classic hacks

2646 Articles

Hack Guitar Hero DS Into A Guitar Controller

August 20, 2008 by 11 Comments


[Eric Ruckman] sent us this awesome Guitar Hero hack. He wanted to get a more “true to the series” game play out of his DS when playing Guitar Hero: On Tour. If you’ve seen the adapter that comes with it, you’ll understand his desires. He found a wireless PS2 Guitar Hero controller on EBay to hack.

He’s cut a hole in the controller and removed all the guts. In the picture above the DS fits in the hole to allow strumming in the correct position. The controller buttons are connected to the DS by wiring into the adapter. He’s added an FM transmitter to the controller so he can play the sound through his home sound system.

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Hacking The Myvu Personal Video Player

August 19, 2008 by 17 Comments


[jongscx] picked up a Myvu personal media viewer and promptly began scheming about improvements. He decided he wanted to be able to watch any input on the device, not just an Ipod.

After some messing about with different inputs, he eventually calls Myvu to ask some questions. Surprisingly, he gets the engineer who designed the thing. The engineer turns out to be pretty helpful and is happy to help him hack the device. [jongscx] ends up finally getting it to work and posts the schematic for the world to see.

He says his hands are full with some other projects right now, but hopefully he’ll do an official write up with pictures of the final product soon.

[DrNathan] wrote in to note that [RetroPlayer] was responsible for much of the work as well as contacting the engineer.

[thanks, DrNathan]

USB Switched Power Strip

August 18, 2008 by 12 Comments


[toymotorhead] pieced together this USB controlled power strip to help with his electrical bill. His goal was to be able to have devices turned off automatically when he shut down his computer as well as powered on when he turned his computer on. Another requirement was that the USB be isolated to protect the motherboard from spikes.

The cost of the parts in total were less than $30, and consisted of a solid state relay, some fuses, and some transient voltage surge suppressing diodes. The unit only switches power off or on depending on whether or not the computer is powered up, it doesn’t control the outlets via software. He goes pretty in depth as to how everything works as well as showing nice diagrams and pictures. This should be a fairly quick and simple project, as long as you take the proper precautions for working with high voltage.

Acer Aspire One Hard Drive Upgrade

August 16, 2008 by 9 Comments


As promised, [tnkgrl] has published part two of Acer Aspire One upgrade. In part one she added Bluetooth and more RAM. This time around she focuses on the storage. The subnotebook comes from the factory with an 8GB SSD. The flash based storage readily unplugs from a small ZIF connector. [tnkgrl] replaced it with a 60GB PATA Samsung drive salvaged from an iPod. It’s a 1.8inch disk and is only 5mm thick, so it can be tucked under the motherboard. Knowing its previous use, it should prove fairly resilient. You can view a video of the swap and more photos on Flickr.

Up next is part three, where she’ll add 3G support.

Biometric Locks Turned Trojan

August 15, 2008 by 9 Comments


In the same vein as our recent Defcon article on biometric cloning, White Wolf Security has released this article about turning a biometric door lock into a trojan. They note that there are many common ways to break into one, from harvesting fingerprints to using gummy bears to fake a finger. This hack involves having full access to the unit so you can disassemble it.

The unit has a system built-in where you can touch a 9-volt battery to some connectors on the bottom to power it in case of a building power failure. The researchers simply routed some wires from the motorized lock to the plates used for the 9-volt and then reassembled the lock. The door can then be opened at any time without verification, even if the software on the unit is reset.

[Thanks, dwight]

Modding The Acer Aspire One With Bluetooth

August 14, 2008 by 9 Comments


[tnkgrl], a regular around here, is at it again. This time she has modded an Acer Aspire One subnotebook to have internal Bluetooth. She’s released part 1 of a multi part tutorial on beefing up the Aspire One. In this part, she covers disassembly, adding more RAM, and adding the Bluetooth hardware. She suggests that you look at her Bluetooth install on an Asus 701 to find more information as the process is nearly identical.

Part 2 of the tutorial is going to cover upgrading the SSD to a 1.8″ PATA hard drive and putting it back together.

RGB Monome Clone

August 13, 2008 by 9 Comments


[Julien Bayle] has posted this great breakdown of building an RGB monome clone. He is a musical performer using Ableton Live. He wanted to do away with the need for a computer screen and found that the monome would have been perfect had it been RGB. So he decided to build his own.

The parts list for the entire project is as follows:

  • 1x Arduino board
  • 4x Sparkfun breakout PCB
  • 4x Sparkfun buttons pads (like our door lock)
  • 4x Sparkfun buttons bezel
  • 64x RGB LEDs common cathode
  • 64x Diodes Small Signal (1N4148)
  • 1x MAX7221 (LED Driver)
  • 1x 74HC164 (8-Bit Serial-In, Parallel-Out Shift Register)
  • 1x 74HC165 (8-Bit Parallel-In, Serial-Out Shift Register)

He also has files for the schematics and source code as well as information on how to assemble and test it.

The RGB aspect is still under development. He is using the LEDMatrix-Serial Interface-RGB from Sparkfun Electronics to run it. It is expensive, but is exactly what he was looking for.

There aren’t very many pictures of the project, and none of the working RGB unit. He makes up for it in sheer information. Many parts have links to manufacturers or support forums. Hopefully he’ll post some pictures and video of the final product soon.