:18:52,320 and display and all that kind of stuff. 429 00:18:53,140 --> 00:18:54,020 This is a lot of information. 430 00:18:54,540 --> 00:19:01,260 It's packed up as packed byte codes in a concise way as the standard was created back in the 20th century. 431 00:19:01,700 --> 00:19:02,960 when you was doing USB was expensive. 432 00:19:03,780 --> 00:19:04,940 But getting at this info, 433 00:19:05,340 --> 00:19:06,880 once your device is plugged into an OS, 434 00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:08,680 has been surprisingly difficult. 435 00:19:09,540 --> 00:19:11,040 In Mac OS and Windows, 436 00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:13,120 there's really been no good built-in tools. 437 00:19:13,660 --> 00:19:14,500 In Linux, it's a breeze. 438 00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:18,120 You can use the LS USB command to see some of this data pretty easily. 439 00:19:18,900 --> 00:19:21,620 But if you programmed USB stuff and used a Mac 20 years ago, 440 00:19:21,860 --> 00:19:25,260 buried in a hard-defined developer bundle was a tool called USB Prober. 441 00:19:25,620 --> 00:19:26,200 It was great. 442 00:19:26,660 --> 00:19:30,100 It was able to get all this USB descriptor info and it parsed it, 443 00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:33,000 showing it all out in useful English and a nice tree view. 444 00:19:34,220 --> 00:19:36,600 And it can save the entire state of your USB set up as a text file. 445 00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:39,140 So you can just dump it out and you could look at it and refer to it later. 446 00:19:39,740 --> 00:19:42,440 And it also saved the raw bytes of these descriptors. 447 00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:47,040 So you could compare descriptors against devices if you're making your own device. 448 00:19:47,860 --> 00:19:50,600 As someone struggling to make Arduino pretend to be a device back then, 449 00:19:51,340 --> 00:19:52,920 USB Prober was so instructive. 450 00:19:53,740 --> 00:19:56,200 I would give a zip of it to anyone having USB questions, 451 00:19:56,380 --> 00:19:59,020 even though I think that was technically against some of the turns of service 452 00:20:00,100 --> 00:20:01,840 of being an Apple developer. 453 00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:05,880 And I use it almost every day when programming, 454 00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:08,520 since it's a great way to answer questions like, 455 00:20:09,020 --> 00:20:10,660 is that PICO actually in boot mode? 456 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,520 Because all this information will change when it's in boot mode. 457 00:20:14,060 --> 00:20:15,880 Or did my changes to CircaPython's boot. 458 00:20:16,100 --> 00:20:18,280 Dot Pi to enable the second serial port actually work? 459 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:19,340 So you can just look and see, 460 00:20:19,420 --> 00:20:23,100 oh, is the second interface for USB-CDC there? 461 00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:27,880 But MacOS Prober is dying. 462 00:20:28,620 --> 00:20:30,100 As Mac OS has evolved, 463 00:20:30,460 --> 00:20:31,760 it's starting to not work right. 464 00:20:32,220 --> 00:20:33,260 The writing has been on the wall. 465 00:20:33,420 --> 00:20:34,800 I needed to find another tool. 466 00:20:35,360 --> 00:20:37,860 But nothing I could find replicated what USB Prober did. 467 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:41,080 So for the last month or so, I've been recreating it. 468 00:20:41,940 --> 00:20:47,120 I've become okay at writing these Tori native apps where the back end is in Rust and the front end is HTML. 469 00:20:47,380 --> 00:20:47,980 So I started there. 470 00:20:48,660 --> 00:20:51,360 There's a nice cross-platform Rust library called InUSB. 471 00:20:51,980 --> 00:20:57,380 That's like a pure Rust version of the Lib USBC library that I'm an occasional contributor on. 472 00:20:58,560 --> 00:20:59,720 That could get me most of the information. 473 00:21:00,340 --> 00:21:01,320 On both Macawson, Windows, 474 00:21:01,540 --> 00:21:04,060 I still had to do some hacks to get the Hid Report descriptors 475 00:21:04,860 --> 00:21:06,800 for reasons those are hard to get at. 476 00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:07,620 Thanks, 477 00:21:07,780 --> 00:21:10,100 Claude, for helping me figure that out, especially on the Windows side, where, 478 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:10,580 man, 479 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:11,780 Windows. 480 00:21:13,220 --> 00:21:16,560 You actually can't get the Hid Report descriptor out natively. 481 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:20,740 You actually have to reconstruct it from data structures inside of Windows. 482 00:21:21,660 --> 00:21:22,080 And thankfully, 483 00:21:22,300 --> 00:21:23,180 that's a solved problem. 484 00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:24,240 Other people have done it. 485 00:21:24,900 --> 00:21:26,460 So I was able to kind of crib from that. 486 00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:29,320 And parsing of the descriptor data, 487 00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:30,700 like this is just getting the bytes. 488 00:21:30,780 --> 00:21:32,760 You actually have to parse it out to make it human readable. 