Any time I post about a new reverse engineering project, there's probably a good chance I'm going to stop posting articles for at least a week while I get the initial enjoyment out of my system. This was no exception.

The good news is, progress is being made, albeit somewhat slowly.

• There's now a somewhat unified document for mapping the serial protocol. Definitely needs more cleanup and editing, but it's getting there.
• There's now a partial python implementation of the serial protocol. I've tested it via talking to the box, works well. Just mostly needs the conveinence functions now.
• A more earnest attempt at reverse engineering the firmware has begun, and I've written up a bunch of notes on it. This is super slow going as trying to pick things apart is taking a while, but oooooh it's fun.

Hoping to get all 3 of these things in better shape over the next week. Documentation and protocol code are pretty straightforward, firmware, is, well... not so straightforward. But still, god, so fun.

Would you believe a box that's basically an ATMega8 with some opamps from 2000 costs $600?

Behold, the Erostek ET-312. Yes, "the Rolls Royce of electrostim" is nearing 15 years old, maybe $50 in parts, and hasn't seen many if any real competitors. The software situation for it is... dire.

Eroslink, the original control software, was last updated in 2004 and runs on Java 1.3. Also not exactly user friendly.

There's also SmartStim and Phaser, but neither are easy to use, open source, cheap, or support things like mobile platforms.

This is dumb. The ET-312 can work via either audio waveform control, or serial communication. Why not just use a web browser? WebAudio has been stable for years, and Chrome Apps can talk serial to the box if it's really needed. Not to mention, multiple other boxes use audio control, so that'd kill multiple birds with one stone. It should also be pretty easy to put something like an Raspberry Pi or CHiP in front of the box to make it wirelessly accessible/controllable/streamable.

So, with that goal in mind, we're now working on reverse engineering the ET-312. This is as much because I like reversing protocols as it is to learn about the insides of one of the most widely distributed fetish estim platforms out there. Throughout the process, I'll be making posts about progress, as well as technical findings.

If you'd like to follow along, the protocol documentation will be at

http://github.com/metafetish/erosoutsider

The project is named after the original perl ET-312 reversing scripts that came out over a decade ago. I'll be updating these for 3 languages (links go to the erosoutsider repo for that language):

• Python - For quick scripting
• Rust - For systems work (with C bindings available)
• Javascript - For Node.js/Chrome Apps/The Mythical WebSerial API

If you've got any requests or questions, please feel free to file issues on the respective github repos, or there's a fetlife thread about the project if that works better.

Famicoman, being an unstoppable force of archiving, just posted the Cyborgasm Volume 1 and Cyborgasm Volume 2 CDs to the Internet Archive!

Cyborgasm was a series of 2 CDs of erotica recorded with "virtual reality technology for a 3D Sound", which I'm assuming means binaural mics but who knows. The series was curated by Lisa Palac, editor of Future Sex Magazine, and contains contributions from Susie Bright, Annie Sprinkle, and others.

All currently scanned issues of Future Sex as well as the Cyborgasm CDs can be found at the Metafetish Future Sex Archive Project Index.

A couple of days late on the news roundup, but that just means it's had more time to age and will taste better now, right?

• How Did Cyberpunk Porn Mag ‘Future Sex’ Ever Exist? - Motherboard

  • YAY PRESS ABOUT US. Lux Alptraum wrote a great article for Motherboard about our Future Sex Archive Project!

• VR Sex, As Predicted By A 1993 Games Magazine - Kotaku

  • This ended up being kinda interesting. I saw this article posted on twitter yesterday, with one of the images from it, which is originally from Future Sex Issue 2. Sure enough, it looks like someone in Australia got ahold of FS#2 and summarized some stuff out of it for gaming mag Hyper, along with clipping the art. Not surprised the magazine doesn't mention it, since a gaming magazine talking about a porn magazine in 1993 would've meant the end of said gaming magazine. Anyways, it's still neat to see more VR Sex press from the early 90s getting scanned and posted!

• The massively multiplayer online role-playing orgy I never had

  • Mr. Trout tries to have sex in RLC. It doesn't work out well. But God bless him for tryin'.

• 'Spy-brator' sex toy monitors women's most intimate moments and RECORDS their orgasms - The Mirror

  • The Mirror (ugh) does a feature on MysteryVibe. The whole "Spy-brator" thing seems like some iffy marketing to me, what with all of the privacy concern news these days.

• Lick Your Way Through Outer Space on a Popsicle-Controlled Video Game - The Creators Project

  • Teledildonics gets mentioned in this interview so it landed in my feed, but it's kind of a neat interface anyways!

• SXSW Panel Explores VR Porn - The Guardian

  • VR Porn makes an appearance at SXSW-I for the second year in a row.

• 3D Printed Sex Organs and Teledildonics: Future of Romance Tech? - Health Aim

  • Um, this seems to be a book report on teledildonics? "I googled sex tech and here's a thing and then there's also this thing and then this thing." Then there's talk of "3D printed sex organs" that... doesn't really lead anywhere. Why am I critiquing this. I have other things to be doing.

Issue 6 of Future Sex is now available on the Internet Archive.

Issue 6 is the "Men Are Dogs" issue! Sex Magick, Ann Magnuson, the UK kink scene circa 1993, and more!

This is the last issue we've been able to get, so now it's down to trying to find a copy of Issue 1. Once that happens, we'll get it scanned and post about it.

All currently scanned issues of Future Sex can be found at the Metafetish Future Sex Archive Project Index