Hardware Hacking 5variety of means (light, touch, knobs, switches), and combined to create rich
electronic textures at minimum cost and difficulty. With the confidence instilled
by such a delicious din you can proceed with circuits to amplify, distort and
otherwise mangle sound You can move on to some designs for linking sound
with visual material, and some convenient “glue” circuits, useful for putting
disparate parts together for performance or recording. Finally, there are several
appendices to direct the reader to sources of supplies and further resources for
information.
In selecting the specific projects to include in this book I was guided by a handful
of fundamental assumptions and goals:
To keep you alive. All the projects in this book are battery powered; none
plug into the potentially lethal voltage running through your walls. This makes
the early stages of unsupervised electronic play activity considerably safer, and
less daunting for the beginner.
To keep things simple. We work with a small number of very simple
"axiomatic" circuits and concepts that can be combined with great permutational
richness as you proceed and gain experience, but are easy to understand and
quick to get running at the beginning. The point is to make cool sounds as
quickly as possible.
To keep things cheap. By limiting ourselves to a few core designs we
minimize the quantity and cost of supplies needed to complete this book. You
don't need a full electronics lab, just a soldering iron, a few hand tools, and about
$50- worth of parts which you can easily obtain on-line. By focusing on toys and
other simple consumer electronics we also minimize the threat of "catastrophic
loss" in the early, unpredictable days of freestyle hacking:!a Microjammer sets
you back considerably less than a vintage Bass Balls.
To keep it stupid. You will find here an absolute minimum of theory. We
learn to design by ear, not by eye, gazing at sophisticated test instruments or
engineering texts. Ignorance is bliss, so enjoy it.
To forgive and forget. There's no "right way" to hack. I will try to steer you
away from meltdowns, but have included designs that are robust, forgiving of
wiring errors, and accept a wide range of component substitutions if you don't
have the preferred part. Most of these circuits are starting points from which
you can design many variations with no further help from me -- if you love a
hack, let it run free.
As a result of these koans, this is a distinctly non-standard introduction to
electronic engineering. Many of the typical subjects of a basic electronics course,
such as the worrisomely vague transistor and the admittedly useful little thing
called an op-amp, are left unmentioned. After turning over the last page, you
will emerge smarter, if weirder, than when you first opened the book. You will
have acquired some rare skills, and ones that are exceedingly useful in the
pursuit of unusual sounds. You will have significant gaps in your knowledge,