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375 lines
33 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 2945
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Title: HPR2945: Saturday at OggCamp Manchester 2019
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2945/hpr2945.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-24 13:42:04
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---
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This is HPR 2945 for Friday the 15th of November 2019. Today's show isn't titled,
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Saturday at Alcamp Manchester 2019 and it's part of the series' interviews.
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It's hosted by Ken Fallon and it's about 37 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
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The summary is interviews and chat from the UK's largest floss event.
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This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthos.com. Get 15% discount on all shared hosting
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with the offer code HPR15. That's HPR15. Better web hosting that's Honest and Fair at Ananasthos.com.
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Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another
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episode of Hacker Public Radio. Today's show is going to be a series of recordings that were recorded
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at Alcamp 2019 in Manchester. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
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Because I'm looking here at a print off of HPR-push-cam, which is live now on
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ocam.live, which will be off the air by the time you get this. It could be a picture of a quarrier or
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something. It could be some random like that, yeah. So yeah, I decided to one of the guys on
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Mastodon. I asked if I was going to put up the web-enabled camera again this year.
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I hadn't even thought about it. I don't know where it was. So I was going to set it up with
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FS camera on a laptop. Okay, so now what he's talking about is as I walk over here. What would
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you call that thing? There's a clip here with a, it's a car, a townholder mount. Yeah, car-fold,
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car-fold holder mount with one of these metal tubey things, for holding these things and in it is
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mobile phone, which is pointing here. But this is the genius of this. It's running a regular
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Android form and then you've written a script. Tell us about that. Well, the script was my first
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attempts at using a laptop. Images weren't great. So I thought there must be a way of doing this
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with a phone. And so I've got a spare old Nexus 5X Android phone and fired up turmox,
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which is a terminal emulator for Android. I thought I'd install S web camera, which you can't.
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So that's FS webcam. Yes. So a little bit of googling. I found out the turmox
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expose the API for the camera. And it's, was it a five-line script? Six. Six. Which is just a simple
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bash loop. Fires up the camera, takes a photograph. Image, image magic then resizes it to make it
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web friendly then, but not a six-megabyte picture, just a few kilobytes. And then SSH Pass
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and SCP send it up to my server. Okay, I'm manly enough to read this out. While true do FS
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cam, space dash d, forward slash dev, forward slash video zero, space dash dash jpeg, space 95,
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space dash dash save, space current dot jpeg g. So FS webcam, FS webcam then is...
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Is it a link tab? Well, it's a link. It's downwindage. But it's on on my Linux laptop. So that was
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just for testing with. And then the turmox version is the one we're using now. Okay, so then to
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finish off the FS webcam, you have SSH pass, dash f dot space dot SSH pass, SCP dash port 22,
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and then the file and then up to the web server. And then sleep. And then that's it. But the
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turmox version, this is interesting. Why could you not do this, use the same script on Android then?
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Because SF webcam is not available on Android. Good answer. That is the entire reason.
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Tickets to go. So yeah, the turmox version is basically the same instead of FS webcam, it's
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using turmox dash camera, dash photo, which is you can install it in turmox for its own package
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installer. And then it's the same. Yeah, the convert is image magic, which again you can install
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in turmox and SHH pass is installable in turmox and SCP. So this turmox is anything here not
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available on the Android store? Would you need a rooted application in order to do any of this?
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No, because that phone's running copperhead, which is locked down. You can't you can't
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route a copperhead OS Android phone. Okay, good to know. It doesn't work on my BlackBerry K2,
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is locked down, it won't let access the camera. So your mileage may vary. Now what I found
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interesting about this was that if you go and buy an IP camera, you're talking 150 whatever
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box there is a robot walking pass with an iPad on it. Okay, any who? But if you buy a cheap Android
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phone, you could have essentially a web monitoring solution for very little on a five-line script.
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Yes, and the advantage of the phone is you stick a SIM card in it, you can go and stick it on a
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cliff and look at the sea and leave it there. Yeah, okay, okay. A lot of your web and eight cameras
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that need to be plugged into the mains. Okay, cool. The picture of this will be in the show,
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not at least. Okay. All right, thanks. Enjoy the rest of the show. Thank you.
