Category Archives: Misc

Before Sub-Etha Software…

Updates:

2024-02-12 – Added image of Eggs, my first published program. Replaced Factory TNT screenshot with one that shows the proper graphics. Updated Meteor Clash screenshot.

…it was going to be Custom Programs Limited.

My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 back around 1981 or 1982 (whenever it first came out for “under $300” – $299.99 is what my father paid for it, I believe).

But my buddy, Jimmy*, suggested “Unlimited” because then it would be C.P.U. (I had not even heard the term CPU yet). And thus, CPU Software was born.

The letters appeared to the musical notes of 2001, one at a time, then the title screen would come up:

That was to be our startup for all our custom programs. It was going to be me writing for the VIC-20, and Jimmy writing for a Timex Sinclair ZX81, and another guy at school writing for a TRS-80 Model III (he didn’t own one, but had access to them at school). We thought we could custom write programs for people.

Our first program was a horse racing game, and it was written for each of these platforms, though I don’t seem to have a copy of it (or it’s on one of the tapes that is bad).

I don’t know why we didn’t pursue this, but I did write a bunch of small games for the VIC-20…

Eggs

I wrote a simple BASIC game called Eggs and it was published in the June/July 1983 issue of VIC-NIC News (issue #6).

It was a very simple “catch the falling object” game that used joystick.

Brick Layer

Bricklayer was a simple game based on the Atari VCS cartridge Surround. I apparently wasn’t date-aware back then, and the comments inside the program only list the title and author. Bummer. I really would like to know when I wrote these.

The game screen animated as it drew the black walls (with sounds), then the game began. Using a joystick (I think), you started “laying bricks” around the screen, trying to cover as much area as you could without running out of room or crashing.

If you got over 200, it would congratulate you. If you crashed, it would summarize your accomplishment.

Yeah. There was a time when this would have been considered a game. Interestingly enough, the movie TRON would come out a year later, taking the “draw lines” concept to a new level with the Light Cycles. The TRON arcade game featured Light Cycles as one of the four games it had, and this became my favorite arcade game of all-time.

I guess I had a thing for drawing lines.

Gold Grabber

Next up was a chase game.

You moved around the screen (you were the clubs symbol) trying to catch the gold (the diamond) while avoiding the bad guy (the +).

I have no idea what the “+” represented, and the game logic just had it wandering around randomly so I had to actually try to run in to it to see what it did.

Factory TNT

In my mind, this was called Factory TNT, but for some reason, the cassette was just labeled as TNT. This was a “Kaboom” catch the falling objects game. I had previously written a text version of the same type of game and called it Eggs. In it, you were catching falling eggs. This game was printed out in the VIC-NIC NEWS newsletter.

I almost had this program distributed by a company, but due to my very similar Eggs game being printed in a newsletter (which they also subscribed to), they decided to pass on it. (I belive this was the “FOX 20: the magazine for VIC 20 users” cassette-tape newsletter, published out of Pasadena/Deer Park, TX. (I lived in both those towns at one point, and recall going over to the house of the publisher – it was a home run operation – and meeting them once.)

~~The tape is bad, so the custom graphics are not loading, but it should look like a conveyor belt on the bottom, and pipes on the top.~~ Classic round bombs would fall from the top and you moved your cup along the conveyor to catch them. If they hit the ground, they would turn in to a mushroom cloud. It has decent sound effects.

Apparently, it tracked high score (not saved to tape or anything, so it would reset any time you reloaded).

Apparently I had different rankings! Cool. I need to check the listing and see what all they were.

Thick Brush

For some reason, I did a blocky drawing program.

What in the world was this good for? There didn’t seem to be a way to save the “artwork” either. I guess I was, yet again, inspired by the Atari VCS Surround cartridge, which had a simple drawing mode (but the Atari version didn’t let you draw in colors – take that, Atari!).