489 00:21:33,420 --> 00:21:35,360 And this parsing is something I did not want to work on. 490 00:21:35,460 --> 00:21:37,260 It's mostly grown work, so I put clot on it. 491 00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:43,320 I had many test cases of known good output from the existing Mac USB programmer, 492 00:21:44,260 --> 00:21:49,480 sorry, the existing USB prover for various USB devices and what the output should be. 493 00:21:50,100 --> 00:21:51,160 It made the tasker really quick. 494 00:21:51,340 --> 00:21:54,300 And I think it's a pretty efficient use of these LLMs for programming, 495 00:21:54,540 --> 00:21:56,000 where you've got a lot of good test data. 496 00:21:57,300 --> 00:22:00,880 So the end result is an app that looks a lot like the old USB programmer, 497 00:22:01,180 --> 00:22:04,380 USB prober, but updated in a few useful ways to me, 498 00:22:04,540 --> 00:22:07,640 including providing a command line tool that acts like LSUSB. 499 00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:11,040 I now have an LSUSB for Macintosh and for Windows. 500 00:22:11,860 --> 00:22:12,800 And it's cross-platform, 501 00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:14,080 all three platforms, 502 00:22:14,470 --> 00:22:16,040 Mac Windows and Linux. 503 00:22:16,980 --> 00:22:22,040 So I can have the same view on all these different OSs for USB devices. 504 00:22:22,140 --> 00:22:25,280 So I can see like how different OSs kind of see the different, 505 00:22:25,940 --> 00:22:29,100 how the different was to see the device in case that's something that can happen. 506 00:22:30,340 --> 00:22:31,240 It's been pretty exciting for me. 507 00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:32,940 If you're interested in this tool, 508 00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:33,800 give it a download. 509 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:36,600 There's links in the show notes and tell me what you think. 510 00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:39,240 That's really impressive that you made a multi-platform. 511 00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:43,020 I can't imagine having to rebuild those data structures and Windows 512 00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:44,720 and what you had to go through to do that. 513 00:22:45,360 --> 00:22:46,440 So that's a good use of the AI. 514 00:22:47,100 --> 00:22:49,220 Yeah, it was totally less me and more Claude. 515 00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:55,900 And one of the really awesome benefits of doing this in this Tari environment is you kind of get 516 00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:57,960 cross-platform for free if you just don't do anything, 517 00:22:58,380 --> 00:22:58,640 obviously, 518 00:22:59,260 --> 00:22:59,700 single platform, 519 00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:00,880 which is 520 00:23:00,980 --> 00:23:01,220 amazing. 521 00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:06,600 I'm a big believer in native apps, and this is, this is as native as, 522 00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:07,720 as native as I can 523 00:23:08,180 --> 00:23:12,300 get. I've seen a couple of comments on social media already of people excited to use it, so well done. 524 00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:12,780 Oh, 525 00:23:12,940 --> 00:23:13,360 thanks, thanks. 526 00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:16,940 All right. What's our last one for this at this time? 527 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:19,340 Last episode I talked about Parachord, 528 00:23:19,540 --> 00:23:21,640 an open source multi-platform music player. 529 00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:22,980 The day our episode 530 00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:23,500 dropped, 531 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:25,880 the developer announced the other half of what 532 00:23:25,900 --> 00:23:28,180 he's been working on in addition to Parachord, 533 00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:29,800 and that is Achordion, 534 00:23:30,260 --> 00:23:31,620 which he describes as an independent 535 00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:33,820 music community and data layer. 536 00:23:34,120 --> 00:23:35,140 And it's pretty cool. 537 00:23:35,700 --> 00:23:37,460 The first thing to know about it is that it's 538 00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,860 built on top of music brains and requires a music brains account. 539 00:23:41,380 --> 00:23:42,480 If you're not familiar with music 540 00:23:42,620 --> 00:23:42,820 brains, 541 00:23:42,980 --> 00:23:45,500 their goal is to be the ultimate source of music information. 542 00:23:46,060 --> 00:23:46,700 Think Wikipedia, 543 00:23:46,980 --> 00:23:47,520 but for music, 544 00:23:47,820 --> 00:23:50,240 and almost all of their data is public domain. 545 00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,060 They offer a number of services in addition to the APIs they expose. 546 00:23:54,580 --> 00:23:57,360 There's Picard, an MP3 tagger that I swear by. 547 00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:00,800 And then there's ListenBrainz, which is just kind of like Last FM. 548 00:24:01,420 --> 00:24:06,320 If you're using a compatible music player, it shares what you've listened to while streaming to ListenBrainz. 