
My Business Card Runs Linux - rcarmo
https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/my-business-card-runs-linux/
======
syncsynchalt
Wellington Ma's business card was a rectangular slice of pink synthetic
quartz, laser-engraved with his name, 'The Ma-Mariano Agency,' an address on
Beverly Boulevard, and all kinds of numbers and e-mail addresses. It arrived
by GlobEx in its own little gray suede envelope while Rydell was still in the
hospital.

"Looks like you could cut yourself on it," Rydell said.

"You could, many no doubt have," said Karen Mendelsohn, "and if you put it in
your wallet and sit down, it shatters."

"Then what's the point of it?"

"You're supposed to take very good care of it. You won't get another."

~~~
foota
I get serious Snow Crash vibes from this.

~~~
s_kilk
It's from Gibsons "Virtual Light", a vastly better book than Snow Crash.
Highly recommended!

~~~
ChickeNES
> a vastly better book than Snow Crash.

I've yet to read anything by Gibson that approaches anything by Stephenson

~~~
mr_overalls
Other than the ending of every book Gibson has ever written, compared to the
ending of any of Stephenson's works.

------
glaberficken
Loved the article, but loved even more to learn about MicroPython.

As an amateur programmer that has never actually physically handled hobby
micro-controller type boards, but has read a lot about them, it was amazing to
be able to try out the emulator at
[https://micropython.org/unicorn/](https://micropython.org/unicorn/)

Make the leds blink, see how servo control works etc, all in the browser
without having to actually buy any hardware! I had never seen anything like
this.

Would love if others could point me to more advanced emulators of hardware
micro controllers (if there is such a thing!)

~~~
leggomylibro
MicroPython is fantastic for education and rapid prototyping with hardware -
definitely try it out! It can be difficult to make complex long-running
applications because of post-GC memory fragmentation and frequent dynamic
allocations by the VM, but the Python syntax makes it all worthwhile. It also
has a supportive and friendly community where it's easy to get support, and
the official 'PyBoards' are great.

MakeCode is also similar to what you describe - check out Adafruit's
Blockly/JS simulator:

[https://makecode.adafruit.com/](https://makecode.adafruit.com/)

Note that CircuitPython is Adafruit's fork which focuses more on education
than industrial prototyping. So even within the embedded Python ecosystem, you
have options.

Embedded development is so easy these days, it is just fantastic. The barrier
to entry, in both cost and complexity, is so low now that just about anyone
can apply physical automation to the problems that they see in their life and
community. I'm excited to see what emerges in the next couple of decades.

~~~
m-ee
We've made some pretty capable hardware at my job on top of the
pyboard/micropython. We've outgrown it in certain cases but it's really
powerful being able to build something for potential critical business needs
(like one off testing platforms) without spending weeks rewriting drivers.

------
neurostimulant
To me it's truly mind-bogging that a tiny $1.42 chip contains almost
everything needed to boot Linux: a 500mhz cpu, 32MB SDRAM, 2D GPU, SD/MMC
support, and USB controller, all packaged inside a 10mm x 10mm chip? It makes
me really want to get into embedded development.

~~~
nabla9
Calling this embedded system feels like insult to the spirit of 'running light
without overbyte', because it's so comically capable.

My first PC had 66/33 MHz 80486 processor and 8 MB ram, 320 MB HDD. You could
run AutoCAD, play Doom, Civilization, have dual boot for Linux, Windows 3.11
etc. It could compile Linux from source.

~~~
zimmertr
Oh geez I can't imagine how long it would take to compile Linux on that slow
of a processor.

~~~
CreRecombinase
I once read somewhere that the time to compile Linux from source on high-end
desktop hardware has remained remarkably stable over the years.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I'm convinced that compiler speed is all a matter of how it was initially
designed.

Take for example Delphi which can compile millions of lines of code in under a
minute or something ridiculous. Then we have D, Go, Rust, and such, they
compile rather large codebases that would take C++ a good 30 minutes on high
end hardware of today in shorter spans of time (not as familiar with how fast
Rust compiles, but I know Go and D do pretty nicely, especially if you enable
concurrency for D), which probably takes those same 30 minutes on high end
hardware from about a decade ago.

Sadly from what I have heard C / C++ has to run through source files numerous
times before it finally compiles the darn thing into anything meaningful.
Facebook made a preprocessor in D to speed things up for them, it technically
didn't have to be coded in D, but Walter did write the preprocessor for them,
so he gets to pick whatever language.

