How
to be a Hacker
So you wanna be a HACKER huh? <Bwahahaha!> It's a state-of-MIND!..
You can induce it - but only if you are willing to drive yourself
mad enough! Go read and practice until you have mastered at least Assembly
language and Intermediate Level Electronics! Without this foundation
you'll be just another little geek, who might know the magic words to
the spell but do sent understand what he's doing! So RTFM!.. So what
does that mean? Read The Fucking Manual! You will be sooo amazed at
how easy most things are if you just try to read the manual first! The
truth is: Most people cant read. Or they read poorly if they read at
all. So if you can't really read...STOP RIGHT HERE. GO learn to read
first. If you can't read at a minimum 12th Grade level you cant be a
hacker. Reading is the basic skill you must have to do EVERYTHING BEYOND
THIS POINT. Tell your friends you cant party...you're busy. Spend at
least 4 hours a day at your new-found fascination...or decide right
here and now that you cant cut it! If you CAN, get a copy of MINIX or
LINUX...start learning about OPERATING SYSTEMS. Then start your1st real
hack...try building a computer-controlled, DTMF Dialer card for your
cheap PC...write the code to use it with, make it a TSR to keep life
interesting...now port it to MINIX or whatever...better yet, port it
as an IOCTL call at kernel level! You keep reading...Now you're ready
to take on something more complex - go to the Library, start a literature
search; topic: Telephone Technologies. RTFM! Learn about the ancient
cross-bar, the Pre-ESS systems, the fab MFTSS, the TELEX boxes and circuits...keep
reading...buy up an older, cheap (like under $50) cellular phone..
By this time you should already have a subscription to 'Nuts &
Volts" as well as a few other grassroots technology pubs.... buy a copy
of the "Cellular Hacker's Bible"....start by doing something simple....disassemble
and re-write the phone`s control ROM to allow it to function as an 800MHZ
scanner...hopefully you've assembled a large array of tools and test
gear by now. You've got a good dual-trace scope, some pc-based PROM
burner, a signal generator, a logic probe or two, maybe even a
microprocessor-emulator for the 5051, the Z80, the 68010 or something....you may have been dragged
into some fields-afar by life - incorporate them: If somebody dragged
you into SCUBA, build your own sonar. If you have gotten interested
in amateur radio, you can build a lot of swell stuff...I recommend you
checkout Packet's AX25A level 2 protocol...very slick stuff! If your
bud's are all into motors, take a whak at doing your own Performance
PROMS for GM's F.I. and spark advance curves...or try adapting some
Volkswagen/BOSCHEK jetronics F.I. to a Harley Davidson!.. Maybe you're
into music so you buy a synthesizer and learn all about electronic music,
you start hacking analog modules and build a nicer synth than you could
buy! Then you interface it to a MIDI port on a cheap 286ATand then hack
up some sequencer software, or buy some and then disassemble it to fix
all the bugs! You keep reading...By now most of your friends are also
"far into the pudding", you have either gained 50 lbs or gone totally
skinny...your skin tone is 2 shades lighter from being indoors so long...most
of the opposite sex is either totally freaked by or with you - they
either dig you, or they don't!...you're probably knocking on the door
of what will be a $60K+/yr job as a systems analyst...and you are well-aware
that 90% of the people in this world can't talk their way out of a badly
cooked steak at the local eatery, let alone install a new mother board
in their PC! So you pick up some extra cash on doing shit like that
for the straights...you keep reading, and RTFM'ing higher and higher,
learning about networks...the VCR breaks down and your SO bitches about
having to wait till Monday to have it fixed...you fix it in about 40
minutes....the next day the clothes dryer starts to make squeaking noises
like a 50' mouse, you've never fixed one before -but somehow it's not
that difficult to open the bastard up and find the squeak and fix it...and
suddenly it dawns on you that hacking code or hardware is pretty much
the same! You keep reading...Congrats, you are now a real hacker. Absolutely
nothing but a lack off time (or in some cases money) can stop you. You
are a true Technologic Philosopher...you can function in places a mere
Engineer or Scientist would truly FEAR TO TREAD! You can read better
than Evelyn Wood, you have a collection of tools that would make a Master
Machinist and a Prototype EE or ME cry. You can calculate series and
parallel resonant circuits in your head. You can fix any consumer appliance
- if you can get the parts. Your car has either become one of your main
hacks or you've ever delegated the job to a mechanic who you have found
to be a fellow hacker; and you work on his homebrew 68010 unix box...because
you've got a 68010 emulator and he works on your car because that's
the kind he specializes n! Maybe you trade services with people for
50% of what ordinary people have to BUY WITH CASH!...you keep reading...
(this is the stage where the author now finds himself...16 years into
a career at a Fortune 5 company and age 42... still reading... your
mileage may vary! <-((that's my code too! I co-wrote VEEP, (vehicle-economy-emissions-program,
a complete auto-simulator, written in Fortran-5 for the Univac 1108
system using punch-cards!) for the Ford Foundation and the DOT while
at JPL in 1973))
)-Avatar->
(aka: Erik K. Sorgatz)
KB6LUY
+----------------------------+TTI (es@soldev.tti.com)or: sorgatz@avatar.tti.com
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