Hidden functionality in consumer electronics

Article: 7461 of alt.hackers
From: afelson@rmii.com (Adam Felson)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Hidden functionality in consumer electronics
Date: 28 Feb 1995 14:43:38 GMT
Organization: Rocky Mountain Internet Inc
Lines: 27
Approved: The Central Scrutinizer
Message-ID: 3ivcqq$b9j@potogold.rmii.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: rainbow.rmii.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Status: RO

1st hack: a toshiba 27" tv with a remote control that had this
stupid reset button:  the menu keys were on the tv, and if you
accidentaly hit "reset", it would undo the picture settings and
the only way to restore them required getting up and going
over to the tv.  A major pain.  Missing from the remote was the
last channel recall.  Fixing the first problem was easy, just
cut a trace in the remote.  Second was more chalenging: when
I first had the remote control apart, I noticed several "keys"
that operated various functions like menus and the last channel recall.
These keys were shorter than the rest and didn't poke through the
front panel.  I put a coupla jumpers from the hiden last channel
recall to the old reset key.  one jumper couldn't be soldered because
of some kinda carbon deposited to the board that wouldn't accept
solder.  I put a bit of glue on the jumper to hold it under the
key.  The reset key became a last channel recall key!  Still works.

Second hack:
Friend got a mitsubishi home theatre unit.  It has a single input and
dolby pro logic and a 5 channel amp.  Only problem:  although it has
outputs for rear, center and subwoofer, it didn't have any preamp outputs
for the front channels.  This was going to make it really hard to integrate
into his current system.  Also the built in front channels were mediocre
compared to the amp in his current system.
I had a look inside, found where the signals fed the internal front amp,
cut the signals going to the center and subwoofer outputs, and jumpered
the front signals to go to the center and subwoofer outputs.

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