Sky-Ape-Er

In a previous post, I mentioned my Donkey Kong inspired game, Sky-Ape-Er. Actually, it was really inspired by a VIC-20 game I bought that was inspired by Donkey Kong. I remember seeing it at the only VIC-20 store in Houston (I had my grandmother drive me across town to go to it), and they were out of stock, but they made a copy and sold it to me, and said I could get the real tape when they got more (I never did). On the label, they hand wrote “Krazy Kong”, so it might have been this one, or this Super Kong one. They appear to be the same game, but with different colors.

The important breakthrough was that they solved the problem of ladders and such by just making the level wrap around and go up. I had been working on a Donkey Kong style game and planned to use teleporters so you would stand on a spot and it a button and be teleported to the level above (I guess I had no idea how to make the climbing work then). When I saw the Krazy Kong approach, I knew I could do that, and make it better.

I worked on a few versions of this, with some graphics that looked like Donkey Kong girders, and some that looked like bricks. I think the brike

Later versions had instructions! — Unlike one I bought, my version had instructions!

The graphics were more Kong-like here. Sorta. — I think mine looked better than the one I bought.

It turns out to be a very difficult game! I finally cleared the first screen and found out there were multiple levels! I wonder how many are in there??? This is level 2 (using the prototype graphics):

And the “continue” screen was kind of snarky. I seem to have put some work in to these things.

I don’t know what my intentions were with this game, but I expect I was trying to sell it as well. I had no idea that an individual could just make tapes and put ads in newsletters and sell copies back then. I wish I did — I probably could have made some money in those early days.

Maze Gobbler

I was annoyed with Pac-Man games not looking like Pac-Man (I’m looking’ at YOU, Atari VCS), so I started working on my own. I replicated the Pac-Man maze very accurately, but by the time I had done that, I was out of memory on this 3.5K computer. Nothing exists from that maze except a title screen, as far as I have found:

Meteor Clash

My attempt at a Defender-style game (maybe – I’m not sure that game even existed yet) was Meteor Clash. You moved a spaceship up and down and dodged endless meteors that headed to you.

This game had an intro that printed out text letter-by-letter like a typewriter, with beeping sounds! Fancy.

Spell checkers did not exist for the VIC-20, apparently.

I don’t know how to use those cursor control keys on the emulator yet, so I wasn’t able to play it. I was able to fly for a bit until a meteor hit me.

~~Oops. This screen shot was taken when the meteors were being redrawn, so it’s just the ship.~~ It wasn’t much of a game yet, anyway. It did have sounds, and an explosion, though! Maybe that would have been enough to be a game, but I hadn’t even customized the graphics yet. (Maybe that’s “Meteor Storm” I keep remembering.)

Rover

I seem to recall that this was going to be a Moon Patrol style game, but all I can find is a test of the title screen.

I found a few other things, too, including stuff written for the Super Expander cartridge which I cannot run on the emulator I am using. I need to figure out if that is possible in another emulator, since I have some games I wrote for it (enhanced graphics commands and such).

I also did a bunch of video titles for a booth at the Houston Boat Show for my father. I remember having an animated fish that swam back and forth on the screen in one of them, and drawing blue water waves. I later did graphics using my TRS-80 CoCo 1, and my dad was never impressed with it since the colors were so much worse than the VIC-20.

Interesting stuff, even if most of the tapes won’t load in 2016.

Man… I was, like, 12 years old when I was doing this. I really should have done more with it, but who knew computers were going to become such a part of life!

To be continued…

*Jimmy J was a kid I met in 7th grade. I had seen a listing in TV guide for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” on PBS and had watched it. In English (?) class, I quoted a line from the show, and he turned around and said something like “you watched that to?” We became friends, and I think he’s the one that let me know about Douglas Adams and the book versions of Hitchhikers. He also introduced me to computers. He had a book on programming and we would go down to Radio Shack to type things in on the TRS-80 Model III. He’s likely the one that introduced me to BBSes too (again, we’d go down and get online at Radio Shack before we had our own computers and modems), and he was also the one that introduced me to the concept of hacking and phone phreaking. Fun times! Beyond my parents, I can’t think of any other person that had such an impact on the direction of my life at an early age. Thanks, James!

