I own this book. It was invaluable navigating Shenzhen electronics markets. In Shenzhen it is easy to find any electronic part you need and has an extensive recycling ecosystem. You can find parts on the street which find it's way upstream and end up in completed phones. Those phones are then resold.
That was my goal when I was there to build an iPhone in my hotel room by buying every individual part. And except for the thumbprint(because it needs to be reflashed) everything worked perfectly. I even named it my non-Sweatshop iPhone.
"The other reason there won’t be an electronic edition is that unlike bunnie, I’m a Chinese national. My offering an app or download specifically for English-speaking hardware engineers to install on their phones would be… iffy. If at some point "I" do offer you such a thing, I’d suggest you not use it."
Placed my order out of respect for Bunnie and Naomi. Legends for different reasons but for any real hardware hacker they are worthy of due respect for their work, their communicating of it, and their sharing.
Bunnie's "Hacking the Xbox" is still one of my favorite books ever. First read it as a teenager, it was my intro to bootloaders, encryption, copyright law, and so much more.
Is there any niche of vendors somewhat equivalent to free software zealots in Shenzhen? E.g., "you can boot this little keychain thingy without blobs."
Hm, if that's the case then why don't Western open source hardware projects just send a bilingual tourist over to Shenzhen to muck around until they connect with someone who can give them the docs needed to bootstrap the relevant firmware/drivers for the boards?
That is still one of the most interesting reverse engineering blog posts ever. In the 80's I was pretty good at this stuff, especially figuring out various over-the-wire protocols to get hardware to do stuff that it wasn't intended to do. But this is on an entirely different level.
Gongkai sounds like what happens in piracy scenes, or perhaps more specifically the game modding and ROM hacking scene. People innovating and modifying without giving a crap about who-owns-what.
I think many Chinese companies freely share code between them, regardless if it's open source or not. They just don't care about licenses and IP the way the West does.
So, if you want to get the source code for X, you just have to learn Cantonese, go there and ask nicely.
There's not a lot of info about the Shenzhen SEZ Visa on arrival, but I can say that if you use the Luohu/Lo Wu port, aim to get there as they open because they don't get through many before they stop for lunch.
I have a hard time imagining how you can get into business with people in Huaqiangbei without speaking Mandarin even with that guide in hand but without an interpreter. But maybe it can work out with pointing and writing down arabic numbers?
Real time voice translation is getting really good. Standard text translation is pretty much perfect for technical details, but just may miss idioms. You just have your smartphones out, type your message, and show the translation to the other person. They read it and start typing on their phone, then show it to you. I got through China pretty painlessly this way, and it is so normal for many, especially the young. I went to one restaurant where they got the younger waiter when they saw me walk in, who I thought would speak English. She just knew the phone text translation ritual, but was an expert in that.
But for millennia, people have gone to far away lands where they don't speak the language, and somehow managed to build trade routes without even having a dictionary or calculator. It is not that hard to work out a pidgin. Tons of things you can do with pointing and gesturing. Marco Polo would have killed to even have Google Translate circa 2010.
I'll also assert with no evidence that it is generally harder for an English speaking engineer to successfully communicate a technical idea into business speak for English speaking VC investors than it is for an English speaking engineer to communicate a request to buy a specific part to a Mandarin speaking engineer.
My baby son doesn't talk yet, aside of 5 words, but he still manages to transmit me what he wants by using his hands, muttering and mumbling on different tones. If I still don't get it, he grabs me by the hand and go show me what he wants by pointing his finger.
I somewhat did the same when traveling to foreign countries and meeting people that don't speak any of the languages I speak.
> I'll also assert with no evidence that it is generally harder for an English speaking engineer to successfully communicate a technical idea into business speak for English speaking VC investors than it is for an English speaking engineer to communicate a request to buy a specific part to a Mandarin speaking engineer
Buy and read the book - you can point at stuff in it, it's designed with that in mind - take a hand calculator so you can type numbers/prices - point at things, smile a lot
Do learn a little Mandarin, start with Nihao = hello, Xièxiè (shay shay) == thank you - na = that, zhe = this - bu = no, dui = correct - also yuan/kuai the currency (kuai is used interchangeably, a bit like "bucks").
It's all pretty easy, everyone wants to do a deal, they want you to come back as a repeat customer
It's not quite as bad as that. I speak no Mandarin but managed to purchase parts in the markets just by gesticulating and having part numbers (where appropriate).
A surprising number of the vendors had at least a little english - enough for commerce anyway.
They usually have a calculator to show you prices. Translation apps that aren't Google work to some extent. Some speak enough English to haggle, so numbers mostly, and it's not hard to learn Chinese numbers.
It’s MOSTLY Mandarin you will hear spoken in Shenzhen, while it is true that Guangdong province is generally Cantonese speaking - Shenzhen is a city mostly made up of migrants from all over China so Mandarin is the lingua franca.
Somewhat related, as a result of this, Shenzhen is a great place to try out many different regional Chinese foods.
Most people are in Shenzhen are from other parts of China, you'll hear Mandarin (the default) Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien etc - most people probably speak some dialect of Mandarin as well as their birth language
Readit News
That was my goal when I was there to build an iPhone in my hotel room by buying every individual part. And except for the thumbprint(because it needs to be reflashed) everything worked perfectly. I even named it my non-Sweatshop iPhone.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989
EDIT: Noticed that's Naomi Wu with the top comment on that HN discussion.
Are the conditions at the parts factories any better than at the final assembly factory?
Actual chip foundries are no sweat shops.
"The other reason there won’t be an electronic edition is that unlike bunnie, I’m a Chinese national. My offering an app or download specifically for English-speaking hardware engineers to install on their phones would be… iffy. If at some point "I" do offer you such a thing, I’d suggest you not use it."
Especially the "I" bit.
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1. https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297
I remember he was working on some super encrypted FPGA phone ages ago.. and then I haven't hear his name in .. years?
Go ahead, try enforcing the GPL in China. They'll just laugh in your face whilst trying to sell you the next shoddy widget on AliExpressazon.
Naomi Wu has actually done that.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj04MKykmnQ
So, if you want to get the source code for X, you just have to learn Cantonese, go there and ask nicely.
There’s now also 15-day visa free travel if you’re one of 6 countries: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67516777
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But for millennia, people have gone to far away lands where they don't speak the language, and somehow managed to build trade routes without even having a dictionary or calculator. It is not that hard to work out a pidgin. Tons of things you can do with pointing and gesturing. Marco Polo would have killed to even have Google Translate circa 2010.
I'll also assert with no evidence that it is generally harder for an English speaking engineer to successfully communicate a technical idea into business speak for English speaking VC investors than it is for an English speaking engineer to communicate a request to buy a specific part to a Mandarin speaking engineer.
I somewhat did the same when traveling to foreign countries and meeting people that don't speak any of the languages I speak.
sounds like a fun challange, probably true
Do learn a little Mandarin, start with Nihao = hello, Xièxiè (shay shay) == thank you - na = that, zhe = this - bu = no, dui = correct - also yuan/kuai the currency (kuai is used interchangeably, a bit like "bucks").
It's all pretty easy, everyone wants to do a deal, they want you to come back as a repeat customer
I'd add: be nice.
A surprising number of the vendors had at least a little english - enough for commerce anyway.
By speaking the same language as they do, which is Cantonese?
Somewhat related, as a result of this, Shenzhen is a great place to try out many different regional Chinese foods.
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