~~~
anchpop
Rust doesn't compile very fast unfortunately, but it's being worked on.
General wisdom says it's about as fast as Clang but comparing compile speeds
across languages in a meaningful way is difficult

~~~
giancarlostoro
Fair enough, thanks for that, I wasn't sure, all my Rust programs have been
small enough to where I havent noticed. I wonder if it would of made sense for
Rust to consider this earlier on in the same way that Pascal did. I believe I
heard Pascal was designed to be parsed easily by machine code.

~~~
steveklabnik
Parsing is not the reason why it takes a while to compile.

~~~
Sharlin
"Parsing" was probably not the best choice of word on the GP's part, but they
meant that Pascal was specifically designed to be implementable with a naive
single-pass compiler; of course that would exclude many optimizations we take
for granted these days.

------
sagargandecha
I think it's fantastic. I don't typically hand out a physical business card
often. So the recipient would be someone that I would feel would generally
find the project exciting and intriguing, and it provides a great conversation
piece. It's simple enough to discuss it briefly and mention that for any
security-conscious individuals, they can check out the GitHub that's stated on
the card and see the code and still have the same insight if not more than if
they had just plugged in the device. For anyone else, the information they
need from a business card is all still nicely stated, in a design that's
enticing even without functionality. The production cost is easy to justify
with the chance of achieving whatever your goal may be, whether it be securing
a job offer or generating new business.

------
mikece
Maybe I'm twisted but my first thought if that if I were a pen tester I would
want business cards exactly like this. And yes, they would run Linux... and
some other things. :-)

~~~
thrtythreeforty
Ha someone on Reddit suggested this. See the thing is, they have my contact
info printed on them, so I'm really easy for the police to find after
everything is hacked!

~~~
bla3
If I were a pentester, I'd hand them out with your name and readme on it ;)

~~~
leereeves
If he only hands out a few, they'll still lead back to you, but you'll make
the police work for it too.

------
nilsb
While it's a fascinating project I'd have some security concerns about
plugging someone's USB business card into my computer.

~~~
jaclaz
Well, it is appropriate as a business card for an embedded systems engineers,
not so much for a system security one!

More seriously, I never managed to understand the "obsession" with ROHS (this
here is just an example):

>I made sure to have a lead-free process—the boards, parts, and solder paste
are all RoHS—so that I wouldn't feel bad about giving them to people.

I mean, you are creating something that (besides being very nice) is not
_needed_ , that very likely will end soon in the trash (and that contains
anyway a few grams of "far from clean" materials) and you worry about the tiny
amount of lead in the solder tin?

~~~
pkolaczk
I don't get this lead-free hatred on internet forums. People say they can't
solder with lead-free, and that it is terrible, and that joints look dull. So
much hatred that I actually tried it out. And I found the process is basically
just the same and there is nothing to be afraid of. Just set the solder iron
temperature a bit higher and that's it. Works like a charm.

~~~
jaclaz
My note was not at all about lead-free hate, actually, since several years,
everyone in EU (and I believe in US as well) has been using lead-free solder
(ROHS is 2003, if I recall correctly).

As you say it is just a matter of slightly increasing the soldering iron
temperature, but it doesn't end there and there may be issues further on
(JFYI):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_\(metallurgy\))

It seems like lead-free alloys tend to be more problematic in these -
fortunately rare - cases.

But because it is more than 15 years that ROHS came in force, I read in 2019
"and I made it lead-free" like I would read "and I buckled my safety belt" or
"I put my helmet on", etc. I see it as "the normal" way, nothing worth a
mention (nowadays).

~~~
GuB-42
I took a quick look at a rework station in an aeronautic company in France,
all leaded solder.

~~~
jaclaz
>I took a quick look at a rework station in an aeronautic company in France,
all leaded solder.

Very possible, there are a number of (pretty much wide) exemptions even in the
last version:

[https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rohs-compliance-and-
guidance#wha...](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rohs-compliance-and-
guidance#what-is-covered)

------
dsign
While I'm impressed by how low the bill of materials is, I can't but put into
perspective the kind of skills the authors of the post has, and how
mindbogglingly expensive they must be. Contrary to what the media says, it
seems that the digital era has made (some) human beings more essential than
ever ...

