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Hackable Christmas Presents?
An Anonymous Coward asks what many of you may start thinking about in another month...if you already haven't: "While sitting thru various classes..I started wondering today what I'll drop hints to people with money for what
to get me for Christmas..I want something to hack on and with..but preferably in the sub $300 dollar category. Remember the fun of hacking things like the C64 or
Spectrum or whatever? A fun home machine to hack on.. preferably not a PC (though I know you can get them in that price range) but something a little different. A cheap ARM or Mips based machine or something. Suggestions from anyone?"
Want to have fun with embedded development? How about the "cool" factor of running Java on an embedded system, one which is embedded in Legos? Check out Lego Mindstorms.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
The Dreamcast is an ARM and MIPS-based machine, and highly hackable. It's also nice and cheap, so you could even suggest it as something your kids could split in on for you. (As long as they don't pull a fast one and be the ones who end up using it all the time. ;-)
Hack on something you may not have before. Check out some of the Ports of NetBSD. In particular, the Dreamcast and the Playstation 2. Or maybe the HITACHI Super-H family based Windows CE PDA machines are more your style.
What were the skies like when you were young?
Why not get a TuxScreen ? With a Strong Arm processor + 16MB EDO/4MB flash, touch screen, PCMCIA/serial... for just $99. It is a dream for any geek.... (It has also been slashdotted.)
It is not only hackable, in fact, please hack it... It sells at a price probably lower than the parts (est to be around $300)!!! Kudos to Tim Riker from tuxscreen.
Here is one of the more interesting toys I've gotten lately, the 3com Audrey. Now on sale at TigerDirect for $89. Take the plunge and get the 3com 3c19250 USB Ethernet adapter, available Here for $30.
The quick breakdown on the Audrey, they run QNX 6.0 out of a flash disk, and have a browser, mail program, scheduler, memo pad, and some other tools built in. It can also sync with your PalmOS device. Hardware-wise, it is a Geode 200mhz processor, with 32 megs of ram and a 16 meg flash. It has a built in 56k modem, 2 USB ports, an infrared keyboard, 640x480 touchscreen, stereo sound with built in speakers.
Once you have followed the directions listed in the threads at the I-Appliance BBS you will be able to install other applications from QNX 6.0, or even upgrade your system library so you can run 6.1 binaries. People have turned this unit into remote terminals, digital picture frames, mp3 players, home automation terminals, etc. You can't put linux on it because it (yet) because it doesn't actually have a BIOS, but once you get familiar with QNX you really won't mind. You get download QNX 6.1 for free, there ISO is Here. It is a pretty nice OS in its own right.
I've got two Audreys, I use one to run QNX-based ICQ and AIM, so I can dualboot to play ReVolt or take apart my main machine for whatever reason. The other one is my girlfriend's and she uses the builtin apps for scheduling etc plus for web surfing in the bedroom.
The only downside to the Audrey is that its pretty... Shall we say... Lacking in testosterone. Everything from the shape of the unit, to the bootup giggle, to the layout of the manual, to the clear, oddly shaped stylus... Definately was being marketed to the fairer sex. But that's ok, cause chicks will dig it.
Squash
I plan on making a homemade EEG (Electro-encephalogram, scan brainwaves) for an Xmas present to myself
Neat! I've had a fair bit of experience with EEG and ERP work, (I have worked in a couple of university labs doing just that) and I think it would be no more than making a clean little amp. Check out this email which has actual schematics. Have fun!
What were the skies like when you were young?
Ya know, I constantly hear about being able to easily get these cheap PCs. I'm gonna ask a stupid question -- WHERE? Every time I go look I can only ever see systems that are closer to like $800. I've desperately been looking to snag a cheap machine for a linux server, and had to rely on the kindness of strangers to give me castoffs, which often don't work (such as the current one that has a dead bios battery I can't seem to replace :().
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Rumor has it that VM Labs is about to release a development kit for "NUON enhanced" DVD players. The Samsung N501 is probably the best of those available now (older NUON players like the Toshiba SD2300 don't support CD-Rs). There are discussions about this at NUONtalk.tv.
(Even setting aside the hackability factor, the N501 is a very cool DVD player: Jeff Minter's Virtual Light Machine + MP3 playback = mind altering eye candy.)
http://www.homestead.com/hackfurby/ is the classic Hack Furby website by John Tokash.
You can also hack the Cue:Cat, the LEGO Mindstorms kit, and the entire universe of reality in what is called reality hacking -- just don't collapse the wave function, or poof! we will all disappear.
