I guess it all started in college (UCSC) in a microprocessor design class (probably '85 or '86ish)

It was a cool class where we putting together little z-80 microprocessor systems on proto boards.

One of the earlier assignments was to find some little electronic device, rip it apart, and by looking at

the chips and circuits inside, try and figure out how the thing works...

That gave me the itch, and the interest to open stuff up and mess with it.

When I say I've hacked all this stuff, most of it is really not hacking in the true sense...

I mostly just look up what other people have done and then follow their instructions.

Hacking in the true sense, is actually figuring out how to do the modification..

CB Radios were fun to hack, this was pre-internet, I think I got some tidbits off usenet or somewhere, but I did do the

hacking on these... by figuring out how the channel selector translated to flipping bits on the PLL chip, I

was able to add a switch on the high bit of the pll selector and get a bunch of extra channels.

That was a fun trick, and I fixed up a bunch of friend's cb's so we could all talk on the lower channels.

Beyond that..

• Philips spc900nc web cam to make it take long exposures
• Satellite tv recievers (some fun little tiny soldering)
• Rebuilt a pinball machine (had to desolder the MPU board, clean it and rebuild it..)
• CHDK Canon PowerShot hack
• I put linux on an HP Jornada 690 (haven't figured out a good use for it yet, but it was a challenge.. I might turn it into a telescope controller..)
• GPS - got my Magellan crossover to show google earth maps
•    - also hacked a magellan 3500something before I took it back to costco..
• I'm running dd-wrt (linux) on my home wireless router box (a Buffalo something) ..works great btw dd-wrt.org
• I've ripped apart various digital cameras in hopes that I could remove the lens assembly and stick it on my telescope for astrophotography (as yet unsuccessful)
• Put linux on a variety of beater old laptops and desktops..
• I've got an old xbox waiting for linux...

• ...