CoCo VR

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Over the years, there were a number of cool ideas at Sub-Etha Software that I really wish we’d followed through on. Last year, I mentioned some unfinished software projects I uncovered when going through all my old floppies, but there were also a few hardware projects that never made it out of the idea or concept stage…

Reveal VM100 "voice mail" device for PCs. — Reveal VM100 “voice mail” device for PCs.

For instance, once I found a low-cost gadget at Walmart that interfaced a telephone line to a computer. It was controlled by a serial port, and plugged in to the audio in/out ports of a sound card on a PC. It came with software to turn the PC in to an answering machine.

I bought one to hook it up to my CoCo, and had plans to create a simple CoCo answering machine. On a 128K CoCo 3, it would be possible to play a short greeting, and record a short message from the caller then save it out to disk. Sure, the audio quality would have been poor and it would probably be cheaper to just buy an answering machine, but wouldn’t it be fun?

VM100 ready to hook to a CoCo via cassette cable and RS232 pak.

Concept software was witten (in assembly) to record audio from the VM100 (using 1-bit cassette input, or 6-bit joystick input) as well as play back digital audio.

I was even wanting to do touch tone decoding in software and create a simple voice mail system with mailboxes. There was even a plan to create a “telephone adventure game” where a description would be read and the user could make a choice by pressing buttons on their phone. (Years later, the Tellme company did something similar with a version of blackjack you could play over their 1-800-555-TELL demo line. It was so cool, Microsoft bought them!)

Woulda, coulda, shoulda…

I will try to share some more of these “lost” projects in the future, but today I wanted to focus on a virtual reality project I was working on.

VR was a big buzzword in the early 1990s, and many thought it was going to be the next big thing. As we know know, it fizzeled out rather quickly, with Atari, Sega and Nintendo abandoning their home VR products.

The Atari Jaguar VR project was being done in conjunction with Virtuality, the company I previously wrote about that created the VR game I first experienced.

The Sega VR project has a CoCo connection, since one of the launch titles was being worked on by legendary CoCo game programmer Steve Bjork**! I believe this is the game that Bjork was working on: Iron Hammer

Nintendo’s effort eventually came out as the failed Virtual Boy where, instead of wearing an immersive helmet over your eyes, you peered in to a 3-D viewer that remained stationary on a table. Hey, at least they tried!

But I digress…

In the pre-world wide web days, we had things called catalogs which were like paper versions of Amazon.com. One of the catalogs I received always had interesting items often at cheap liquidation prices. One such item was the VictorMaxx Stuntmaster VR helmet. The wiki page claims this was the very first commercial VR helmet made available.

TODO: I need to add a photo of my VR helmet, as soon as I figure out which storage box it is in.

The Stuntmaster wasn’t a real VR helmet, though. It did not provide a stereoscopic display, and did not have any head tracking capability for use with true VR games. Instead, there was an analog dial on one side that connected to a shaft which you clipped to your shoulder. As you turned your head left or right, the shaft would turn the dial, allowing a simulation of left/right head tracking.

You could plug this helmet up to a Sega Genesis game console and then play some games where you held the game controller to play, but used your head to turn left and right. It seems unlikely that this would have worked well with any games not specifically designed for this, but hey, it was the first.

Here is a video of it in all it’s glory:

Me playing Dactyl Nightmare again in 1994. — Virtuality’s Dactyl Nightmare (I am shown here playing it in Dallas in 1994) had a helmet and a hand grip controller that featured a trigger and a thumb button.

