Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks

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Part I: Basic Hacks, Tools, and Techniques

How to Hack a Generic Talking Toy

In 1989 a group calling itself The Barbie Liberation Organization pur-

chased 300 talking Barbie and GI Joe dolls and switched the voice chips.

They then placed these “hacked” toys back on toy-store shelves to be pur-

chased by unsuspecting children. The hacked GI Joe dolls said things like

“I love school. Don’t you?” and “Let’s sing with the band tonight.” The

hacked Barbie said phrases like “Dead men tell no lies.” Newspapers across

the country picked up the story and an urban legend was born. This “act

of sabotage” (according to a few of the Mattel and Hasbro people I worked

with) occurred when I was working as a toy designer.

A year or two later, a talking Barbie playset that I designed hit the market.

At about the same time, Mattel released a new talking Barbie, one of whose

phrases included “Math class is tough.” The story of the non–politically

correct Barbie hit the press and sent my product to an early grave. (I think

Mattel pulled all talking Barbies for a while after that.)

However, the talking Barbie playset I designed was much cooler than a

simple doll that said inane things. My playset could read special tags on

the doll’s clothing to determine where the doll was and trigger short dialogs

that included the location and clothing. And it never said