Hack Chat Transcript, Page 2

Elliot Williams 4:02 PM

I've always really liked the badge culture b/c it's fully DIY, and because making a badge -- at least just for yourself and/or a couple friends -- can be a low-stress entry into PCB design.

Elliot Williams 4:03 PM

And in that vein, the SAO badge add-ons are even easier to make, being largely ornamental, but still give you the full-stack PCB experience.

Elliot Williams 4:03 PM

Everyone should make an SAO, right Tom?

Thomas Shaddack 4:03 PM

Thanks, that makes significant sense!

Tom Nardi 4:04 PM

Yeah, definitely glad I took plunge and did an SAO this year. It's an awesome community-within-a-community.

Voja Antonic 4:04 PM

A lot of people build their own non-official badges. I see it as a recreational sport.

Dan 4:04 PM

Okay. Another dumb question: What is SAO?

Elliot Williams 4:04 PM

https://hackaday.com/2019/03/20/introducing-the-shitty-add-on-v1-69bis-standard/

fid 4:04 PM

@Tom Nardi 's SAO is an awesome one. Loved the Gibson part.

Dan 4:05 PM

Ah! Thank you

Elliot Williams 4:05 PM

Anyone have a picture of this year's SAO wall?

fid 4:05 PM

Yes. I took a couple of them.

Voja Antonic 4:05 PM

Later they replaced Shitty with Simple. But I prefer Shitty :)

Tom Nardi 4:06 PM

I did a YouTube Short for it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SNjQUSmWWiE

Elliot Williams 4:06 PM

@dan Basically little badge-add-ons. Again, the simplicity makes it easy to dip your feet into, but making it artistic and fleshing out the story makes it possible to go as deep as you want.

Thomas Shaddack 4:08 PM

the S could also mean "stinky", and that could be literal if current-nonlimited batteries were used. That, combined with newbies attracted by a pair of GPIOs and one I2C bus, leads itself to frequent magic smoke releases.

Tom Nardi 4:08 PM

@fid The original idea was just to have an Attiny85 spitting out the opening to Neuromancer. But in practice I couldn't get more than a few paragraphs on the limited flash, so then I looked into newer MCUs, which meant more pins, which let me then control the LEDs, then I decided to add a button, etc, etc. All spun out of control from there.

Thomas Shaddack 4:09 PM

spi flash, and the whole book could fit in. :P

Elliot Williams 4:09 PM

@Thomas Shaddack When you make your first SAO, be really careful about the pinout. The pinout for the badge and the pinout for the SAO are mirror images!

fid 4:10 PM

One year I made a shitty shitty add-on with LEDs and cardboard. @Tom Nardi I can see how adding just a little more could keep snowballing.

Elliot Williams 4:10 PM

This is a bug that I've seen replicated more than once.

Elliot Williams 4:10 PM

LED and cardboard! Awesome.

Thomas Shaddack 4:10 PM

"Just one more feature" tends to be called recursively.

Elliot Williams 4:11 PM

I've seen "shittier". I think Mike Harrison just put one of those self-blinking LEDs in the socket.

fid 4:11 PM

LOL

Thomas Shaddack 4:11 PM

I'd call it "minimalism".

Elliot Williams 4:11 PM

Hard to beat a parts count of 1.

Voja Antonic 4:12 PM

Did anyone ever used I2C in their SAO?

Elliot Williams 4:13 PM

That's the $1,000,000 question. I've seen a handful. But 99% just use power and ground. Heck, there are GPIO pins in the six-pin version.

Voja Antonic 4:14 PM

Is the a way to correct typos after I send a message?

Dan Maloney 4:14 PM

Sorry, no

fid 4:14 PM

The cardboard I used was a 'zarf' from Starbucks.

Elliot Williams 4:14 PM

I think part of the beauty is the simplicity, though. B/c you'd have to re-write the firmware for the badge to make it work with the I2C or GPIOs or whatever.

Elliot Williams 4:15 PM

@fid haha!

Tom Nardi 4:16 PM

@fid I actually built one of them that used a socketed ATtiny85 before I switched gears.

Tom Nardi 4:16 PM

Voja Antonic 4:17 PM

It's a nice one

Elliot Williams 4:18 PM

Doing a full-on badge, with a run of a few hundred, is definitely a job for a small and dedicated team, though. Voja, Al Williams, Tom, the whole Design Lab team who did fab/testing. It's a fair bit of work.

fid 4:18 PM

Nice use of through hole to not.

VALENTINE 4:19 PM

Apologies for the dumb question. What is that?

Elliot Williams 4:19 PM

I interviewed Hyron from and!xor, who make some awesome DEFCON badges, and he stressed the "life" in #badgelife. As in, it takes yours over for 6 months or so.

Thomas Shaddack 4:19 PM

This kind of pseudo-SMD (or is it quasi-SMD?) is helpful to get rid of the other-side solder pins and keeping things flat, and also makes reworks much easier.

fid 4:21 PM

Quasi-SMD or Squashi-SMD?

Tom Nardi 4:22 PM

Think I named the footprint something like "SMUSH-DIP" in KiCad.

Thomas Shaddack 4:22 PM

Squashi-SMD is when you step on it. The DIL pins are worse than LEGO.

Voja Antonic 4:23 PM

@Thomas Shaddack Agreed.

fid 4:23 PM

Or metal jacks from the 60s.

Dan Maloney 4:23 PM

Or UK mains plugs today

Voja Antonic 4:24 PM

When powered ON

Thomas Shaddack 4:24 PM

If the pins of the plug are powered, your wiring is off.

Voja Antonic 4:24 PM

Who cares, when you step on it

fid 4:26 PM

Stepping on it causes the colorful_language() routine to run.

Elliot Williams 4:26 PM

British plugs or caltrops? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop) They're the same thing.

fid 4:27 PM

Caltrop was also the name of a contractor company working for the California Highway system.

Voja Antonic 4:28 PM

Still better than a landmine :((

Thomas Shaddack 4:28 PM

Antilogistics device as a name for a company responsible for the drivers not getting to their destinations?

Elliot Williams 4:29 PM

LOL. Only in California is CalTrans the name for the folks who work on the highways instead of public transit...

Dan Maloney 4:29 PM

So if we're ragging on British plugs and Caltrans I think it's a sign we've reached the end of the line. I want to thank Elliot and Voja for their time today, and everyone for their patience with our technical issues. And a big round of applause to everyone who pitched in to make the Supercon badge happen!

Elliot Williams 4:30 PM

Thanks y'all.

Voja Antonic 4:31 PM

Cheers!

Hack Chat Transcript, Page 1

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