Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks

xi

Preface

• Budding hackers of all kinds. If you are new to both software and

hardware hacking, you can get started quickly with projects that do

something interesting immediately.

Organization of This Book

Each project begins with a duration scale representing how much time the

project will likely take to complete, a cost scale indicating how much (or

how little) it will cost to build each project, and a difficulty scale.

Part I, Basic Hacks, Tools, and Techniques, is an introduction to the tools of

the trade for hackers. It covers the common tools and techniques required

for hardware hacking, along with some basic electronics theory. This sec-

tion teaches the basics you’ll need for Chapters 1 through 6.

Chapter 1, How to Build a Portable Laptop Power Supply, explains how to

build a laptop computer power extender using ordinary D-size batteries, a

battery holder, and a connector cable. This project requires a small amount

of soldering.

Chapter 2, How to Build an Aquarium Inside a Macintosh, shows how to

take a Macintosh Classic computer and turn it into a very nice fish tank.

This hack does not involve any circuit boards. You will be cutting out sheets

of plastic and gluing them together to form a waterproof tank that sits inside

the computer case.

Chapter 3, How to Hack 802.11b Antennas, explains how to build your

own directional, long-range a