~~~
bsaul
After reading the post, i was under the impression that the author really did
some shopping for major components and assembled everything into a fun shape.
Obviously i know nothing about electronic board design, so could you explain
which extraordinary skill this required ?

EDIT : ok, i missed the part where he actually designed the whole board,
obviously..

~~~
nl
Embedded systems engineers are (usually) paid a lot less than full stack
engineers.

Edit: I seem to be getting (a lot!) of downvotes on this. I thought it was
quite well known, but apparently not.

Full Stack Engineer salary: $93,598 [1]

Embedded Software Engineer salary: $74,758[2]

[1]
[https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Full_Stack_Engineer...](https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Full_Stack_Engineer/Salary)

[2]
[https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Embedded_Engineer/S...](https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Embedded_Engineer/Salary)

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Don't know why the downvotes either. Its not intuitive, but a sad fact of life
and just the way supply and demand works.

~~~
nl
Yeah, maybe it's a "I don't like this" vote. I tend to agree - I find embedded
software engineering skills quite intimidating. Nevertheless, the market
demand just isn't as high.

~~~
chucksmash
Where's the mystery? Someone looks at what this guy did for his business card
and, to paraphrase, says "Wow, look at this guy's skills. He must charge a
very, very non-average amount of money for them."

Your response to this is "But actually, according to payscale.com, an average
embedded software engineer only makes X."

1\. Nobody likes but-actually posts.

2\. Quoting average salary when someone is commenting on how non-average a
guy's skillset is isn't really relevant.

~~~
nl
I get the "but actually" thing, but I don't think it was that.

The OP said the skills are "mindbogglingly expensive". From personal
experience they aren't (I worked in a team with embedded engineers with
similar skills to those required for this).

I thought this was well understood - it's been discussed here a number of
times.

I added the average salaries _after_ getting voted down to -2 and that turned
around the voting.

While there are a number of issues with average salaries I think it's notable
that no one is claiming the opposite.

------
axegon_
I rarely keep business carts, typically I scan them with my phone and throw
them away but... If I hadn't read the article and someone handed me that
business card, my jaw would have dropped all the way to the other side of the
earth.

------
exikyut
My eyebrows went up when I saw the processor was so cheap, but then I went and
found a datasheet for it and...

$1.42 buys

\- ARM926EJS core at 900MHz consuming 54mA when on and idle

\- 32MB DDR RAM

\- 720p H264 @ 30fps hardware decode

\- Audio DAC capable of 192kHz over I2S

\- USB OTG (not full host)

\- LCD RGB (FPC) interface at either 1024x600 or 1280x720 @ 60fps

\- Touchpanel I/O

Sources:

[https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/08/17/licheepi-nano-
cheap-...](https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/08/17/licheepi-nano-cheap-sd-
card-sized-linux-board/)

[https://linux-
sunxi.org/images/b/ba/F1C100s_Datasheet_V1.0.p...](https://linux-
sunxi.org/images/b/ba/F1C100s_Datasheet_V1.0.pdf)

\---

My version of this would have a tiny LCD, buttons, and a Wi-Fi interface. I
know all of those exist in incredibly inexpensive formats. _Adds to todo list_

~~~
6510
But can it run doom?

~~~
aratauto
With 900MHz and 32MB RAM it is more powerful than PCs when Doom launched
(around 50MHz and 8MB RAM), so I guess it should be capable running Doom.

------
Uptrenda
My first thought is that literally billions of people already do something
similar every day. They use a card that runs its own small, programmable
computer, that is portable, energy efficient, and can be powered 'wirelessly.'
It's called a universal integrated circuit card (UICC) -- or the chip used in
credit cards / sim / ID cards.