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Cheers, Ken. And we're here at the Matrix booth and I'm talking to. Hi, I'm Ben. You might
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know me as Ben Pa. That's what I'm known as on the Matrix Ecosystem. And what is Matrix?
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People of HPR will know I've interviewed the Matrix before I've asked them, but give us a quick
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rundown of what it is. Yeah, I'm sure Matrix is fairly familiar to your listeners. So Matrix
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is a decentralized communication platform. It's self-hostible so that you can use your own server
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or start up a new server and host your own Matrix instance. It's also end-to-end encrypted,
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which means that messages are encrypted on the client, sent through the servers, sent over
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the internet, and sent to your recipient, and the whole time it's encrypted. So when they
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decrypt it, they'll be the only ones who've been able to read the message. Okay, and is this
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for text messages or is it video conferencing? Ah, well, so Matrix the standard specifies the
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use of text messaging, files, images, sounds, but Matrix can also be used as a signaling layer
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for VoIP, so for WebRTC. And in particular, we make use of Jitsi. And yeah, we're a layer on top
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of what video messaging. And yeah, we're a signaling layer on top. Okay, and Jitsi is what?
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Oh, Jitsi is a open source video conferencing software. You host a server or you use a free
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public server. And in doing so, you can send many to many, you can have basically video conferencing
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for multiple people. For single users, we would say use WebRTC and Matrix can be used natively
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there. Okay, and so what would that be exactly? Say I wanted to talk to my family with video,
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what would it need to do? So if you both had a Matrix account, then you, wait, so let's say you
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didn't have a Matrix account. First of all, you would need to sign up for one. You create a room
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with everybody in there. A room is like a channel on IRC. And when you've done that, you start a
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new video chat. For a multi-user chat, that will use Jitsi, for a single user or two user chat,
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it will use WebRTC. And the UI wise, the difference is transparent to the user. So they just,
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as far as they know, they start a new video chat, and it's as simple as that. And of course,
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that works across all platforms that Riot works on. So Riot is the flagship client for Matrix.
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So it works across all platforms, all major platforms, including Web, Desktop,
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Android, iOS. So what are you showing here on the boot? I'm looking down at your booth and you've
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got a screen, two Raspberry Pi's, the phone connected to a MacBook Pro. So we've got, yeah,
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we've got a lot of hardware on the table. So what we have is we're trying to demonstrate the
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using the screen, the different configurations of Matrix. So we're showing off the network
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diagram of Matrix. We also have a few tabs open. So the network diagram is showing
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three blue balls connected like a triangle. And then around each of the blue balls are
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green little lollipops stuck into them would be the best idea. So yeah, as bizarre as that sounds,
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that's actually, we found that to be a really nice way of demonstrating the idea of centralization.
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So those big blue balls in the middle, they show your servers. And what they show is that they
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send messages between each other in a process that we call federation. So this is syncing messages
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and event history between only the rooms that the messages apply to. In doing this, the green
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lollipops as you call them, these represent clients. And they are then able to get the details
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from the servers. And in this way, you control who gets what messages via a mechanism of rooms.
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So only the rooms which are appropriate to the server and appropriate to the users
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get to see those messages. This is the fundamental security part of Matrix.
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And then from a topology point of view, it's quite similar to email, I guess, in its deep federation.
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Yeah, absolutely that. I mean, it's already decentralized federation.
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Yeah, yeah, it's decentralized and federated. So yes, you really could liken it to email.
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When you send an email from your client, it goes to your server. That is sent to the correct server.
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Of course, in email's case, that could be multiple servers. And the message is only sent back
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to the clients as determined by the recipient server. Okay, perfect. So show me a typical demo here.
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And I will translate it on screen. So we're clicking the tab. I'll also want to just land
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some text, lovely. What we've got here, we've got several Raspberry Pi's on the table.
