Last Updated on February 13, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org
If we look for instance on YouTube for new components to build EEG devices:
We find there the old ones with the ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments, which we know since years. And if we are looking at the video of PiEEG developer Ildar Rakhmatulin, which shows us how to build our own a brain-computer interface (ironbci DIY) in PCBWAY:
Is it a product from Texas Instruments which especially designed from Texas Instruments for Peter Gamma from the MRIS? If so this makes us expect the worst. Can we not do what computer scientist A.J. Keller did? He developed the OpenBCI WIFI shield, and then left OpenBCI to found it’s own company together with Aliex Castillo. But the devices from Neurosity look as if they are designed by Texas Instruments.This makes us expect the worst as well.
Can we not build our own PiEEG? We can. But do we not use two products from Texas Instruments for it? And that is a ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments, as well as a printed circuit board? The one which Ildar Rakhmatulin has used, which is as far as we know open source. But has Ildar Rakhmatulin used a printed circuit board designed by Texas Instruments? If so this makes us expect the worst as well.
But can we not build our own printed circuit board for the ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments? We can, but we suppose it is not worth it, since someone whould have done it already, and we would we not know about if, and we don’t.
So the only option which we have is to use products from Texas Instruments on the path we describe here, which makes us expect the worst once more.
Since we don’t want to be controlled by Texas Instruments. And that is because we are Swiss. And the values and traditions of Switzerland are freedom and independence. The Swiss swore already in the year 1291 joint action against the foreign governors in their valleys:
https://www.uri.swiss/de/erleben/uri-1291-traditionell-modern/mythos-tell/ruetli/
And also in the year 2024 we as Swiss don’t want foreign governors such as Texas Instruments in our own development.