The OS these cards run is often referred to as the "Java Card Platform." The
OS has many of the same features you would expect from a modern operating
system like support for multiple programs, I/O, and very strong crypto
primitives. It even has features you wouldn't expect (because some applets
give you access to APIs that aren't currently open source available outside
that environment.)

~~~
jfim
JavaCard is hilariously weak though, as far as Java is concerned. Support for
"int" datatypes is optional, and there's no such thing as java.lang.String.

To your point though, it's pretty amazing to see the sheer number of devices
with it deployed, and the things that can be done with sim card applets
(mobile banking, etc.).

------
IgorPartola
I really appreciate this write up. I didn’t know about JCL and their assembly
prices seem very reasonable. I also usually order my parts from Newark but
their shipping is kind of silly on small orders ($8 for anything under 2lb).

Yesterday I started a small electronics project (Bluetooth connected
tachometer for my motorcycle), and want to use ESP32 chips for it. I am the
kind of masochist who in the past soldered SMD components by hand, but with
these new services at my disposal could do so much better with that. Time to
build a reflow oven?

~~~
sircastor
You don't really even need to build one. Buy a $20 toaster oven, turn it on,
and put your board in. When your solder paste reflows, turn it off. There is a
reflow waveform to follow, but for small runs and personal projects is hardly
worth the time and money. Check out YouTube four specifics.

------
diegoperini
I really want to learn being able compile and solder an embedded system but I
don't know where to start. Assuming I have the parts, tools and materials, how
can I learn where to put capacitors/resistors etc in a custom design? What
kind of simulators are good at testing these ideas without needing to waste
expensive components? What was missing in my Computer Engineering curriculum
which paints those circuit parts (except the cpu) completely alien to me?

~~~
ethbro
Start with a simple, known-good design, then figure out why each part is
there.

After you get some experience reverse engineering existing designs, start
trying to build something simple. Thinking blinking lights without a
processor.

Warning: Embedded tools are _not_ user friendly. Because most people who use
them, use them all the time.

Eagle has a free tier. I think it's the EDA tool we used in my CS/CSE courses.

There are open source alternatives, but they had even rougher edges a decade
ago when I was using them.

[https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/using-eagle-board-
layou...](https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/using-eagle-board-layout/all)

~~~
bschwindHN
These days KiCad does a good job, especially if you're just starting out.

Some CERN developers started working on it a few years ago and it's been much
improved since then.

~~~
ethbro
You might have inspired me to give it a retry! I remembered the name, but
wasn't sure enough to recommend it to someone new.

Apparently there are browser-based options too.

[https://www.circuitlab.com/](https://www.circuitlab.com/)

[https://www.falstad.com/circuit/](https://www.falstad.com/circuit/)

------
sutro
Your business card is CRAP!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBxeDN4tbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBxeDN4tbk)

------
chrismmay
Very cool project! It would be neat to incorporate WiFi into the next version
instead of USB. Then you could publish a mobile app to communicate with it. It
would be fun to play with at parties.
[https://www.gridconnect.com/products/esp8266ex-tiny-
wireless...](https://www.gridconnect.com/products/esp8266ex-tiny-
wireless-802-11-b-g-n-chip) .

~~~
LeonM
> instead of USB

And how would you power the card?

~~~
neurostimulant
I wonder if tiny solar cells covering the entire surface of the card would be
enough to power it. Not sure if the wifi module can be powered with < 1 watt
of electricity though.

~~~
chrismmay
How about a combination of solar and an ultra thin lithium ion battery?
Finding a small, thin solar cell cheap enough is the trick I think...
[http://www.phdenergy.com/products/rechargeable-
batteries/ult...](http://www.phdenergy.com/products/rechargeable-
batteries/ultrathin-battery/) [https://www.digikey.com/product-
detail/en/powerfilm-inc/MP3-...](https://www.digikey.com/product-
detail/en/powerfilm-inc/MP3-25/1996-1023-ND/9559473) I haven't done any
calculations to see if these would provide enough power or not...

------
Abishek_Muthian
This is cool as it showcases his embedded engineering prowess.

Years of startup meets[1] have left a bad taste in mouth for the business
cards. I've seen people exchange business cards ceremoniously, only to give a
missed call to each other immediately.

Business cards are a waste of money, paper and I don't want to get started on
the plastics. I honestly thought that proliferation of NFC in smartphones
would help to change this behaviour, but with Google shutting down Android
Beam(its reasoning: no one is using it) and newer, cheaper smartphones without
NFC; I think that ship has sailed.

At-least, in WhatsApp countries; people share contacts via WhatsApp.