549 00:24:07,180 --> 00:24:07,600 But anyway, 550 00:24:08,380 --> 00:24:10,860 there's also a social network component to Achordion. 551 00:24:11,500 --> 00:24:14,820 Based on your listening history, it will recommend other users to follow. 552 00:24:15,140 --> 00:24:16,900 And it also has some blue sky integration, 553 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,060 but outside of linking my profile, I haven't really tried it yet. 554 00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,160 But it's more than just a social network that's being built. 555 00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:25,060 The goal is to build a real community. 556 00:24:26,100 --> 00:24:28,940 And that takes us to the Explore tab on the Achordion site. 557 00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,280 It displays a ton of information from new releases of artists you listen to, 558 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:35,040 to playlist recommendations, 559 00:24:35,820 --> 00:24:36,940 other recommended artists, 560 00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:38,820 similar listeners like you and more. 561 00:24:39,360 --> 00:24:40,920 And it's all integrated with Parachord. 562 00:24:41,220 --> 00:24:42,960 Choose one of the playlists in Explorer. 563 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,220 And there's a play and Parachord button right there that starts it right up. 564 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:49,720 I'm digging it and I'm all in. 565 00:24:49,900 --> 00:24:53,340 I was a last FM user 20 plus years ago before they got bought by CBS. 566 00:24:53,380 --> 00:24:59,320 but I deleted my account when they got bought as I didn't want to share my data with a big corporation to do who knows what with. 567 00:24:59,980 --> 00:25:04,920 But I should say congrats to the last FM team for going independent and recently leaving CBS. 568 00:25:05,580 --> 00:25:07,900 I've included a link to that in the show notes too. 569 00:25:08,540 --> 00:25:08,800 Anyway, 570 00:25:09,260 --> 00:25:14,840 I've also had a music brains account for probably 25 years going back to when I was ripping CDs into MP3s 571 00:25:15,210 --> 00:25:18,720 and submitting albums that was missing from music brains. 572 00:25:19,380 --> 00:25:23,340 My account is so old that's actually under my old gamer tag and I've linked to it in my Achordion. 573 00:25:23,380 --> 00:25:24,720 and profile in the show notes. 574 00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:27,640 And being a vinyl music guy, 575 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,040 I wanted a way to capture what I was listening to 576 00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:32,120 get it into ListenBrainz. 577 00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:34,460 So I've updated my song Matrix project 578 00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,140 that has a small mic plugged into a Raspberry Pi, 579 00:25:37,700 --> 00:25:38,420 and every few minutes, 580 00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,060 it takes a sample of the background music 581 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,000 and sends it to Shazam to identify it. 582 00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:43,860 It then displays the song title 583 00:25:43,910 --> 00:25:45,680 an artist on a LED matrix 584 00:25:46,140 --> 00:25:48,000 that I have set up using Adafruit I.O. 585 00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:49,040 So now, 586 00:25:49,230 --> 00:25:50,520 after it identifies the song, 587 00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:52,779 I just shoot that off to ListenBrainz using JSON 588 00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:53,960 via their API, 589 00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:56,940 and I now have a history of my vinyl record plays. 590 00:25:57,660 --> 00:25:59,160 Sometimes it's fun to be a geek. 591 00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:01,100 That's really amazing. 592 00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:10,220 This Achordion is so cool just because I hear people talking about Spotify all the time 593 00:26:10,220 --> 00:26:14,180 and how the fun interaction of being sort of social with your music listening. 594 00:26:14,700 --> 00:26:18,280 And I just don't want to participate in the whole Spotify infrastructure. 595 00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:18,980 Sorry, 596 00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:20,900 you know, this seems more my speed. 597 00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:21,780 Yeah, 598 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:22,400 exactly. 599 00:26:23,620 --> 00:26:24,660 Much like the Fediverse, 600 00:26:24,900 --> 00:26:27,860 it's an alternative community to some of the bigger ones that are out there. 601 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,680 And I really dig what the developer is doing, 602 00:26:30,940 --> 00:26:33,400 both from the music player's side and from the community side. 603 00:26:34,420 --> 00:26:35,080 Yeah, this is great. 604 00:26:36,060 --> 00:26:36,720 Well, that's our show. 605 00:26:37,420 --> 00:26:40,340 For detailed show notes and transcripts, visit the bootloader.net. 606 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:42,140 Until next time, 607 00:26:42,700 --> 00:26:43,360 stay positive.