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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
Now that would be an awesome toy to hack on. You could make some pretty durable robots with that.
Add some extra hardware to allow it to understand simple commands, then you could almost make a usable home robot.
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
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. ;-)
No, please, not yet. Don't mention the C-word for at least a month. I want to go to Japan to escape Xmas - they are pleasantly unclear on the concept there. Sometimes they make a token effort - one department store had a christmas display showing father christmas nailed to the cross.
Anyway, you don't need to go out of your way to give a true hacker a hackable device. In fact, its oxymoronic. A hack is where you figure it out yourself and modify something in an unforseen way. Giving somebody a "hackable" toy is condescending.
Slightly offtopic - I plan on making a homemade EEG (Electro-encephalogram, scan brainwaves) for an Xmas present to myself, I can handle the software side, but can anyone tell me what components I need to get some sensible signal into the serial port.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
a sister ;)
you can even reprogram her brain,
and sometimes it's quite fast!
also exists in "brother" version.
(bZen
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It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands computers.
It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life, and I'm feeling good! -- Muse
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.
Hackable toys...
Want some programable robots? how about just robot arms? then here.
Still more robot resources... (I am looking for killer robotic laser-beam eyes, if anyone has a link...)
Hackable portable DVD player, (might break the price limit though)
whoops, coffee's done...
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
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
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.
How about donating to your local charities? A lot of attention (and rightfully so) has been paid to charities that benefit the victims, but much of this has been at the expense of existing charities. Many local charities have been on the radio here (Tampa, FL, US) saying that their funds have dried up, and they are going to end up in trouble.
Donate to both places - you can afford it.
You can get a Sun Blade 100 for less than a $1000.
The Blade 100 is a fine machine, it has a
64-bit Sun UltraSPARC-II CPU (500MHz) inside,
an IDE disk, CD-ROM drive and even a soundcard!
It makes a perfect 64-bit workstation. Don't
bother with a Sun monitor though, they are too
expensive for no good reason; you'll be better
off with a normal PC monitor.
The CPU is not particularly fast for everyday
tasks, but floating point and integer maths
performance rocks ("openssl speed" beats an
Intel PIII 600MHz by a factor of three!)
A very nice Christmas gift indeed.
Then, hack it:
We've already got various customization hacks worked out. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to:
Supplies are dwindling. You may want to go ahead and by one (or four) now.
One simple rule for its versus it's
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
I mean, there are a ton of ways to program the little guys, and it's vaguely practical too. And of course people have used them to drive robots and stuff using their onboard serial/usb port. I picked up a handspring deluxe for <$100 a week ago at Fry's.
:-)
:) ]
Here's some programming-palm linkage:
Lisp (scheme)
waba -- micro JVM (~71k), quite cool if you're into Java
extra classes and tools that work with waba, really nice data storage classes for example
a ui gen program for waba, written in waba
super waba, a bigger derivation of waba
waba community site
[yeah, I've been having lots of fun with waba
All of the above is free (beer & speech). LispMe you can actually hack code ON the pda. PocketC also allows you to hack code on the pda, but it is shareware (not _that_ expensive, about $18 iirc, the runtime is free). The java stuff you compile on your machine and HotSync across onto the target. And of course both Palm and Handspring have developer sections on their sites with tool stuff and doc sets you can nab for free.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Actually, the financial model on consoles is usually to sell the console itself under cost, and make the profit on the games and accessories. I assume M$ 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.
Alright, usually I wouldn't post something like this, but you may want to wait until Tuesday afternoon before submitting your holiday wish list to your significant other.. Why you ask?
Apparently, Apple is planning to announce some "breakthrough Digital Hub" device.. There's a lot of speculation floating around, and rumors that Apple's iTunes, Quicktime, and "another unnamed project" group are responsible for whatever this thing does.. I'm going to spread anything specific, but I wouldn't be surprised if Apple releases a consumer machine based on a combination of the cube and the iMac to replace the iMac.. WHo knows what Apple's up to, but I'd pass this along so you aren't kicking yourself for turning in the list a day early..
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
The Game Boy Advance and Color (especially) are inexpensive and very well documented. The GBA has an ARM processor
I can speak from experience. GBA is a joy to program for; it's much like programming an MS-DOS PC in C, as once you get your libraries done, everything else is pretty smooth. Start here for tools and documentation, and go here for hardware, specifically the MBV2 cable (load 256 KB programs directly into GBA's RAM) and the Flash Linker (load up to 128 Mbit (16 MB) programs into a flash cartridge). However, try to buy them sooner rather than later, as Nintendo will try to sue the makers out of existence, claiming that the devices are suitable "only for piracy" and ignoring the homebrew development scene.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why get a computer? Last week I bought an electric wheel chair, complete and working. I allready have a second hand R/C aircraft radio and some wheels.
This isn't much different from hacking 300a's(drilling & welding) to run in SMP.
Sure it will not run linux, but it will scare the crap out of the familty pet.
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
Why can't people do both?
Geez; before, it was "clean your plate because there are people starving in China" which lead a whole generation to be fat and guilty about it. Now it's "why are you enjoying christmas when people are out there who have nothing" to spoil the whole holidays. Didn't you know that before 9/11, there were still people who didn't have anything for Christmas? And now, because of 9/11, so many people are focused on the disaster in New York that more poor children who would otherwise receive a donated present for Christmas this year will get nothing?
I don't mean to be a killjoy, and yes, I donated money to the Red Cross for the 9/11 disaster, but that doesn't mean we have to alter our entire existance. I still intend to get my wife Christmas presents, and I still intend to donate a present to a poor child this year.
It would be a pathetic world if people altered their behavior this Christmas and started feeling guilty or vengeful or whatever because of the terrorists. In fact, I would say if people did alter their behavior substantially this Christmas, we would have allowed the terrorists to win.