[1][https://hitstartup.com/honest-startup-
meet/](https://hitstartup.com/honest-startup-meet/)

~~~
solatic
I find that business cards are still helpful to get the spelling of people's
names right - otherwise you have to either hand your phone over to the other
person and have them type their name into your phone, or at least have them
text you the spelling, which can be awkward to ask for and anyway has more
friction than accepting a business card.

Also, sharing WhatsApp contacts makes me uncomfortable. There's various fields
that people can store in their private contacts system which is inappropriate
to share without permission - birthdays and home addresses at least. When you
share a contact, you have to remember to sanitize the contact before you send
it. A business card only consists of details which are pre-approved to share
with strangers, so business cards don't have this problem.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
I agree with you on both the points.

One more concern for me is the utility of a business card is just once, if you
want to contact them in future you'll store the details on your phone and when
you put the card in the pocket it likely directly ends in the trash.

As for WhatsApp or other chat app 'contact' sharing it is not limited to
business/professionals and so it has become a norm in several countries.

------
glandium
Waw, I wasn't expecting the components to be _that_ cheap. That said I haven't
bought such components in a very long while.

~~~
nrp
It is an unusually cheap system, and OP clearly did some thorough research on
finding a really well integrated SoC that is available for super low piece
part prices. I'd guess Allwinner targets that part at some ultra high volume
application and some AliExpress sellers managed to capture some trays of
excess parts to sell individually. I wouldn't be surprised if the unit price
there is lower than what Allwinner quotes for volume.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Very good point.

And this one of the dangers of basing your supply chain on AliExpress. I've
had to caution clients that just because they found some normally expensive
component dirt cheap on Amazon or AliExpress, doesn't mean that they'll still
be available in 6 months when you need 1000 more.

Base your BOM on a manufacturer-approved supplier. If you can find the same
parts for less elsewhere (assuming they're not counterfeit), go for it.

------
jimhi
I am astonished just reading this, what have been some reactions handing these
out?

~~~
thrtythreeforty
Author here. It's a really good conversation starter. I've given a couple of
them out and the reaction is always that I bought it somewhere, and I have to
explain that no, I really did the entire design from start to finish!

~~~
bigbong
Really loved the look of your website... Is it designed by you?

~~~
sbussard
It is nice! Congrats on your career/YC. I really liked "The art of being
Disagreeable" because I've found that to be quite accurate in my experience.

~~~
jimhi
I assume the parent comment is talking about op's website but thanks! I have
been trying to write about all the things I wish I knew when I started.

------
nl
Don't miss the "Designing my Linux Business Card" post

[https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/designing-
my-...](https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/designing-my-linux-
business-card/)

Edit - I find it amazing that the CPUs for these are sold for $0.90 on Taobao,
without needing a bulk discount or anything.

------
dxxvi
Maybe in the next 10 years there will be a business card running a JVM.

~~~
asymptotically2
Your SIM cards, credit/debit cards, GPG smartcard, Bitcoin hardware wallets,
etc. already do (probably) run Java :)

------
rramadass
Here is another very similar project with full details;

Epaper based Business Card : [https://www.paulschow.com/2016/08/epaper-
business-card.html](https://www.paulschow.com/2016/08/epaper-business-
card.html)

------
tluyben2
Nice work! MicroPython is nice as well although I prefer C for now, but that's
probably just because MicroPython would not be very feasible at the moment for
projects we do.

I have been dreaming about making our card (see my profile here if interested)
run a real (well embedded but) OS; we had a version which could run some
embedded OSes but to cut on material costs, we had to remove a mcu which got
us down now to less than 23kB of workable memory. It is possible to run 'an
OS' in that like computers from the 70-80s; the speed of the current mcu
matches more with that era as well.

I like this kind of thing, but I would want a display on it and maybe no USB
(just a radio circuit communicate with it for updates etc).

------
sircastor
I'm amazed he did this for $3. I've been struggling to get my cheap electronic
Christmas ornament under $15. I guess I need to find an alternative toolchai
that's cheaper

------
zyngaro
The author: did you think about creating a course on embedded hardware and
software design and launch a funding campaign on Kickstarter. I would
definitely help fund it.