But the coolest, technologically most disruptive hack has got to be the hacking of the Artificial Mind at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mind where 350 plus open source AI projects are rushing to bring you the ultimate Christmas present of the Technological Singularity.
Works for us college kids....
Ok, mod be down for shameless self promotion! But you gotta admit, it doesn't get much more hackable than this.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Actually, the financial model on consoles is usually to sell the console itself under cost, and make the profit on the games and accessories. I assume M$ is doing the same as Sony, Sega, etc. This means that you can buy an XBOX with no intention of ever buying any games for it and cost M$ money!
An XBOX is fairly standard PC hardware last I heard, so getting Linux on there shouldn't be too difficult. Hack in a bootable ethernet adapter, keyboard and mouse and you've got a pretty good Xterm.
Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.
I just love hacking around in my cassiopeia. Not only is it nice and small so it can be played with wherever, but it has an easy to use ide (embedded visual studio) and a serial port just waiting to be hacked. I've convered it into a mini code reader and have been working on writing software to make the unit act as an oscilloscope.
The price? Well...a new one's going to run you about 500$, but we don't need a new one...we need something we can conscientiously hack. Mine was a refurb developer's model which cost my lovely mother $200 with a 90 day warranty direct from casio.com.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
It's a ~$200 machine...
It's PPC (Okay, not MIPS or ARM), but wouldn't it be cool to get OS X, or at least Darwin, running on it?
It's got DVD (sorta), a G3, an ATI chipset... and since Darwin *is* Open Source, it's entirely possible to get Darwin running on it.
It may be possible, once Darwin runs, to get OS X to run!
GPL Deconstructed
I want one. Problem is, I am in Germany and TigerDirect will only take international orders by phone and they are very vague about additional handling and shipping charges, customs and taxes. Does anyone have advice about these topics, especially taxes and customs? I don't want to end up paying twice the price of the product in additional charges, just to get it to this side of the pond. That would kind of ruin the price/performance of the deal. Are there online services which handle international shippings for a reasonable fee and provide the knowhow upfront? Damn, I really want one.
What about a $185 touchscreen webpad ? - add a 802.11 pcmcia card and linux and, Lo: a wireless browser.
Much more info here, here and here.
Gameboy Advance?
Dreamcast?
CJE Micros used to sell really cheap (as in $120) RISC PCs to programmers in an attempt to broaden the support for the platform.
Twinkle
I have two suggestions (or three depending on how you look at them), based on recent experiences.
One is legal, the other isn't quite (unless you're in Canada)
1) TiVo: As has been discussed quite often on here, the TiVo is a fun little toy that you can get for ~$200 at your local electronics megastore. It's a linux box inside, and you can do lots with it (drop it to shell, add additional hard drives, install Ethernet (TiVoNet) and stream stored MPEG files to your other PCs on a LAN, etc.). Check out these links for more info:
http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=TiVo
2) DirecTV. This is slightly shady, but still loads of fun. There's a large community of people out there (mostly in Canada, where they don't sell DirecTV service so they're forced to hack it) who spend inordinate amounts of time learning about the DirecTV datastream and how to do crazy things with it. For ~$400, you can get a complete setup tha includes an 'Emulator' that allows you to unlock all channels. The more interesting part is how emulators work (they involve having a Pentium-class PC emulate some functions of the DirecTV access card).
For $80 (for the dish and IRD) + $300 (for an H-Card, emulator hardware, and a cheap $30 emulator PC from eBay) you can have the whole thing, wires, bare circuit boards and all, sitting in your living room. Check these:
http://www.hackhu.com/
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=DirecTV
3) This is the hybrid: There's a box out there called a DirecTiVo that combines a TiVo and a DirecTV box (hence the name). If you wish, you can combine these two hacks into one piece of hardware (DirecTiVo boxes support both TiVo tinkering and DirecTV emulation). Neat-o.
--noah
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
I agree with the magic thing. Someone last year got me a pair of police issue handcuffs and some lockpicks. At first I thought it was stupid. But after 2 hours with the picks i could get into my house. And a couple days practice and handcuffs were a snap. Best presents i ever got.
Basic stamp microcontroller (www.parallaxinc.com).
Gotta get your feet a little dirty with both hardware and software.
PC/104 embedded processors and modules. www.pc104.org.
These cameras support "scripting":
KODAK DC290
KODAK DC265
KODAK DC260
KODAK DC220
With GPS coords I can create a map of the places
I've been. Click on the map and it'll show the pictures taken there (or near there). Not sure what processor they use though???
http://tinyurl.com/3t236