Phaser v4.0 Software for EStim: The Kitchen Sink (That Shocks You) - Warning: Tripod Site. Flakey access at best.

So, to try and kick myself out of the rut of being rather bored building sex toys (this happens about once a year, if you want to see what I've been working on otherwise, check out http://www.30helensagree.com/fwiktr), I decided to do my usual ritual of

• Create Smartstim account
• Read up on circuits and software
• Get fired up about building my estim unit
• Completely lose interest within the next 24 hours
• Let Smartstim account lapse
• Quit trying

So, I've got all my circuit articles gathered up again, I've got parts this time, but I also decided to check out software to see what the interface side has been up to.

Surprisingly enough, I find myself almost Je Joue level impressed with Phaser v4.

Phaser is an piece of software in its 8th year of development, made specifically for creating waveforms for electrostim equipment such at the Phaser, Stereostim, and other DIY circuits.

Now, I'm going to ignore the fact that it's pay (I'm not against people making money, nor am I some OMG OPEN SOURCE OR DEATH zealot, it's just how I roll in relation to my own stuff), and that the user interface leaves something to be desired, and focus on this paragraph on the About Phaser page

Phaser 4.0 was a real challenge. We wanted true remote control with signal output on both sides, we wanted secure and encrypted traffic, we wanted an integrated chat, and we didn't want to operate and maintain servers. What we got was a P2P based solution that works without a centralized server, using some IRC functionality to find other users on the net. And we got a server, too. The Phaser software itself can act as a server, so everybody may run his own Phaser Relay Server, allowing other users to login and chat and remote control other Phasers. We really liked that concept of making Phaser users not dependent on servers operated by us, thus rendering the product useless if the server operator decides to shut down his services._

Fuck yes, people. Fuck. Yes.

So, it's a full P2P teledildonics system for e-stim. This is exactly the idea of my whole "Series of Patterns" thing that I'd been ranting about at multiple conferences last spring (and why I kept saying "EStim people have been doing this forever..."). Combined with some of the ideas of Je Joue, and we may have something here. Now all I need to do is wire in the drivers for the USB vibe stuff we've done here and crosspor...

Oh, wait, maybe I will bitch about the non-open-source thing. Here's an interesting interview with the Phaser Engineers, talking about their issues and choices in software registration. On the same site, there's someone reverse engineering the phaser format for their own open source software that also does remote support, minus the encryption.

But, hey, there's a trial version, which I might give a shot, as well as maybe building one of those boxes I keep thinking about and testing some of the open source stuff.

'cause really, not nearly enough pictures of me with burns on this site, and DIY estim makes the doorknob section of Home Depot a little like Disneyland.