~~~
thrtythreeforty
I have thought about it and I am writing one entitled "Mastering Embedded
Linux." Its goal is to take you from zero to expert with hacking embedded
Linux systems.

[https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/08/mastering-
emb...](https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/08/mastering-embedded-
linux-part-1-concepts/)

Hopefully the next installment will come out today. The holidays are letting
me catch up on writing.

~~~
bla3
Both the card and the article look cool, thanks for making this. Do you have a
mailing list for article updates?

------
acvny
Very impressive stuff! There are so many stupid comments here.

------
dredmorbius
Kids today don't appreciate that in the 1990s, if you wanted a bootable
business card (BBC), you had to satisfy yourself with a CDROM, cut to
"business card" form factor, which would boot, but _you had to supply your own
computer_.

Immortalised as the Linuxcare BBC:

[https://archiveos.org/lnx-bbc/](https://archiveos.org/lnx-bbc/)

(@schoen here, among others, will be ... extraordinarily familiar with this.)

Hilliard's solution here is the 2020s variant.

This is also a testemant to the fact that it's not just ICs which are now
cheap (as opposed to, in the 1990s, static data archives), but entire SoCs.

The main limitation is now power supplies, though the prospect of parasitic
OTA power extraction is becoming a possiblity, perhaps also thin-film PV and
small-scale power storage systems.

Which means that peel-and-stick computing is well within reach, if not a
present reality. I suspect Hilliard's BoM would fall by 25-50% in bulk, and
given technological advances, should be halving every 18-24 months, which
means that $1.50 systems are available now, $0.75 in roughly two years, and
only a few more halvings before the 1995 Dilbert Unix user advice, "here's a
nickle, kid, get yourself a better computer", will be a practical reality:

[https://assets.amuniversal.com/6b08abb09fbb012f2fe600163e41d...](https://assets.amuniversal.com/6b08abb09fbb012f2fe600163e41dd5b)

Applied to packages, this means that shipments can report their own progress.
Applied to a vehicle, these will permit covert tracking on the cheap. Applied
to arbitrary surfaces, indoors or out, surveillance of a given location
(audio, video, or other sensors). RFID tags will give way to fully-capable
computers, integrated into inventory and pricing stickers. Applied to a drone
or glider, an integrated surveillance-and-flight-control package (combine with
very small body and lightweight electric motors for power-gliders deployable
_en masse_ , not individually threats, but capable of close-up, large-scale
monitoring and guidance for more capable systems). Applied to windows, tapping
of conversations inside. Likely tapping (or hacking) into available wireless
comms nets.

The devices will be well within reach of white hats and black, as well as
numerous shades of grey.

Decreasing costs mean that activities not presently viable, many of which
won't benefit the common weal, will come into viablity, much as email, fax,
pop-up, and phone spam over the past three decades.

Power, sensors, and antennae are likely the biggest limiting factors at this
point, though all are also rapidly miniaturising.

------
msla
I remember when only the distro would fit on a business card:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootable_business_card](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootable_business_card)

[http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/about_damn_small_linux.ht...](http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/about_damn_small_linux.html)

------
gus_massa
Impressive work. But I'd ask for a few leds with some easy to use method (can
they be a device, like dev/led1 ?). The Arduino has one in port 13 (usually),
and it is very useful for useful for minimal projects, like a blinking led.

(Bonus points for a few leds, so you can show the Knight Rider animation, or a
7-segment display.)

------
m0zg
According to the spec sheet, the CPU supports H264 decoding at that price. And
MJPEG encoding. And has full-fat DACs for audio playback too.

[https://linux-
sunxi.org/images/b/ba/F1C100s_Datasheet_V1.0.p...](https://linux-
sunxi.org/images/b/ba/F1C100s_Datasheet_V1.0.pdf)

------
pietroglyph
Don’t forget to look at the more detailed companion to this excellent article!

[https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/designing-
my-...](https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/designing-my-linux-
business-card/)

------
interfixus
Tech- and designwise, very neat.

And then there's the occasional sourfaced old party pooper like myself. Two
seconds in, and I no longer see the sweet wizardry or the polished black
surface; I only see _@gmail_ , internally translating to " _someone who doesn
't really care_".

~~~
pantalaimon
You can't take care of everything - there are only so many hours in a day.

