Topic: Codename and WoW

Just a curious type I guess, but I noticed that the codenames for the various products are cities / areas in WoW.  Who's idea was that, what was significant about World of Warcraft to whoever named them, and why didn't I find any reference to it when I did a search smile ?

I'm actually quite interested in the internal history of Chumby (the company).  There doesn't seem to be much about it anywhere, aside from Bunnie's interviews and things like that.  Anyone want to share (Duane I'm looking at you for a history book about the good old days!)


BillyJack

Re: Codename and WoW

this interests me too.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Codename and WoW

bunnie came up with the codenames for the devices, mostly based on WoW.

The first two devices, the "alpha prototypes" were called Foo and Katamari.  "Foo" was because they were distributed at "Foo camp", an annual conference hosted by Tim O'Reilly (FOO==Friends Of O'Reilly). After those 250 or so units were distributed, we changed the hardware a bit - removed a light sensor and added an accelerometer.  There were other proposals for hardware additions - bunnie designed a "sensor package" that included servo motor drivers, and other things, that he jokingly called the update "katamari" after the video game "Katamari Damacy", since it was accumulating random stuff.

When the redesign started happening for actual production units, bunnie started using WoW names.

bunnie is a big WoW fan - he's apparently a female elf in the game, which combined with his hacker name, results in all sorts of hilarity.

Re: Codename and WoW

There is a lot of hacker and SciFi lore with chumbys.

For instance, some chumbys heartbeat with the server by checking for the file "setecastronomy", which also appears on some of the circuit boards.  The "Do you believe in the users?" quote in the "pi" page is from TRON.  The "pi" to get to the "hack" screen is from the movie "The Net".

One of the boards has stuff hidden in the inner layers that you can see only by holding it up to the light.

Re: Codename and WoW

isn't there a cake on one of the boards that you have to xray it to see?  ah, yes: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=1459

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Codename and WoW

For instance, some chumbys heartbeat with the server by checking for the file "setecastronomy", which also appears on some of the circuit boards.

It goes deeper than that. The "SETEC ASTRONOMY" silkscreen on the board denotes a jumper that, when closed, will allow the device's coprocessor to erase its private key. (Here's the relevant source code.)

Why "SETEC ASTRONOMY"? Because you can set it if you feel that your device has TOO MANY SECRETS.