Dave’s Garage: Shop Talk

Dave Plummer, a retired operating systems engineer for Microsoft going back to the DOS and Windows 95 days, and his co-host Glen talk about technology and answer questions from his YouTube channels: Dave’s Garage and Dave’s Attic. Just 2 high school friends from 40 years ago hangin’ out, talkin’ tech and usually sharing some kind of prairie anecdotes from their youth growing up in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Dave is now in Seattle, WA and Glen is in Vancouver, BC.

Dave’s Garage: Shop Talk is a technology podcast hosted by Dave Plummer and Glen Hodges, with 88 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Dave Plummer and Glen Hodges hosts Dave’s Garage: Shop Talk, a technology show with 88 episodes published.

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  Episode #89

  The Hidden Computer Network in Your Car | Shop Talk #89

  Aug 17, 202648 minS1

  In Shop Talk #89, Dave and Glen dig into viewer questions about CAN bus: the hidden computer network inside modern cars. This week starts with the scarier version of the question: can the network inside your car be hacked? Viewers asked about CAN bus theft, headlight attacks, OBD dongles flooding the bus, modern security protections, and whether CAN bus has reached the point where it needs to be replaced. From there, Dave explains how CAN works: CAN High and CAN Low, why vehicles can have multiple CAN networks, diagnostic buses, single-wire CAN, message priority, arbitration, identifiers, buffering, clocks, bit stuffing, and what happens when controllers misbehave. We also get into practical projects and tools: ESP32 CAN bus setups, OBD-II, PIDs, sniffing vehicle traffic, reverse-engineering messages, reading unknown addresses, and whether Dave might do a follow-up project showing how to add a real feature using CAN. Later in the episode, we branch into related networks and viewer requests, including FlexRay, Modbus, ARCNET, automotive Ethernet, Amiga, Turbo Pascal, NightDriver, AI-generated diagrams, and the difference between recreational and medical CAN bus. Questions discussed include: • Can CAN bus be replaced? • Can thieves hack CAN through headlights? • Can an OBD dongle flood the bus? • How is modern CAN bus secured? • What are CAN High and CAN Low? • Do cars have multiple CAN buses? • Should critical systems be separated? • How does CAN arbitration work? • Who provides the CAN clock? • Is bit stuffing Manchester encoding? • How do you listen to CAN with an ESP32? • How do PIDs work? • Can you reverse-engineer unknown CAN messages? • What is FlexRay? • Was ARCNET like CAN bus? • Why was Turbo Pascal so fast? • Should Dave do a NightDriver architecture walkthrough? Shop Talk is the weekly Q&A show from Dave’s Attic, where Dave Plummer and Glen Hodges discuss viewer questions, engineering stories, retro computing, Windows internals, software history, hardware, cars, and whatever else the comments drag into the shop.

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  Episode #86

  Are Flock Cameras Public Safety or Public Surveillance? | Shop Talk #88

  Aug 2, 202638 minS1

  In Shop Talk #88, Dave and Glen dig into the debate around Flock cameras, license plate readers, public surveillance, cell-phone tracking, and the difficult line between public safety and privacy. The core viewer question this week: if our phones already track us everywhere, why are people more worried about Flock cameras? That opens up a broader discussion about what these systems collect, who gets access to the data, whether warrants should be required, what happens when license plate recognition is wrong, and whether surveillance systems can be designed in a way that makes abuse harder. We also look at Bluetooth tracking concerns, convoy analysis, TPMS sensors, the “nothing to hide” argument, multi-factor authentication, and the difference between a person observing public roads and a searchable database of everyone’s movements. Later in the episode, we shift into future episode ideas and tech follow-ups, including Amiga development, MFC, Microsoft framework churn, QuickBasic, calling operating system resources from assembly, Task Manager memory accounting, TinyRetroTaskManager, Dave’s driveway recognition project, and the mystery of the matching tumblers. Questions discussed include: • If phones already track us, why worry about Flock cameras? • What is convoy analysis? • Do Flock cameras sniff Bluetooth? • Can TPMS sensors be used to track cars? • Should everyone have access to Flock data if the cameras are legal? • What about Ring cameras and warrants? • Is “nothing to hide” a valid argument? • What happens when license plate recognition gets it wrong? • Should Flock logins require MFA? • Could these systems be designed to be harder to misuse? • Should Dave do an Amiga episode? • Is MFC still useful today? • Can apps share system DLLs? • TinyRetroTaskManager when? Shop Talk is the weekly Q&A show from Dave’s Attic, where Dave Plummer and Glen Hodges discuss viewer questions, engineering stories, retro computing, Windows internals, hardware, cars, software history, and whatever else the comments drag into the shop.