------
mikehollinger
This is brilliant. I’m an embedded systems engineer by training (and interest
- I still occasionally solder things to bend them to my will!) and absolutely
love the implementation. It’s aesthetically pleasing and functional in both
interesting and fun ways. Very slick.

------
jasoneckert
I love this! And while it's well suited to the person (embedded engineer), it
could be realigned to someone else by changing the tagline. For example, "This
card runs vim!" for developers, or "This card runs Linux containers!" for
devops, etc.

~~~
NohatCoder
It is a gimmick, the value is that he designed it himself and no one else does
it. If you just buy a computer card and install your own software, it is just
a really impractical waste of resources.

------
nl
The links from that page leads to
[https://wiki.sipeed.com/en/lichee/nano.html](https://wiki.sipeed.com/en/lichee/nano.html)
which is a Linux computer in form factor similar to a SD Card

~~~
jaclaz
Which reminded me of the good ol' matchbox web server:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20000620180950/http://wearables....](https://web.archive.org/web/20000620180950/http://wearables.stanford.edu/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20000617162718fw_/http://wearabl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20000617162718fw_/http://wearables.stanford.edu/hardware.html#webserver)

------
cool-RR
This is a very cool project. I know very little about embedded engineering. I
have a question: Why would MicroPython be needed? I thought it was useful only
for simple chips, and this chip runs a full Linux, so couldn't you run CPython
on it?

~~~
thrtythreeforty
OP here. CPython is very heavyweight on small systems like these, with multi-
second imports, multi-megabyte stdlib, and limited library availability (cross
building native extensions is tricky).

MicroPython dodges all this.

------
Natales
Very cool. Back in 2004 I used to have business card-shaped CD-ROMs that
booted Tiny Core Linux. They were always eye catching. In fact, one of those
was a factor that landed me a job in a small startup in Palo Alto called
VMware...

------
ranjithdsm
Great and a cool project.

It looks promising for someone to share their personal profile and their
Resume.

For business, The best part will be to have cards received into the System and
transfer them to their CRM or contacts or some other application they use.

------
Ice_cream_suit
I remember installing Coherent from a bunch of 5 1/4 inch floppies onto my
third computer, a 286 (or perhaps it was onto my fourth computer, a 386 sx).

Coherent had a really nice cover on its manual.

------
ww520
This is pretty cool.

What's the time spent on bootup? Hardware POST? I remember seeing some Linux
can boot in under a second. It would be cool to see the business card come to
life instantly.

~~~
stefan_
You might know this and use it as a short hand, but just in case: ARM doesn't
use a BIOS of any sort, so there is no POST, just a bunch of vendor blobs
(burned into the chip) that do bootstrapping then jump to your bootloader.

The biggest problem in his case is probably the 8 MiB serial flash; that is
going to be rather slow to load from.

~~~
ww520
Good to know.

------
andrewfromx
overheard (year 2045) "can you believe this guy? His business card doesn't
even run linux! It was one of those retro paper only cards."

------
rotrux
Hey @rcarmo - So you're gonna sell these right? Bc I'll take way more than I
ever previously thought I would spend on business cards.

~~~
paxys
Buying these would defeat the purpose though.

~~~
rotrux
@paxys - Not sure what purpose you're referring to. Sure, purchasing them
would defeat the purpose of making your own business card, but not the
traditional purpose of having a business card that's cool & which doesn't
immediately get tossed in the garbage after you give it out.

I imagine these aren't for sale, but I'm just throwing it out there that I
would prly buy them if they were.

------
ctdonath
Staggering that this $3 "business card" has substantially more computing power
than my $6,000 original IBM PC.

(Today's US dollars.)

------
mickrussom
interesting idea but the system is pretty much not able to be used for any
task and this type of thing will end up as landfill.

~~~
saagarjha
Like most business cards, you mean. Actually, if I got one of these I’d
probably keep it around just for novelty.

------
the_arun
Awesome project!

