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Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks
Fullam takes the reader from the very basics of hardware hacking and quickly gets up to speed with some fun and interesting hacks. Projects start out easy and increase in complexity and cost as the book progresses. Hardware Hacking covers many popular hacks we've all seen before, such as the "Macquarium" (Mac Aquarium), a web-enabled coffee machine, and the Blinkenlights building-sized display.
The book is divided into two main parts, the first covering basic hacks, and the second covering more advanced hacks.
Part One:
Starting with the basics, Fullam takes the reader through a crash course in electronics, covering concepts like soldering, using a voltmeter, identifying various electronic components and reading schematics. This section of the book is by no means a replacement for a course in electrical engineering, but it is definitely a solid primer for those of us who weren't born with a soldering iron in our hands. If you've never played with electronics before and don't know the difference between a resistor and a capacitor, this section should get you up to speed fairly quickly.
After the brief basics lesson, the next chapter dives right in to the first project, which is a portable laptop power supply made with a pile of D-cell batteries, a battery holder and some wire. This project is very simple and requires no soldering at all, yet it gives the reader a quick and easy way to make something useful with very little investment in time or money.
Each of the projects is presented in a well-organized manner, starting out with a brief summary and some background information about where the hack originated. A list of necessary tools and materials is also given, followed by a project overview, outlining the major tasks required to get the project completed. Each project outline gives estimates for the cost range, time required and difficulty level for the hack.
After the introductory stuff is out of the way, step-by-step instructions are given on how to assemble, modify or hack the device in question. The instructions are easy to follow and are complete with images or illustrations where appropriate. Many pages contain sidebars that contain additional information related to the project, such as more photos, hints and tips, and links to relevant websites. These sidebars really help to fill in any gaps that may be present in the main text.
At the end of each chapter, Fullam has an "extensions" section, where he suggests ways the hacks can be hacked further, to improve upon the design or alter them to offer more or different functionality. This is one point where the book really shines, advocating the true spirit of hacking and encouraging creativity and experimentation whenever possible throughout the book.
At the end of each chapter is a "Bill of Materials" and schematics for the hack. The bill of materials outlines in great detail all tools and hardware required for the project, including approximate costs as well as sources where they can be purchased.
Some of the highlights in the first section of the book include the "Macquarium," a water-based PC cooling system, and the infamous Furby hack. The Macintosh mod teaches some valuable lessons on using a Dremel tool and working with Plexiglas, which are great skills any budding case modder would want to have. The water-based PC cooling project is one of the more useful hacks presented in the book, showing the reader how to create an inexpensive but effective means to cool down an overclocked CPU. And hacking the Furby to give it a new vocabulary is... well, definitely a great topic for conversation if nothing else. If you have to ask why someone would do such a thing, you wouldn't understand the answer.
Part Two:
Part Two of the book starts off with another more advanced lesson in electronics. It delves into more detail, describing different types of resistors, capacitors and connectors. It also introduces transistors, looking at integrated circuits and surface-mount components as well. One thing I found particularly useful was the section explaining how to read and interpret manufacturers' data sheets for integrated circuits.
The advanced hacks featured in Part Two of Hardware Hacking are a little more exciting than those featured in the first half of the book, but are definitely more involved. The section starts off with a chapter on building a PC-based PVR, using Mandrake Linux. Sample code is included to create shell scripts for a simple, text-based interface, although Fullam does briefly mention some of the more popular GUI-based PVR software available, such as Freevo and MythTV.
Another great hack featured in the advanced section is the "Building-Size Display" hack, reminiscent of Blinkenlights. The chapter starts off with instructions on how to build a display matrix on a much smaller scale, using a series of ultra bright LEDs, but later shows how the project can be expanded to create a 12-story display using an entire building.
Some other mentionable hacks in the advanced chapters include a cubicle intrusion-detection system, an Internet-enabled toaster and coffee maker, and a remote object tracker. These projects provide instructions on how to use more advanced components such as photodiodes, lasers, GPS receivers and microcontrollers (such as the BasicStamp2, in particular).
Two other noteworthy projects in Part Two include a MAME cabinet and a wearable computer.
