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Resources for the Beginner Hardware Hacker?
StandardDeviant asks:
"What would be good resources for a programmer looking to start a
hobby in hardware hacking? By that I mean circuits,
microcontrollers, computer controlled hacks, and such...sort of
like a hobby-level EE education. It's just this itch I've had
recently to dig down to the other extreme of the 'tower of abstraction'
they bleat about so much in CS, also I find it ironic that I know more
about the math (Maxwell's laws, and so on) behind electric widgets
than I do about using them to build things. I'd be interested in
pointers to good websites, books, magazines, parts sources, you name
it! As an example: I've been looking recently at the
microcontroller/circuit stuff from
Iguana Labs, and of course
browsing through Radio Shack. Thanks!"
Good source. Lots of old school UNIX listings.
Nuts and Volts Magazine is pretty good.
You'd be all set if you scored some back issues.
Real good stuff in those.
Ok, I admit that I'm not a hardware hacker, but during my fantasies of becoming one I've had several people recommend The Art of Electronics to me. I've even bought it (twice). Easy enough to understand.
Radioshack is a ok place to start. I don't mean asking the yahoo's who work there. I mean they used to carry this begginger series on electronics, explained basics of electricity (Ohm's law and such fun things), how to read circit diagrams, how to solder, and how to build basic circuts. There was also a series called like "Engineers Mini-Notebook" or something.
This is where I started when I was a lot younger. I also found that getting a small kit radio that required soldering (not those lame-o snap together ones, but a reall PCB and soldering iron type) helped me better understand what things where and how they went together.
Circuit Cellar was a fixture in the back of Byte magazine back when it was worth reading. Hosted by hardware guru Steve Ciarcia, it was the beginning of many a budding computer hacker's career. Fortunately, it got spun off into its own magazine. Back issues are available on CD-ROM - get them, they're worth it. You'll be an expert hardware hacker in no time by reading the CD-ROM back issues.
i dont know how much of a learning resource this is but once you have an idea this may help...
www.parallaxinc.com
these guys make the basic stamp...its a small microcontroller with memory that has an onboard basic interpreter...there are a bunch of different types and you can interface them with just about anything...really good stuff for hombrew projects!!!
dude.
you may wish to look into getting some sort of FPGA...
at the school i'm going to, we use boards from altera(.com), i believe they go for $150, and you can probably get an educational license to their software
you can design with a schematic tool and their software will compile it into something you can program the chip with....
this is a very nice thing for digital electronics, but i don't think it would work for analog circuits.
their software also supports VHDL which is nice for getting a chip to do stuff without having to know how it is done. (as a side effect of not knowing how its done, the compiler can optimize it so it may work better than something you layed out yourself, assuming you aren't a master at optimizing circuits)
Need a Catering Connection
Your real local library, as well as B&N :-)
Amatuer Radio Books
good mix of analog theory & practice.
learn power supplies first to run your later projects
or sacrafice a few wall warts
---
Those x00-in-one labs ?
real dip spaced experimenter boards may be a bit pricey
I second the recommendation of Forrest Mims books. He was a true hardware hacker, built and tested all his own designs and meticulously wrote out all his books by hand on engineering paper.
And, no, it's not a handwritten font like you see 99% of the time these days.
The books are _very_ basic up to about, I dunno, intermediate level. There's not a whole lot of reading involved, mostly tons of examples of circuits with brief explanations of interesting aspects of them. Those books would also be great for science project ideas.
Furthermore, I _would_ talk to guys at Radio Shack, but you need to find the experienced ones. usually a manager or someone older who's worked in the store for a long time, and is really interested in electronics. These guys often who a lot more than you would guess. Of course, the majority of them, especially the younger ones wouldn't know which way to put the batteries in.
I would further recommend the plethora of Web sites, mailing lists and newsgroups. I won't even bother to list any because there are so many. Just his Yahoo! or Google.