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Each of the Raspberry Pi's is currently running a Matrix server. And each of the devices is attached
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to a bot. And those bots are sending the text from a project Gutenberg book. So we've got
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Gulliver's travels coming from one bot, Alice in Wonderland coming from another bot. And what we
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show with this demo is that when one of them is unplugged, yes, it stops sending messages because
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it's not able to connect to the network any longer. But when it's plugged back in, it will continue
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to operate and it will also get backfill from the other servers. So it will be able to see
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the messages that miss because it knows when it went offline and it knows how to catch up and
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it will catch up from the other server. And a Raspberry Pi is sufficient to run Matrix on this,
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is that correct? Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, these, finally enough, our Raspberry Pi 4, which it
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with its, uh, 2, I think this is a 2 giga RAM addition, uh, died this morning. So we're running
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the entire operation from a pair of Raspberry Pi 3's. And yeah, for, for, for, for basic matrix usage,
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it's, um, one, one gigabyte on a Raspberry Pi 3 is sufficient. And we're showing that in the demo
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right now, um, Matrix will, um, Matrix will use more resources as the rooms that you join become more
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complex, uh, but, but yeah, I mean, that's, that's sort of a natural artifact of, of any messaging
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system. For the demo that we're doing here and for a huge number of people's usage, um, a Raspberry
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Pi 3 is sufficient. I would also say that another demonstration of the improved low level performance
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of Matrix has been the, uh, release of, uh, small hosted home servers from modular. This is a
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commercial SaaS offering of Matrix. And they've been able to deploy, um, low costs, low,
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low usage servers, uh, for, uh, yeah, yeah. And that's something that's only come out this year.
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So this is a, a success that they've had this year. Okay, fantastic. I'm, what's your involvement
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with the project? So I am, uh, I'm employed, um, to be a matrix developer advocate. So I go to
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events like this. I talk to people at you. And I also talk to anybody else who, who would like to hear
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about Matrix. I even talk to people who don't want to hear about Matrix. So what we do is we try to,
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we try to humanize the project. The, the problem with a lot of open source matrix is, is not
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immune to this. Is that it's a very complicated project. If you compare it to WhatsApp,
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then answering the question, well, I'm already chatting to my friends. Why would I need anything
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else? Is, is not obvious to, to a crowd like this and to a listener like, um, like yours. It
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probably is, is, is obvious why you would want to have security, self-hosting, privacy,
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end-to-end encryption, data transparency. But it's really not obvious to everybody. Um, and by
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doing demos like these, uh, you know, something that's a little bit strange, maybe a little bit
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more interesting, we try to demonstrate the value of matrix and how it can be used in other ways.
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And who should we, uh, so you, you have a business, you're employed by somebody you're getting
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where's, where's the money come from? So I, I'm employed by new vector, which is the, um, the,
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the largest contributor to the matrix ecosystem. Um, but my, my time is devoted to, to promotion
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of the matrix. And how are they making money using matrix? So they, they sell modular and they sell
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consultancy. Um, so most prominently, they, they are supplying matrix consultancy to the French
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government to replace their internal communications. They've been doing that for, uh, just over a year.
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And that project is, is, is continuing to be a, uh, profitable consultancy.
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Excellent. Thanks very much, Ben. Anything else we missed?
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Oh, no. Only if you haven't done so, you must sign up for matrix, um, go and join the rooms,
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and, uh, yeah, yeah. Please, uh, get in touch with us over matrix. Thanks.
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But you can even go to, like, uh, jit.se forward slash something, just put, type in your own
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thing and you get instantaneous access to a video conference. Is, is that, are we using matrix
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when we do that? Uh, so it made me, you're only using matrix when you're using a matrix, uh,
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to signal the void. Yeah. It wouldn't be related to, to just typing out your, your separate
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dress yourself. Okay. Yeah. Very good. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the show.