When I saw this in the catalog, I immediately ordered one to see if it could be used with the CoCo. My plan was to send CoCo video and audio to the helmet, then wire the left/right control shaft up as a joystick. Taking a nod from the controls of the Dactyl Nightmare arcade VR game I played, I was going to use the two joystick buttons for “walk” and “shoot”. My thought was you could turn your head left or right, then walk in that direction using the button. I guess I was thinking we’d build a special pistol grip controller to work with the helmet.

I had become friends with Vaughn Cato*, who did the original bouncing ball demo when the CoCo 3 first came out. He had been writing routines to do bitmap scaling and such, and I was hoping to use some of this in some CoCo game projects.

Toast 3-D maze engine by Vaugn Cato. — 3-D maze engine by Vaughn Cato. It ran under OS-9.

On of the coolest things he created was a 3-D maze engine that drew everything using lines (I guess we would call this a vector engine). It looked similar to Dungeons of Daggorath but you could move through it in all directions, like Wolfenstein 3-D or DOOM did.

I cannot remember why, but for some reason the demo executable was called toast. It would read a small text file that represented the maze, then you could walk through the maze in 3-D. Things never went much further than the demo, but I thought it would work well with the VR helmet as the basis of some kind of VR maze game.

I think I was planning to create something like Phantom Slayer VR (a tribute to the old MED Systems 3-D maze game by Ken Kalish). I certainly know I had worked on this concept before without VR in mind, as well as a 3-D Pac-Man game. The Pac-Man one was interesting, as I got as far as recreating the original Pac-Man maze in 3-D and had it populated with dots you could walk over to “eat.”

Woulda, coulda, shoulda…

I still have the helmet. Who knows . . . maybe some day CoCo VR might still get done, even if there is no longer a supply for helmets to make it a sellable product.

*Vaughn Cato may be the only former CoCo guy to accept an Oscar. He was working with a company doing motion capture and he was on stage to receive a 2005 Technical Achievement Award. That’s quite the trip from a bouncing ball demo on a TRS-80, don’t you think?

**Steve Bjork has also had encounters with movies. If I recall correctly, he was an extra in films like Rollercoaster and The Goonies, as well as working on movie related video games like The Rocketeer and The Mask. Oh, and his CoCo program Audio Spectrum Analyzer appeared in Revenge of the Nerds, and his CoCo Zaxxon program appeared in Friday the 13th Part 4.

Bitcoin is less anonymous than cash

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This article is written to address a peeve of mine/ I keep reading/hearing “bitcoin is anonymous” and warnings about how terrorists and drug dealers can use it for bad purposes. While this is true, they are far safer doing illegal activities with cash. If you are somehow unaware of Bitcoin, check out the wikipedia page for a good overview.

Bitcoin Summary

Basically, bitcoin is like PayPal except it uses its own currency (bitcoin) instead of U.S. dollars. You have to have internet access to transfer funds (just like you do with PayPal or a credit card). Without an internet connection, you cannot send or receive bitcoin. (Just like PayPal, and just like credit cards, though with credit cards a business could use a paper imprint of the card and run that through later, trusting the buyer. I am not sure if there is any way to do this offline with PayPal or bitcoin.)

Unlike PayPal, bitcoin is decentralized. If PayPal goes down, you can’t use PayPal. Bitcoin works like peer-to-peer file sharing services do. There is no master bitcoin server. Instead, thousands of bitcoin servers are running around the world, creating a vastly redundant network with no central point of failure.

Obtaining Bitcoin

You earn bitcoin just like you earn U.S. dollars — you can do work for someone who pays you in bitcoin, or, you can exchange/sell stuff for it, like how you might give someone a table for cash. In my case, a few years ago I gave some U.S. dollars to a company and they gave me some bitcoin for it.

But how does someone get bitcoin in the first place?

Creating Bitcoin

If you trace the U.S. dollar back far enough, you find it originated as paper notes representing some supply of precious metal (see the wikipedia entry on the U.S. silver certificates). At some point, we unlinked our dollar from silver, and now paper is just a virtual currency, not really tied to anything. We accept the value because we can trade/exchange it for goods and services. Our banks don’t even have enough dollars to match what we have in our checking or savings accounts. See the wikipedia entry on fractional reserve banking.