Another fun thing to do is hit all the on-line electronics vendors and download their catalogs. Quite a number of them target hobbyists like:
www.mpja.com - Marlin P. Jones, which sells basic components and lots of assorted suprlus random stuff
www.bgmicro.com - BG Micro is even better, they have a downloadable PDF catalog of about 20 dense pages
www.elexp.com - Electronics Express also has a downloadable catalog
IIRC, I've ordered from all three of these, and a few other I don't recall at the moment. In each case, service was good and orders were delivered promptly.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
http://www.tinaja.com/books/bkdons.asp
Don Lancaster's books, especially the cookbooks, are a great place to start.
also, check out the hobbyist magazines such as
http://www.circuitcellar.com/
http://www.gernsback.com/
1. Suppliers
Digikey absolutely rules. Largest variety of everything electronic. Very easily-navigated site. No minimum order ($5 handling charge if your order is under $25).
Jameco is a good second choice. Especially good for lots of different cheap power supplies.
With Radio Shack, this should be all you need for now.
2. Learning Resources
Someone already pointed you to the various cookbooks. TTL cookbooks are especially good places to start at your level.
A great online resource used to be ePanorama.net, but they're 404ing at the moment, so maybe they're gone for good and they'll be back.
Circuits Archive has lots of simple circuits you can peruse to see how stuff gets done at the lowest level, just like the cookbooks.
3. Advice
Stay away from FPGAs initially. I think you'll find the architecture and associated design process too big a piece to bite off at this point, and not worth the effort.
Focus on TTL and learning what functions are available in various packages (track down an old "TTL Databook" from TI; they don't print them anymore but they're much handier for learning and browsing than online equivalents, which assume youknow what you're looking for). See this for high-level descriptions and this for pdfs of actual datasheets.
When you're ready (which might be immediately) choose a microcontroller family to bone up on and stick with it. It's a huge waste of effort relearning architectures, instruction sets, and development tools for different families. For your purposes, either the PIC (from Microchip), 8051 (Intel et al.), or AVR (Atmel) will do fine (and they're all available from Digikey). I chose the AVR for the following reasons:
a) Wide (enough) range of parts, from 8-pin to 64-pin, 1K ROM to 128K ROM, various arrangments of on-chip peripherals (including A/D).
b) Cheap, from under $2/chip (single-piece) to under $30 for their fanciest.
c) ALL members of the AVR family contain on-chip FLASH ROM for program storage and can be programmed in-system directly via your PC serial port. This makes a HUGE difference (compared to external ROMs or on-chip EPROM) during prototyping.
Some people will suggest the BASIC Stamp from Parallax, which is a fine product which I've played with. My beef with it is it's expensive ($30 or so, I think) and all you really get for the money is a Basic intepreter. I think you'll find assembler for these chips so simple you don't need Basic. You can also get separate free Basic compilers for all of them.
Good luck.
ECAD is electronic computer aided design. There are low cost packages, some are even freeware. Get a package as soon as you can.
You will get schematics that are automatically legible, plus you will get automatically generated net lists telling you exactly which pins of which chips are supposed to be connected to each other. If you're wiring up a circuit by hand, this is amazingly good information to have, especially if it's accurate.
Here's a freeware package, I think it's good for 16 IC equivalents. Check McCAD . Perfectly adequate for hobbyist or student. Their shrinkwrap unlimited version is thousands of dollars and has more power than you have any idea how to use at this point.
Get a good basic set of hand tools, there are plenty of hobbyist kits.
In addition, include a decent wire-wrap gun if you plan to work in digital. Your technique of choice if you aren't buying a kit with a PCB is going to be wirewrap on perforated boards into which you've plugged lots of 8-64 pin wirewrap sockets into. Get the socket ID labels. These items, except for the (I said decent) wrap gun, you can get at Radio Shack. You might check ebay for a deal on a pro wire-wrap gun.
You need a DMM (Digital mulitmeter), an analog VOM (volt-ohmmmetter, this will generally have a current measurement range large enough to be of us, look for several amps measurement capability, and an oscilloscope, at least 100 MHz, look for a used Tektronix.
Look hard for a decent electronics surplus store in your area, you might get some spectacular deals on test gear and the more expensive tools.
Find out where the electronics "pro shop" in your area is, for the stuff that Radio Shack never did and never will sell. You'll pay a premium, but it beats waiting for shipping if you need it NOW.
The ARRL Handbook from the ARRL ham radio organization is a good starting point, as their other tutorial guides are.
For where/how to get electronics info that's actually useful, try the electronics section on my site http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/index1.html#electroni cs
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