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  Episode #87

  Why Does a 3K Notepad Use 502MB of RAM? | Shop Talk #87

  Jul 17, 202643 minS1

  This week on Shop Talk, Dave and Glen dig into the viewer questions from Dave’s tiny Notepad experiment: if TinyRetroPad is only a few kilobytes on disk, why does Task Manager show it using hundreds of megabytes of RAM? That question opens the door to executable size, DLLs, Windows memory reporting, Crinkler, assembly language, MASM, C, RichEdit controls, Unicode, accessibility, file-size limits, and the eternal question of whether modern software really needs to be this big. We also look at what “just one more feature” would cost in a tiny app: tabs, autosave, spellcheck, regex, dark mode, better undo, Unix line endings, word count, and large-file support. Plus: Windows Defender false positives, whether AI could beat the 4K challenge, possible future episodes on Win32 programming, Amiga development, clipboard internals, CAN bus projects, Dave’s necklace, and whether engineering skill matters more than programming joy. Questions discussed include: • Why does a 3K Notepad use 502MB of RAM? • Is Crinkler cheating? • Could the same thing be written in C? • Does x64 assembly still matter? • What would tabs, autosave, spellcheck, regex, or dark mode cost? • Why use RichEdit? • Why only ANSI and not Unicode? • Why did Windows move away from this programming model? • Could AI produce an even smaller version? • Why does antivirus flag tiny hand-built programs? • What future projects should Dave tackle next? Shop Talk is the weekly Q&A show from Dave’s Attic, where Dave Plummer and Glen Hodges discuss viewer questions, engineering stories, retro computing, software history, Windows internals, cars, hardware, and whatever else the comments drag into the shop.

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  Episode #86

  Why Engineering Is Harder Than It Looks | Shop Talk #86

  Jul 4, 202643 minS1

  Why put a microcontroller in the trunk instead of simply tapping into the brake lights or turn signals? In this episode of Shop Talk, Dave and Glen dig into the hidden trade-offs behind Dave’s Mark III RGB lighting project: reading outputs instead of inputs, handling hazard lights and reverse lights, burned-out bulbs, unexpected states, wiring, waterproofing, optocouplers, LEDs, ESP32s, schematics, Gerber files, and the difference between a quick solution and a robust one. They also follow up on software optimization, AI-assisted programming, assembly-level code, compilers, C variable arguments, and whether modern hardware prices might finally make optimization matter again. Plus: CAN bus projects, Knight Rider lights, a PDP-11 controller, time machines, Bunnyhugs, and other important engineering questions. Questions from viewers on Dave’s Garage and Shop Talk. 00:00 - Hey I’m Dave… 00:34 - Why put the controller in the trunk? 03:05 - Why not just tap the brake and flasher circuits? 03:51 - Why avoid CAN and LIN bus projects? 05:36 - How does it handle burned-out bulbs? 06:52 - What happens with four-way flashers? 07:30 - Hazards and rapid turn-signal changes 08:07 - Hazards, reverse lights, and braking 09:21 - How does the strip behave in hazard mode? 10:21 - What happens if the controller reboots mid-drive? 11:09 - Will water collect behind the LED strip? 12:03 - Which LEDs did you use, and how are they mounted? 13:19 - How do the optocouplers protect factory wiring? 13:59 - Which LED strip and ESP32 should builders use? 15:34 - Can you share the schematic? 15:55 - How did you make the LED-system diagram? 16:23 - Are there certification rules for vehicle lighting? 18:33 - How did you route the wiring to the strip? 19:16 - Will you release the PCB design files? 19:56 - Will the controller board be available to buy? 20:45 - When does production start? 21:16 - Can AI optimize code at the assembly level? 21:53 - Did BBT support position-independent code? 23:01 - Do programmers use optional stops like CNC? 23:41 - Is programming becoming an AI-assisted profession? 24:29 - When did Microsoft start optimizing software? 25:52 - How are C variable arguments parsed? 26:37 - Why did programming languages become more human-readable? 28:22 - What is LNC 460? 28:42 - Why not use a PDP-11 as the controller? 29:40 - Why are rebuilt carburetors worse now? 30:40 - Why is there a case of oil in the trunk? 31:11 - Did this car come from an Alabama auction? 31:26 - How does the car handle unleaded fuel and synthetic oil? 32:16 - Why not add a Knight Rider light effect? 32:33 - Is “turn signaling” a Canadian thing? 32:53 - Could the emergency mode be triggered remotely? 33:24 - Why is the high-mounted brake light so low? 33:40 - Could brake-light brightness reflect braking force? 35:10 - Why not add an orange warning mode? 35:34 - Can Dave’s Garage make a Bunnyhug? 37:30 - End of show shenanigans 42:23 - The Friendly Coder…

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  Episode #85

  When Did We Stop Optimizing Software? | Shop Talk #85

  Jun 27, 202638 minS1

  What happened to software optimization—and does understanding what's happening underneath still make you a better programmer? In Shop Talk #85, Dave Plummer answers viewer questions about software optimization, engineering discipline, abstraction, and whether modern developers are losing touch with the fundamentals that once made software remarkably fast and efficient. The discussion begins with a thoughtful viewer question about abstraction: should programmers simply embrace modern frameworks, or is it still worth understanding what's happening beneath the surface? From there, Dave shares stories from his years on Windows NT, including Microsoft's internal optimization tools like LEGO and BBT, how engineers measured performance, and why optimization was once considered a core engineering skill. Along the way, Dave and Glen discuss software bloat, AI-generated code, memory usage, operating system design, retro computing, and a handful of follow-up questions from the recent slot machine episode. Topics include: • Should programmers still understand what's under the hood? • Why software optimization mattered • Microsoft's LEGO and BBT optimization tools • Modern software bloat • AI-generated code and performance • Windows NT engineering stories • Operating system design • ELKS, the RCA 1802, and retro computing • DOS/Windows easter eggs • Slot machine follow-up questions

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