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Hi, and I'm talking to Alan Woods. And you are? Laurie Griffiths. So what are you starting
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you with, uh, with you? Well, what's, uh, are we looking at here? I'm looking at the desk,
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and can you describe what's before me? What, what I'm here today showing is, uh, the latest
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generation of a product called Black Ice. Now, uh, back in 2016, we started a project called MyStore,
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which was to produce some open source hardware for programming FPGAs that works alongside
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the open source software toolchains. What's an FPGAs? Right. FPGAs stands for field
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programmable Gatoray. Uh, basically it's a chip that has lots of logic in it, but it's uncommitted
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to any specific application. So you can put your own hands or a gate in some way? Yeah, you,
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you can think of it as a huge number of, uh, logic gates that you can juggle and mix to make whatever
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you want. So that may be something simple, like a piece of electronics control equipment for
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maybe controlling some motors or some panels or something for that nature, or it could be so
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more sophisticated, like you want to design your own new CPU, for example, because you've got a
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great idea on how a CPU should be designed. So you obviously can't just go to a chip maker and
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tell them what you want. You have to come up with a design and you have to test that design.
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The way that you do that is you use, uh, some sort of tool for producing the design, uh,
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in, in, in the hardware world, that tends to be what's called a hardware description language.
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In most of our cases, people will use a tool or a language called Verilog.
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So you can then write your Verilog. You can express the logic of your design in Verilog.
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You then take that to Clifford Wolf's open source tool called Yosis, which will take the Verilog
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program, if you like, as an input. And then it will synthesize the output. So it'll break it down
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into those logical parts that will be available in the chip. Uh, and then it will output that through
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one of several different, what's called place and route pieces of software that target very specific
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FPGA. So for example, in our case, we're using the lattice ice 40 FPGA on our chips. So that's
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what we would target for our device. So that's, I'm looking at a board here. It's about
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an inch. So 50 by 50 mil. 50 by 50 mil at in metric terms. Thank you.
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But yeah. So, yeah, it's almost a couple of inches by a couple of inches.
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So back in 2016, you had to kind of go out and buy vendor type boards for development.
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And those weren't very packable in our opinion. So we figured we could do a better job. Do
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something, design an open source hardware development board, specifically for these open source
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FPGA Torquets using Yosis. So we came up with the idea of this product called MyStorm.
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And to set ourselves a challenge, I think it was like May after we'd done this talk where we'd
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decided in a pub, like you do, to do this thing. But by, I think it was either the end of August
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or beginning of September. I think it was the end of August when Oshkamp was on in Hebden Bridge
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that we'd have, you know, however many of these enough to run a workshop and teach basic FPGA
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to their people attending Oshkamp on the Sunday. And, you know, we just kind of managed to do it.
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We received the boards like two days before the event. Had to do a bit of extra soldering and fixing
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and stuff on the boards. But then managed to run these workshops on this board. And after that,
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people wanted to use the boards. So, you know, we got requested, well, could we buy these boards
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and things. So we figured out, well, let's clean it up a bit, get the things fixed that we got
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and wrong and start making boards for this and make them available. Is this like a business now?
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I haven't given up my day job yet. What the dream is there? The dream is there, yes. So,
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we're now on like the fifth generation of this board effectively at the moment.
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And some of the changes we recently made is it actually comes in two parts. One of the problems
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you have before is even though it supports these standards, which are called P-mods,
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which you can buy these off-the-shelf parts that plug into the FPGA, piece of hardware,
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like displays, LEDs. So, what I'm looking at here is you're plugging in little add-on circuit boards.
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The standard connector format. So, although that's quite good, what you end up with after
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your prototype is something that's very difficult to put in the box because it kind of sticks out
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at all angles and it's mechanically, it's not very stable. So, one of the design goals for
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the latest version of the board was to separate the really complicated bit that we have to get
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made in a factory with all the small surface mount stuff on. And then the board that that plugs into,
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which breaks it out to the P-mod, you can take that off and then you can design your own board
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for this module to go into. So, you can integrate it into your own projects much
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easily than you could before. And in fact, the Black Ice MX, which is the current product we sell,
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is two boards designed around the Black Edge standard, which is these connector formats,
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which defines what those are and that's an open standard. And anyone can build a board that
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plugs in or a core that plugs into the board. So, we call that bit the carrier the lower bit.