However, practically do anyone use business card these days? What does it do
which a LinkedIn or GitHub profile wouldn’t?

~~~
sgillen
Makes the author stand out a lot more than yet another GitHub or LinkedIn
profile will.

------
forgotpwd16
A business card I'ld pay to get. Also a realization of the futuristic
"disposable computer" concept.

------
rramadass
Excellent and Ingenious work!

I hope to do something like this one day by myself (have to build up my
Electronics background first :-)

------
0xFFFE
If you set aside the security concerns for a moment, this is a great way to
make the first impression.

------
freakynit
Can you start a company around this? I would love to have one. You may use
KickStarter

------
nstj
Interested why the author would fuzz out the phone number on their business
card?

~~~
thrtythreeforty
It's only fuzzed in the pictures. The actual card has the phone number. I just
didn't want a ton of people from the internet hitting my phone directly! Email
is fine, however, so that's un-blurred.

~~~
brantonb
You do then link to the GitHub repo which has a PDF of your resume with all of
your contact info.

------
at_a_remove
Given the site name, I wonder if he is a fan of Kurt Schroeder's books.

~~~
thrtythreeforty
OP here. Bingo! Karl Schroeder is fairly obscure unfortunately... I love
Ventus and Lady of Mazes. I picked this handle mainly because it's unique
everywhere I've tried to sign up.

------
dillonmckay
I want to see the USB-C equivalent of this.

:(

~~~
sbussard
Older usb specs are the serial ports of this era

------
amelius
Idea for a next project: an fpga that runs Linux, on a business card.

------
jordache
very cool. but I would never plug your card into my machine.. Especially if
it's a work machine.

Perhaps if I have a dedicated sandboxed machine. Is that setup common for
embedded folks?

------
zyngaro
This is one of the coolest things I have seen on HN this year !

------
linuxlizard
This is a beautiful piece of art and engineering!

------
TheRealPomax
Okay, but... you could have gotten a better email address at least? Random
numbers after your name is barely a step up from "at yahoo dot com"

------
hathym
wow, 900MHZ CPU and 32MB was my first PC I bought more than 20 years ago for
more than 1000$

------
anon_cow1111
How well does this survive a static-prone coat pocket during the dry winter
months?

------
mindfulgeek
What fun! Nice work!

------
TomMarius
Most credit cards run Java(Card), another very interesting technology

~~~
shakna
On that note, the platform had a bunch of (medium) vulnerabilities early this
year [0][1], but I haven't managed to find a follow up.

(Which isn't unusual - this is Oracle. Knowledge of patches is precious
information.)

[0]
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/22/oracles_java_card/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/22/oracles_java_card/)

[1]
[https://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Mar/35](https://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2019/Mar/35)

~~~
pjmlp
Before Oracle there was Sun, which managed Java Card just the same way, and
there is the consortium as well.

Given the December 12th release, I expect those issues from March, to have
been fixed already.

------
mv4
Let's see Paul Allen's card.

------
egdod
The tasteful thickness of it...

------
curiousgal
If only they'd invested more into a professional looking email address. Pretty
cool nonetheless!

~~~
skrebbel
That makes no sense. This guy isnt advertising his mad "registering
firstnamelastname.com" skills, he's advertising his mad embedded engineering
skills.

------
hownottowrite
How can I upvote this twice?

------
ethanwillis
901, I live in the same city as this guy!

------
aliswe
But isn't masking the phone number kinda defying the purpose?

Extremely impressive

~~~
kortex
The censor is only on the picture.

Clearly you've never been called 20 times a day for 2 weeks straight during
looming deadlines about Extended Car Warranties!

~~~
aliswe
Correct!

------
hvasilev
I wonder what world would we be living in if people like this fellow were
actually focusing on automation and not on making business cards that run
Linux.

Maybe we wouldn't be living in such a lowly automated reality, using concepts
from the previous centuries. Robotics might even make sense...

~~~
ufmace
I have worked on some industrial automation stuff. In my experience, it's
genuinely really hard to do in a way that's actually better than manual
systems, or very narrowly-scoped and simple automation. The number of edge
cases and failure modes is mind-boggling. I'm skeptical that there's much room
for effective solutions between extremely simple and dumb automation, and
near-human level AI.

~~~
erichocean
> _I 'm skeptical that there's much room for effective solutions between
> extremely simple and dumb automation, and near-human level AI._

That's literally my job, and there's a ton of room actually. You just have to
be able (and willing) to have the ability to fall back to humans at any point
in the process. Like real world "fix-and-continue" debugging...

