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• Dave’s choice of an Arduino as the brains of his new power supply is giving him strife.
• They are manufacturing the 6502 again! Similar to how Rochester Electronics makes old parts.
• “Programming (Hardware) is like sex: One mistake and you’ll support it for the rest of your life!”
• Chris is looking at a new project and considering new uC’s and mp3 chips. Looked at Limor’s (LadyAda’s) Minty MP3 project and a few other projects people have done. Maybe MP3s aren’t necessary?
• People always have an opinion when it comes to programming!
• The supply chain in the immediate area can affect electronics companies. Salary is a small part of keeping jobs “insourced”.
• Obama announced manufacturing initiatives as well, but are they realistic?
• Dave was upset to learn about the true specs of the MCP4922.
• What do you tell kids to study to be ready for jobs in 10 years? Dave got it right: whatever the field, be passionate. (Thanks to @Sheltoneer for the link)
• Do the gray beards of SV have passion still? Why can’t older engineers find jobs? Are there any “stable” engineering jobs?
• If you can’t find ‘em, train ‘em! Living Social is going to try and teach 24 software people from scratch. What criteria would be used to determine if you should teach someone hardware from scratch?
• If you want to learn “startups” from scratch, check out Haxlr8r. You have until Jan 31st to apply for their hardware development program.
• If you’ve got bare walls around your lab, Agilent is offering some fun posters (via reddit).
• And by popular request from Dave, Weird Al’s version of “I’ll Sue Ya”:

Thanks to Windell Oskay for the flea market picture!

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• Happy Chinese New Year! Find out how to say it on YouTube.
• Or how to say it as a hardware engineer!
• Dave wasn’t able to get parts from AliBaba.
• So is he a locavore now? Locatech? Ugh, terrible term. Dave’s new boards are from NZ! http://www.pcbzone.net
• Chris likes the LPKF S43, which can dispense solderpaste right after etching a board. If only he had 15k sitting around…
• Looking at beginning a startup? Look at localized funding sources. The Cleveland Foundation is an example in Chris’s hometown.
• A new kickstarter campaign is looking to fund $30K in the next 7 days for a board cutter project. Is it lack of interest in this niche-ier piece of gear that prevents us from seeing an OSHW version of one? This one looks a tad expensive but quite accurate! Love the capacitive mechanism for board sensing.
• The Open Source Ecology project has one on their roadmap. They were happy to hear from our expert listeners are now are looking for one more. Interested in helping with project management for the Universal Power Supply? Fill out the form below!
• TI came out with a new chip that allows users to easily add WiFi to anything.
• Dave got a creepy new webcam for his office.
• Vendors continue to chase boundaries, such as switching  speeds. Is millivolt switching a realistic goal for chips?
• Chip makers also keep chasing 3D processes in their continuing quest for nano devices.
• Kodak announced it’s going into bankruptcy protection last week. They’ll emerge as a niche player…because there’s always a niche, no matter how bad!
• On the EEVforum, “Aurora” clued everyone in to a free eBook available online about analog electronics from Leslie Green. Great resource!
• Chris found out that Sergio Franco, author of one of his other favorite books, “Design with Operational Amplifiers and Analog Integrated Circuits“ just released a new spiral bound book for a new class of his, “Analog Circuit Design: Discrete and Integrated“.
• Chris also found a copy of the 1987 Linear Technology Application Guide with AN1-AN21! What an awesome find! (though they’re all available here)
• Kent Lundberg (@DoctorAnalog) is reading all of Jim Williams’ old app notes and adding commentary on his site, “Reading Jim Williams“. Great to follow along!
• We now have all of our files going through LibSyn! Let us know if you have any issues with it. Thank you so much to our donors!
• Looking for a bit of fun? Check out these ridiculous “science” stockphotos.
• Brad Lyster writes in about a tutorial about laser cutting a solderpaste stencil from KiCAD.
• Dave likes being able to hold a proto or board in your hand. Chris wrote about how this is what keeps him motivated in engineering, just last night!

Thanks to Heidi & Matt for the Chinese New Year picture!