Just like U.S. dollars originated from mining precious metals, bitcoin originated by virtual mining. Bitcoin is a mathematical creation, with a finite amount that can be created through some complex mathematical formula. In the early days, bitcoin miners ran software to decode/discover the bitcoin. They might then use it to buy a pizza (which may have been the very first bitcoin transaction for goods in 2010). And thus it begins.

Over the years, mining has become less and less popular. The fewer bitcoins there are to find, the harder and longer it takes to find them. Just like the gold rush, early miners found plenty, and those who showed up years later had to do much more digging.

At some point, the electricity cost to run the bitcoin mining computers is more than what the bitcoin is worth. But, just like gold, if the value of bitcoin goes up high enough, it might be worth mining it again. (It’s much like the oil industry. If gas goes to $4/gallon, suddenly it’s worth it to do more work on those old U.S. oil fields. When it’s $1/gallon, it’s cheaper to just import it.)

Bitcoin is NOT Anonymous

And now … the point of this article. Bitcoin is not an anonymous currency. Every bitcoin ever created is recorded in a ledger. This ledger (see the wikipedia entry on block chain database) is replicated on the thousands of systems running bitcoin software. Every transaction (sending or receiving bitcoin) is recorded in this ledger, thus every virtual penny of bitcoin is traceable.

Just like every U.S. dollar has a serial number on it, every bitcoin has a serial number. Just like with cash, you can spend a portion of a bitcoin — like giving a store $10 for an $8 item, and receiving $2 back in change. As bitcoins split up, new entries in the ledger are created. It is possible to track the movement of every piece of a bitcoin ever spent back to its original full bitcoin that was created through the mining process.

It would be as if every business wrote down the serial number of every cash bill they ever received and then shared this information with every other person who uses cash around the world. In the real world, this would be impossible, but in the digital world, the Internet and distributed computing makes it easy.

What this means is if you have ever been identified as owning a bitcoin (or portion of one), it would be possible to see where you spent it. Since the entire ledger is public, if the receiver of the bitcoin has ever been known, you could now trace the transactions and know that Bob just sent Dan $5 worth of bitcoin.

In order to stay anonymous, users can create disposable wallets for each transaction, and split up bitcoins in to many small pieces and exchange them through anonymizing services making it much harder to track down. Think of it as exchanging serial numbered U.S. dollars to un-serial numbered coins, then turning those coins back in to dollar bills later. (Except, in the case of bitcoin, every fractional penny of bitcoin is still tracked.)

Cash is More Anonymous than Bitcoin

Because of this, cash is far more anonymous than bitcoin. There is no master ledger for cash. There may be a record of where brand new bills are delivered, but once they leave the bank or ATM machine, they are out in the wild. Tracking bills can be done, of course:

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

…but it’s far from a complete record of every place those bills have been. I expect anyone using bills for illegal purposes probably didn’t take the time to log their bill’s serial numbers in a public database.

“Bitcoin is the new MP3”

MP3 files and peer-to-peer systems were initially associated with illegal music piracy. Today, many see bitcoin along the same lines. Yet, it’s no different than any other piece of technology. Cash can be used to buy a carton of milk, or a bag of illegal narcotics.

The convenience of being able to near-instantly transfer bitcoin anywhere in the world without government oversight is both a benefit and concern. It is a far superior way to move value around the world without anyone being able to stop you. Since cash is completely anonymous, you could buy bitcoin with cash and then move that bitcoin around in ways cash never could — something you could never do though a bank transfer. (You would have to physically smuggle out suitcases of cash to do the same thing with paper currency, and hope it doesn’t get stopped at the border during an inspection.)

Just be aware that somewhere in the ledger is a record of you transferring bitcoin for that carton of milk you just bought.