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So, a bit like an ashtray from days of year, but a very small one. And then there's a
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plugs in the top. So, that enabled, yeah, it was one of the things that the community had said to us
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for a while. We've got some great stuff on there, but can we have it so that we can put it in our
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projects much more easily? So, the center board looks very, very compact and designed by,
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whereas the other one is like a daughter module from a spaceship where you duck into it.
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Exactly. And that could be any board that you wanted to design if you wanted to do that.
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And over here, I'm looking at one of these set up. So, you've got the complicated main board,
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plugged into a dock board, and inside of that is an extension board, which goes over to a
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breadboard. Yeah. So, for prototyping? Yeah. So, people that may not be familiar with a breadboard,
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a breadboard is basically a series of holes that you can put through-hole components into,
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like LEDs, displays, resistors, capacitors, and build a small circuit, prototype circuit on the
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breadboard. And then have your development board then interact with that. So, it's very good for
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just trying out very simple circuits, really. You can't do very complicated ones on there,
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but you can do very simple interfacing on there to simple through-hole components.
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Okay. And north of that, we have a more complicated board for you. You've got a LED digit display.
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Yeah. So, this is a seven segment display of free digits. These very commonly used in all sorts
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of different applications for just representing numerical values. In this case, they're also very
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good for education. So, if you're learning very well, learning how to drive one of these is a
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really good exercise, because it teaches you all the basic things that you need to know to get started
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with very little. So, we find out from educational type applications, people tend to want to buy
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these to go with this. In this particular case, we're also using one of what we call our extend
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or breakout boards in between the development and the people. That means that we can plug our
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logic analyzer or oscilloscope onto the pins in between. So, we can actually look at the signals
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going between the two devices as well. So, you could take that centerpiece out. So, you have
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in a trouble, you could split this out, put the centerpiece in to tap in and do diagnostics,
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and then put it in. You can actually look at the signals and see what's going on. So, if we've
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got some sort of problem, you know, and we say, no, it wasn't my code. My code's perfect. You know,
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you can look at, I'll say, oh, well, maybe my code isn't quite perfect. I could see my timings
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wrong, and that's why it's displayed exactly the wrong thing. So, it gives you a chance to get,
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it's kind of a man in the middle attack debugging tool, if you like. So, you can get in there and
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have a look at the signals. So, again, there's another popular one. And then you get things like
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a prototype or patch type module. Really, that's a bit like the breadboard in many ways.
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You have a header on that fixes in that enables you to connect to the mix mod. And then you can
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actually solder components in onto here. Other through all or a little prototype. So, having
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worked out how it works on your breadboard, and then you want to go to the next days and make
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it more permanent, test it properly, then you can put it in on one of these proto or patch boards.
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Another common use of this is you may just have another type of connector on the other side
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that has like a compatible header sort of spacing. In which case, all you're doing is you're
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doing wires from one to the other, and it comes a simple patch type board. So, it's another common
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use. Do you find people are actually using this to prototype real products in the real world?
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Yeah, I mean, for example, I mean, people would use it for learning quite a lot. We have a lot of
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people that buy these boards purely for educational purposes. Well, that's personal type education
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because they just want to try and program an FPGA or learn very long, that kind of thing. We also
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have educational establishments that use them in situ, you know, on courses and things like that.
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But, for example, we have one
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chat that's actually designing an ultrasound viewing device. So, what he's using, he uses the
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high-speed analog to digital converter for the ultrasonic parts, so sending out signals
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with reading it back, decoding that digitally, processing it in the FPGA, and then he connects
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a Raspberry Pi to the FPGA, and then the Raspberry Pi will then draw it out on the screen,
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you know, do the image processing so he can see what's going on on the screen. So,
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that built his own ultrasound viewing device, and the reason that he uses the FPGA is because
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you need something to work very quickly. So, you'd have trouble doing that with a microcontroller,
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for example. It's very high-speed analog to digital conversion.
