Dip then Dive into BUG Development, by Dave Mathews
The following is a guest post from Dave Mathews, as part of our series on The Road to Maker Faire.
On July 26, 2003 after Chris Pirillo's Gnomedex 3.0 a hungry group including Tim O'Reilly, Rob Malda of Slashdot, and a handful of other software guys sat around a dinner table and talked about a movement in the world of creating new hardware and remixing gadgets.
Prototyping stuff (like my CueCat consumer barcode scanner in 1997) involved digging for parts in bins of old gear, surplus electronics shops and occasionally big-box electronics stores. Needless to say this was time consuming, required soldering irons and things were frequently "good enough" but not exactly what was in mind for a solution. Dare I mention all of the warranties I have voided in my lifetime?
This hacker spirit however, is what lead Dale Dougherty, Andrew "Bunny" Huang, Joe Grand, Phil Torrone and I to get together at O'Reilly's ETech a few months later to continue the discussion and put some framework around MAKE Magazine, which debuted in February 2005. I am proud to say that the MAKE Magazine movement, including the blog and associated Faire events have become a phenomenon and have spurred offspring like Craft, which I hope grows to be as strong.
The founder and CEO of Bug Labs, Peter Semmelhack captures this spirit with BUG and his model of open source hardware. Hell, he even has "hack" in his last name – and is leading the next evolution of home remixing; by giving their customers the ability to quickly and easily build their own "whatever." Third party accessory makers can get involved too as BUG connectors and wiring diagrams are open and easily sourced. Have you seen Apple's iPod connector licensing agreement? Trust me, you do not want to.
What I like best about BUG is that you can dip your toes in the water today, now, for free. Let me back up a bit - when the Apple Newton was announced at Macworld Boston in August of 1993, handheld computing was an interesting oddity. I remember playing with the hardware in my local CompUSA, but stayed away from it due to the price of $699. When Palm launched their PDA in March of 1996 however, the price was much better at $299, but I still was apprehensive on its value proposition. I first stuck my "digital toe" in the water by downloading the Palm Desktop client to my PC, then used this software for weeks – first importing my contacts, getting my calendar setup and filling up my "personal digital assistant world" with data before buying the associated hardware device. I loved the interface and after I trusted the software, bought the Palm Pilot (the original name before a Pilot pen lawsuit), sync'd it up and had an "instantly-full" assistant.
So I challenge you – download the SDK, for free. You'll find a debugger and virtual BUG hardware emulator. See what you can come up with on your desktop and let us know what your creation does, via comments or the forum! If you like the software, then you will love the hardware and the ability to mobilize your build. If you are a company that has manufacturing experience, take a look at the open source connectors and communication capabilities of BUG. I predict that we will see hardware options for this platform that an iPod could only dream about…
Dave Mathews is an entrepreneur and lifetime inventor with more than two-dozen patents, writer for several technology outlets and frequent TV host. His stories can be found at www.davemathews.com online.