Chainless bicycles?

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At another side-project site of mine I have been doing a multi-park review of a “chainless” bike. Instead of a chain, it uses a shaft. Instead of a derailleur, it uses an internal hub. The concept of a chainless bike is very, very old, but Dynamic Bicycles in Rhode Island has taken the idea and updated it with modern technology.

If you have any interest in biking tech, drop by and check out this review:

Dynamic Bicycles part 1 – ordering, shipping and assembly

The Dynamic Bicycles Runabout 8 model is a hybrid bike (meaning it’s bigger/heavier than a street bike, but not quite a mountain bike). Getting rid of the chain solves a ton of problems/challenges with maintaining/tuning a traditional bike. Very cool.

YQ8008 bicycle LED light for $74.96 on e-Bay

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2015/8/25 – Added not about $36 YQ8007.

YQ8008 bicycle LED light (pic from e-Bay store), currently $75 on e-Bay.

A relatively new e-Bay store, Newell Development, has a listing for the YQ8008 three-arm bicycle LED light for $74.96 with free shipping from China. This model typically sells for around $130, but many e-Bay stores have it for around $80 with a $20 shipping fee. This $74.96 price is the lowest I have found so far.

They list the item as “generic” but I wrote them to ask if it was a YQ8008 (they use all the same official photos) and they responded:

“…it is Original with 100 Modes Programmable DIY Bike Bicycle Wheel Spoke Light. And it is in stock.”

Although the XuanWheel has four arms (so it can display images at lower speeds), the YQ8008 has a higher LED count per arm and thus produces a higher resolution image. You can check my comparison chart to see more details.

I have also found the YQ8007 (two arms) for $40 with free shipping from GearBest.com. I have received one to review. It shipped on 8/11 and was received in Iowa on 8/20, so just over a week — not bad. (As of this update, it is currently $36.)

See Also: XuanWheel for $79.

XuanWheel bicycle LED light for $79 on Amazon

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2015/8/14: Added note about e-Bay seller.
2015/8/24: Added note that it now is shipped by Amazon, and qualifies for Amazon Prime shipping.
2015/12/8: $72 on Amazon currently, and there are some reviews now (and notes from the seller explaining why the iOS app is “untrusted”. Buyer beware!)

The XuanWheel (or is it Xuan Wheel?) just saw a $10 price drop. It is currently $79 at Amazon with shipping from Amazon, so it qualifies for Amazon Prime. This model has four arms, and thus produces an image (or moving video) at lower speeds than the cheaper two arm models.

One of the two e-Bay sellers has them for $69 with free shipping (from China), currently.

See Also: There is also the YQ8008 (now found for $75 on e-Bay with free shipping) three arm unit which has a higher density of LEDs no each arm for higher resolution photos. XuanWheel is probably better at slower speeds, and YQ8008 probably has better images at higher speeds.

Bicycle wheel LED light displays

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2016/1/11 – This article has now been moved to a dedicated page on this website:

Bike LED POV Lights

More on bike spoke light LED signs (POV)

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2004/8/09 – Adding link to Hokey Spokes.
2014/8/10 – Adding link to manufacturer of YQ800X series products.

Last year, I posted an article discussing a cheap bike wheel LED display I picked up for $6 on e-Bay. Recently, I discovered many other ones seem much better. The cheap one I have has 32 blue LEDs, and is single sided, so you can only view it from on side of the bike. Since then, I have discovered full color versions with more LEDs and, most importantly, double-sided so they can be viewed on either side of the bike. Here is a rundown of my researc so far, mostly posted here so it can be indexed in Google, BING, etc. and maybe help others.

I will post links to the items available from Amazon (but NONE are actually sold BY Amazon, and most ship from China and take weeks to arrive). I have found hundreds of e-Bay stores selling them, too, often at far lower prices.

There is a company called ExcelVan that makes several, ranging from $20 to over $100.