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And because you can decide what the logic gates arrays are, you correct me if you're wrong here,
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please do. You basically write your program on the FPGA, a hardware program on the FPGA,
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and then you get light-speed sort of processing. Exactly. You can have very, very low latencies,
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you know, down in the tens of nanoseconds from input to output. Whereas if you did that on the
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microcontroller, then you have to process every clock cycle, every several instructions, it's a lot
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to do that. So, you wouldn't be able to get back in time for your next sample, so you'd be dropping
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samples, and it just wouldn't work. So, basically, you're the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino of FPGAs,
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that's where you're going to. Kind of thinking, yeah. And we try to help to simplify that as much as
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possible, providing the extra bits and pieces so you can plug in. And also, we have a microcontroller
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on here as well, which is actually responsible for talking to the computer, the PC, on the laptop,
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so that when you send your design, it will then program the FPGA for you, and it will program
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the flash for you, and all the utilities are built in. You don't have to go and buy a JTAG
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programmer, and all that kind of thing. We put everything on the board to make it easier.
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On the MX, we've also added two megabytes of SD RAM, which is a lot more than inside the FPGA.
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So, particularly, if you're building a system on a chip, i.e. a soft whist 5 processor or something
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like that, or your latest experimental CPU design, it's got some memory to use as well to store
|
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its programs and do its processing. So, we try and put all the bits that you need onto the board,
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really. And you're up mystorm.com. Yeah, if you go to mystorm.uk, actually. Mystorm.uk, I should
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have seen that just right here in front of me. And can you give me an idea of what the pricing of
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this is? So, if you were to buy a Black Ice MX in American dollars, so if you were to go and buy
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that from Tindy, for example, it would be $59, which roughly translates, given that Boris hasn't
|
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said anything, really stupid in the last few hours, to about 45 pounds. We're on one of the breaks
|
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of this, you know, pick one. So, that's actually quite reasonable for an FPGA, considering what
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the prices were. Yeah, I mean, we were always very conscious when we started the project that we wanted
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it to be, you know, accessible to hobbyists, educational, etc. Not just professional FPGA designers,
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kind of. So, we wanted to make it a purchase that someone could make and not worry too much about
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how much. No, we don't. Which is probably why I haven't given my day job up. I see where you're going
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with this. So, what else do we have on here at the stand demo wise, impressed me? Okay. Well,
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Laurie is showing... I'm going to put photos in the show notes, even though I hate doing that,
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because I need to remember to do it, but I will, because there's so many good stuff here.
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Now, systems and chips and some of the retro type computing applications and games and things
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that... As a user, an early user of the Black Ice and the more modern Black Ice MX, he's got lots of
|
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experience of developing with it, so he can give you some examples of things that he's done.
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Okay, hello. Hi, I'm Laurie Griffiths. Yes, I've been using Alan's device for about 18 months or
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so now, so I've done lots of projects with it. So, on the stand here, you can see some retro
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computer implementations. There's an A-Corn Atom implementation and Nintendo Entertainment System
|
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running Super Mario Brothers on it. Okay, so you've got the Black Ice module here and then plugged
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in on the side, they see there's a PS2 keyboard. What's this say? Oh, that's okay. That's not being
|
|
used for that, that's just this. So there's a VGA P mod here that's used to drive the VGA monitor.
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|
And you're powering these all off from three rechargeable batteries? Oh, the only, the only
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|
reason I'm using the rechargeable batteries is because the PS2 keyboard connector that won't drive
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|
this Microsoft wireless keyboard without some extra power. So it's got a 5 volt power to drive that.
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|
And so you're physically emulating the hardware of these all devices? Yes, that's right, so you
|
|
as an implementation of the 6502 CPU in there plus all the video drivers, the keyboard drivers,
|
|
and everything else. So you went down and physically designed this in all the logic kids?
|
|
Well, where did you get that? Well, people have been working on these for quite a few years now,
|
|
but only recently on the open hardware and the open software tools. But there's older
|
|
implementations. So basically these are ports of ports of ports from that people have been working
|
|
on for many years. So I think the Nintendo one was originally done in about 2012 on a completely
|
|
different FPGA, and then someone ported it to a UFP5K FPGA. So there's one called the icebreaker
|
|
that I've got here with an HDMI connector. So I ported it to that first, and then I ported it
|
|
to the Black Ice MX board, which the issue there is that there's this SD RAM, and it's a bit harder
|
|
to use SD RAM for retro computers because you have to get exact timing. But I've managed to do that
|
|
for the ACON atom. There is also an implementation of the BBC Microoper, Alan's earlier board,
|
|
the Black Ice 2, but I haven't managed to port that to the new Black Ice MX board yet.
