Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty

Author: Joe Grand, Ryan Russell, Kevin Mitnick (Editor) List Price: $39.95 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 1932266836 Publisher: Syngress (01 January, 2004) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 7,757 Average Customer Rating: 4.88 out of 5

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Customer Reviews

Hardware Hacking is an inspiring handbook of hardware modifications. It's pages are filled with step-by-step photos, labeled illustrations and reference material (there's even an intro-to-programming section in the back!) You'll learn how to change the battery in your IPOD (and save yourself the costly service charge), to get stereo sound from your old Atari 2600 and to upgrade the memory on your palm. It's a great repository of handy hardware projects for experimenters of all levels.

Chapter three (page 47), for instance, describes how to "declaw" a CueCat. For those in the know, a CueCat is a special barcode scanner Radio Shack used to give away (to motivate signing up for a paid-service.) Some time later, the CueCat company folded and hackers discovered how to modify the scanner to scan ordinary barcodes. I sent off a few emails to friends until I rounded up a couple old CueCats (eBay sells them for a couple of dollars.) A few cuts with an Exacto knife and a little soldering later, I was the proud owner of an unencrypted output barcode scanner. I then used Amazon's API to barcode enable the open-source software program OpenBiblio. Now, when I get a new book, I simply swipe the CueCat across the bar code and instantly OpenBiblio retrieves all of the book details such as the name, title, summary, author and even a photo of the cover. That information is then stored away nicely into a searchable database. It's been a great way to manage my growing library of books - all thanks to a hacked CueCat.

If you are interested in "going under the hood" of your electronic equipment, then this book might well be up your alley. It's light reading, and the explanations are very clear. Have fun hacking!

Among the projects listed here? Hacking your old Atari computers, or the Playstation 2, or replacing the battery on your Apple Ipod, or even turning your old ClueCat into a bar code reader. There's also a chapter on electronics basics. And near the end of the book are chapters on the basics of various operating systems and programming concepts.

This is another excellent book of "hacking" projects for those who enjoy tinkering with products to improve or tailor them for a user's particular needs.

Joe Grand, and the other authors, have taken many everyday items that many of us have laying around the house and demonstrated ways to modify and improve them...this is hacking.

Moreover, after reading this book and trying some or all of the hacks out, you will want to start investigating other items you have that could possibly be modified and improved.

A book that both informs AND stimulates thought? Absolutely. Finally, authors that understand what hacking is, and aren't afraid to admit it...in fact, they embrace it.

Five stars, an absolutley fantastic read.

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