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• Chris visited a FabLab today (not a fab!) to work on some projects and hang out with friends.
• Chris has also been reading Neil Gershenfeld’s book of the same name, FAB.
• Melbourne had its first MakerFaire, though Dave was not able to go, unfortunately.
• Dr. Howard Johnson offered rewards for finding errors in his book, much like Don Knuth did for his programming book.
• Chris is officially a ham! His callsign is KD8RND! (Dave is warming up his vocal chords)
• Do you prefer calling or emailing?
• Andy–PhotonicInduction on YouTube–announced he’s officially shutting down his YT channel (NSFW language possibly).
• Dave got and has unboxed his MakerBot Thing-o-matic. Chris met one of the 3D printing competitors today from MakerGear.
• This American Life on NPR had a great feature on how consumer products are made, specifically Apple stuff at Foxconn.
• OpenCores is now taking donations for their development of an Open RISC processor.
• Cory Doctorow had a good speech at 28c3 about the impending closing off of electronics systems in the future.
• A process engineer managed to sneak some fun stuff out of a fab:
• Dave is building a ArduCopter currently but new types of quads keep on getting released. The AR Parrot 2.0 has a 720P camera mounted on it and is only $300!
• Friend and IT Guru Alan Garfield was miffed that MicroChip doesn’t provide command line tools anymore. Are IDEs the only way, in the eyes of vendors?
• Chris is making videos for the soon-to-be-released CEE (started on KickStarter)
• Shonky Product of the Week:
• The HojoMotor is a perpetual energy motor based on permanent magnets (how original!). The video is frigg’n hilarious! Watch it before the site is shut down!
• Chip of the Week:
• Listener Clifford Wolfe writes in about the LMC6042 because of the 2 fA (typ) input bias current for sensitive applications.
• Chris also likes the LMP7721, which specs 3 fA typical (Chris mispoke, the max is actually 20 fA).
• Dave and Chris like any chip that offers an upgradable option (through binning or otherwise)!

Got questions? Comments? Let us know below!

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• Welcome Dr. Howard Johnson!



• He has published two reference books that are a must-have for the field of high speed signal propagation:
• High Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic
• High Speed Signal Propagation: Advanced Black Magic
• Howard hails from Twisp, WA.
• Martin Graham, the co-author of his book, was also his longtime mentor at ROLM.
• Howard teaches a class at Oxford every summer. He also teaches classes throughout the US, both in public and private forums.
• He also has published articles regularly at EDN and other technical magazines.
• Other things mentioned during the show:
• Chris mentioned his article about Bell Labs and the Trickle Down Techonomy.
• Howard mentioned how the Voyager Space Craft actually experienced some cosmic ray data corruption, though it doesn’t happen often on earth.
• As connectors get scale smaller, signals get better. However, on boards as traces get longer, they also need to get wider.
• To continue increasing the speed of modern day comms, Howard believes we need to move to Multi-Level Communication (as we always do with every medium).
• The limits of channel capacity are governed by the Shannon-Hartley Law (referred to as Shannon’s Theory on the show).
• In “The Early History of Data Networks” by Gerard J. Holzmann and Bjorn Pehrson (there’s a “synopsis” here…), they talk about torches being used in single and multichannel modes.
• Howard helped define the Gigabit Ethernet Standard (with no help from “Ernie”!)
• Howard suggests “The Theory and Practice of Modem” Design, by John Bingham as a good starter text on the subject of encoding and data transfer.
• If you need a place to talk about signal issues, check out the SI-list, part of freelists.org.
• The IEEE EMC society also is a great place to meet other designers.
• At EMC meetings, they often watch related videos, such as the ones on Howard’s website!
• Howard responded to silliness relating to claims of “skin effect in audio cables”.
• The 90 degree question: Is it wrong to make right angles on your board layout?
• This rule was propagated by microwave designers who were designing with 120 mil line widths.
• Your board already has tons of 90 degree turns…in the vias on your board.
• It’s the added material in a right angle turn (beyond the normal width of a trace)  that can add parasitic capacitance.

We had a wonderful time talking with Dr. Howard Johnson. It was great getting to know the kinds of work he does and the kinds of signal integrity problems he works with regularly. Please leave any questions you might have about the show or for Dr. Johnson in the comment section.

Dr. Howard Johnson, master of the black magic of high speed digital signals, will be our guest on next week’s show! We have a few questions cooked up for him, but want to know what our audience members want to know about! Try and stump him with your questions or pose a problem you’ve experienced with crosstalk, high speed propagation, losses or any other kind of issue you think he might be able to help you with! Leave your questions in the comments and tune in next week to hear him answer them on the show.