|
|
Is this Super Mario looks exactly like it did back in the day?
|
|
Yes, it's the same software exactly that's running, and it should be a cycle accurate
|
|
implementation of it. Cool, excellent stuff. Well thank you very much guys for taking the time
|
|
to do the interview. And again, the website is MyStorm.uk, and do you have a website?
|
|
No, most of my staff is on the MyStorm.
|
|
Okay, and there's a forum that MyStorm.uk links will be in the show notes as well as
|
|
photos of the booth. Okay. Hi, and we're at a free software foundation booth, and your name is?
|
|
My name is Eric Kohn. And what is the free software foundation for those that don't know?
|
|
Well, the free software foundation is a nonprofit organization that tries to empower people to
|
|
basically get back control over the technology, which means use free software and promote it wherever
|
|
possible. What's free software? Free software is a software, well it's like open source,
|
|
but it has a certain philosophy. So software has to follow for freedoms to be called free software,
|
|
and that is you have to be allowed to use the software for any purpose. You must be allowed
|
|
to study the software, so you must have the source code available. You must be able to share
|
|
the software with your neighbor or your friend or whoever, so they can also benefit from the same
|
|
software as you are. And if you make any improvement to the software, for example, you fix the back
|
|
or you add a feature, you must be able to publish that feature so that the whole community can
|
|
benefit from that. And how is this different to say something like the BSD license?
|
|
Well, I mean the BSD license is, or which BSD license, of course, because there are many,
|
|
but the BSD license is permissive, or as I like to call it pushover license, because as soon as you
|
|
start, I mean it's also still a free software license, and it's still better than publishing your
|
|
software as a proprietary software, but it allows anybody who wants to use the software
|
|
or to republish the software to do so as proprietary software. And that's bad for the user.
|
|
So I'm looking at some of the things that you have on here, you have something about DRM,
|
|
so are you promoting DRM? Of course, we are against digital restriction management,
|
|
and the flyer is actually quite interesting, because it has a nice example of where DRM is actually
|
|
quite a bad thing, with Amazon who have their e-book platform, and people were buying
|
|
1984, and we're reading it, and of course it was protected by DRM, and then suddenly Amazon,
|
|
from one day to another, they started deleting all copies of 1984, which is kind of a running
|
|
actually given the book. So I think that's reason enough to be against DRM, so I mean if you buy a
|
|
copy of a book or a city or whatever, you should be able to share it with everybody in your
|
|
peer group. Okay, and public money public code, tell us about that, that seems logical,
|
|
I'm paying taxes, so the code should be public, obviously. Exactly, public money public code is
|
|
our news campaign, where we try to convince public administration, so governments to use,
|
|
not only use free software, but also if they hire a company to develop a software for them,
|
|
or they buy a software, they do that with public money, so our taxpayers' money,
|
|
and that should be published as free software of course. I find it very difficult to argue with you
|
|
on this, because I completely, I'm so on board with this is something that should be done that I
|
|
can, I'm finding it difficult to play devil's advocate here. Boss, let me come up with some,
|
|
have you heard any arguments against that? Of course not, everybody is happy to use free software,
|
|
where the most argument against or brought up arguments against is the security aspect,
|
|
which I don't agree at all, because if free software is developed in the open,
|
|
anyone can take a look at the code and improve it and fix security bugs, so they will get even
|
|
fixed and even faster, because more eyes improve the software even faster.
|
|
Okay, very good, and what can we do to help the free software along?
|
|
Where you can spread, of course, you can of course spread our word and share our materials,
|
|
and then sign for example public money public code, our open letter, or you can become a
|
|
supporter at fsfe.org slash support and support us financially. Okay, very good,
|
|
thanks very much, and links to this will be in the show notes. Thank you.
|
|
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