The ones I have found so far include:

YQ8003 – $45, double-sided, two arm, 128 LED, programmed via USB cable.
http://www.amazon.com/Excelvan-Colorful-Waterproof-Programmable-customize/dp/B00WS2I8K2
YQ8005 – $26, double-sided, two-arm, 96 LED, maybe not programmable (25 included pictures).
http://www.amazon.com/Excelvan-Colorful-Pictures-Waterproof-Mountain/dp/B00W8QC1JC/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1439079623&sr=1-2-catcorr&keywords=YQ8005
YQ8007 – $90 (but I found it for $40), double-sided, two-arm, 144 LED, programmable by SD memory card. This Amazon link is for a different brand name, so it is either a clone/bootleg or just another company selling the item under their name.
http://www.amazon.com/Yongchengg-Programmable-Programming-Double-side-Waterproof/dp/B011U02790/ref=sr_1_1?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1439079839&sr=1-1&keywords=YQ8007
YQ8008 – $150 (Amazon Prime), double-sided, three-arm, 216 LEDs, programmable by SD memory card. By having THREE arms, it can display the color picture at a slower speed.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product//B00RE6KGNY/ref=twister_dp_update?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Update: Since the original posting, I think I have located the manufacturer of these devices. They produce YQ8001 to YQ8009. Some use preset patterns, some are programmable (they call them “DIY”), and some can even do video. I will try to put a chart together as I learn more.

Here is the YQ8003 installation video:

By searching for the “YQxxxx” numbers, you can find them being sold all over e-Bay and other online places — most shipping from China. The prices vary greatly. GearBest has the YQ8007 (they claim) for $40.99 with free shipping, for example.

There is a difference in how they work, too. Some just display static photos, and some can display animation. But, the best one (maybe), is the XuanWheel.

http://www.ixuanlun.com/en/indexEnMobile.html

I believe it started out as an IndieGogo campaign called HaloWheel, but since Halo Wheels is a name of a bike wheel brand, maybe that’s why they changed it to XuanWheel? It is a double-sided, four-armed one that is programmed via Bluetooth over an Android or iOS device. This HaloWheel (per IndiGogo name) or XuanWheel (per website) runs $89 on Amazon (there is a $5 discount code right now) with free shipping (from China, so it takes a month to reach the USA). I found similar devices on e-Bay for as low as $73 (they may be knockoffs or clones).

This one looks like it can synchronize both wheel displays (if you have two). I could not find ANY information on what size hub it would fit, so I asked on YouTube and they replied:

The diameter of the hub should not be larger than 3.8 centimeter

WARNING: Their iOS app is not in the App Store. Instead, you just go and download it direct from their website. Assuming you like to just download random apps from sites in China… Yes, just like Android, you can directly install iOS apps without going through the App Store. BUT, they are not supposed to do that. That is, I think, how developers allow beta testers to get access to their apps before they are done and submitted to Apple. They only get a limited number of installs this way, I believe, and they are not meant to be distributing software like this. At least the iOS device will warn you:

Currently not in the App Store, you have to take changes with a non-inspected app from a website in China. Scary!

And lastly, there is even the Monkey Light Pro by Monkeylectric that sells for $1000. It looks good, but not $1000 good!

More to come… I am hoping to have a review unit of one of these in a few weeks.

UPDATE: Commenter wb8nbs pointed me to Hokey Spokes, which at $20 16-LED spoke lights that can display preset patterns or simple one line text. The unique thing about them is you can use just one, or multiple. They sync to each other using infrared, and from the demo videos, it appears they all just do the same thing so all patterns look symmetrical (thus, any text would show the same in three places of the wheel when using three of these). Not color, but you can get them in different colors and create interesting rainbow effects. Not the most cost effective solution, but if you just want cool lights, one would be pretty cheap, and they ship from Indiana!

SPAM LITE

The end of Radio Shack as we know it?