Re: How do I begin a hacking career

Article: 8935 of alt.hackers
From: jlockwoo@pollux.usc.edu (James Lockwood)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: How do I begin a hacking career
Date: 24 Oct 1995 16:39:55 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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clemson@emi.u-bordeaux.fr (Chris Clemson) writes:

>here's my 1st <tada> obhack (beeb related)

>ObHack:
>Around 2/3 years ago I dug out Rocket Raid, as I hadn't finished it, and I
>hate unfinished ones.
>Anyway, I was getting back into the rythme of playing it, when I kept on
>getting stuck on the purple bit with all the tight corners.
>Eventually, I got good at it, but I kept on crashing into a fuel pod which
>you have to shoot to get past, but there are so many keys for the game
>(well, more than I could handle), I decided to try out some lego building.
>I built a device with lego and a motor to hammer the return (fire) key.
>Sure enough, when I got to the tricky bit, I turned on the motor and got
>past it. I know it was cheating a bit, but I was getting annoyed, and you
>can't change the keyboard layout.
>Hmm, might be usefull in other games.... never finished Exile.....

Okay, here's one...

Friend of mine had an Atari ST and played Dungeon Master a lot.  In
that game, you can get a little bit of experience every time you
punch something.  So I came up with the following:

Need to make an autofire mouse.  Okay, get a 555.  No, wait, that
won't work because it drains too much current off of the line coming
from the computer (didn't want to use an external powersupply).  But
I _do_ have an LM3909, which is a chip meant to blink an LED once a
second for six months off of a single D cell.  It has a miniature
voltage amplifier inside.  Rig it up and presto! autofire mouse.

Here are some better ones:

Need more ISA slots on my cheap cheezy 486.  Solution:  Take an old
AT motherboard I had lying around, take a hacksaw and cut off the
slots.  Remove the termination from the 486 motherboard and connect
the busses together with plug cards and ribbon cable.  It's still
running, six months later.

Putting an EPROM from a Quantum 80MB drive in a Quantum 40 and having
it work perfectly as an 80.  The Quantum 40's use just one side of each
platter.

Or my favorite:

Like most people, I got locked out of my car once.  Trouble was, it
was getting dark and all I had with me was my backpack and my lunch
bag.  I was a locksmith for a while, but I don't carry picks anymore.

Fortunately, I left the windows cracked just a bit (it gets _hot_
down here if you don't).  But do I have anything to grab the
lock?  No long pieces of metal, no string...  Aha!  I've got my
headphones, with a nice long cord.

I made a loose slipknot in the cord and tried to lasso the lock bolt.
No luck, my windows curve too much and the cord is just hanging
straight down.  But wait...  I have straws in my lunch bag!  Link
two drinking straws together, shove them through the opening
in the window, point them toward the cord, and blow.  I just barely
got it.

*whew*

James Lockwood, Unix System Programmer
Administrator, USC Network Research Lab.
email:  lockwood@catarina.usc.edu

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