Plans for the MAME cabinet are very well done, taking the reader through cutting MDF, building the cabinet, installing the software and interfacing the controls to his PC. This chapter goes into great detail, even covering things like creating a monitor bezel and a backlit marquee, and using T-molding for that authentic arcade machine look.
The wearable computer hack is very interesting, covering a wide range of concepts I would never have considered. Fullam gives ideas on what to use for a head-mounted display (HMD), what types of motherboards and CPUs work best, and looks at various power sources, including batteries, solar panels and different generators. The chapter also presents ideas for input devices, such as keyboards and mice, but also speech recognition systems, cameras and GPS receivers. At the end of the chapter, there is an extensive list of websites related to wearable computer projects, offering much more reading to the interested hacker.
The appendixes, while quite brief, do offer more information on topics like creating and editing schematics, using microcontrollers and using different power sources. There is also a list of resources for further reading and a short list of parts suppliers.
Hardware Hacking also has an accompanying website, where readers can download all of the images, illustrations and schematics from the book. The files are available in EPS, PDF and TIFF formats, although they are all gzipped, and are not readily viewable without downloading and extracting first. The website supposedly has code downloads as well, but the links are broken as of this writing, so you'll be stuck typing in code from the book until the site is fixed.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, I was very impressed with this book. Fullam has given the geek community a valuable resource that will provide inspiration for aspiring and veteran hackers alike. It covers many projects that I have personally wanted to build or learn more about, and presents concepts that would be of interest to many fellow Slashdotters.
The only things preventing me from giving this book a 10 are the aforementioned issues with the accompanying website (which I'm sure will be fixed soon) and the quality of some of the photos. Most of the photographs in the book are crisp and clear, but some are rather grainy or pixelated, as if they were enlarged from a website image. Fullam does make mention of the image quality, stating that many photos actually were taken from the original Web sources, and "the clarity of the photograph suffers in print." It's a small point, but definitely noticeable in certain sections of the book. However, as mentioned, the images are available online, and often do look better on a monitor in full color, as opposed to the black and white images in the book.
I highly recommend Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks to anyone with an interest in those fun projects that only nerds can understand.
You can purchase Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
all you needed to start hacking was curiosity and desire?
It's funny how even the art of hacking has been commoditized these days.
My own advice, just do it.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
I consider myself a hacker. I make stuff. But I don't need a book to give me instructions. I do read a lot. Books on engineering, electronics, chemistry, biology, well, anything really. And I use all these bits of knowledge to make things by applying the knowledge to solve a problem.
Having a book that contains step by step hacks seems like reading a cookbook to become a chef. It just doesn't work that way.
Listen, I hate those so-called "software developers" just as much as you do. And for a long time, I've been trying to figure out where this kind of bitterness-driven reasoning ends. I mean, even most software developers don't really understand the science behind what they're doing. As far as I can tell, after thinking about this for 6 years: as long as the "P/NP" problem is undecided, no one can honestly say that they understand computers.
The problems are, for lack of a better word, attitude based. Hubris is all the more obvious when accompanied by ignorance (n.b. I didn't say stupidity). I am a pretty good programmer and am conversant in formal mathematics, though the idea of "software development" (in as many words) is abhorrent to me. So yeah, you're irked by people doing trivial "hacks" and bragging about it. I have similar irritations.
But these irritations are illusory. Get over it; I am.
But back to the point, Mr. (2, Troll) (*), I am considering getting this book as a simple introduction to some stuff which I was not fortunate enough to learn at such a young age, as to mistake it for "innate ability" or a symptom of some "superior intelligence"... I suspect many other people here are doing it for the same reason. Honestly, do you think Archimedes (or, for that matter, Enrico Fermi or even Einstein) would know how to do these "true hacks" without some education and/or training?
(*): I see you've now been upmodded to (4, insightful). Oy vey.
I was going to reply to your post yesterday, but then got distracted.
Anyways, you do realize the liability aspects of a project like that, right?
I mean, it's one thing to point people over to some fun hardware diddly doo, but it's something else for people to start messing with fairly high capacity bateries and chargers for such.
I guess what I'm saying is that, it is actually possible for someone with more than half a brain to (unintentionally) mess up the project you are describing and do a significant amount of damage.
I'm normally not the first person to get worried about stuff like that, but I'd hate to see a battery blow up in someone's face. You should probably at least make people aware of that possibility.