At tonight’s HackNight, we played with the Zipit Wireless Messenger and the NetGear wgt634u, both of which I’ve mentioned here recently. Rob got his Zipit from Amazon yesterday, so today we got it running our own version of linux doing a 2 step flashing process (first the aibohack over the air, and then zflash over nfs). We also got a couple 6×4 sheets of white EL, so we were able to swap out my blue backlight and now I can see the top three lines of my screen!
Rob added a serial port to his WGT634U with one of the MAX233 chips we had left over from the zipit project, and although this is essential for flashing new kernels and such, there was a lot of discussion about other things we could add to both the zipit and the netgear.
A RS232 GPS Module is an obvious choice for a handheld wifi device, adding bluetooth ( and a phone with a data plan) would allow you to do something like the TacomaTrainNode without carrying a backpack full of gear. The Netgear AP is obviously suited for any number of wireless applications and with it’s USB2.0, it’s already a NAS (or multi-radio device), but by pulling it’s wireless and adding a MiniPCI sound card and a LCD serial display, you could build your own squeezebox running a smarter jukebox like squeal.
It’s a crazy world we live in. The cost of these devices come down as they become more specialized and more appliance-like for the masses. A little bit of hacking turns them into cheap general purpose devices that you can mold to your own uses, not the general markets’. You don’t need an EE to build your dream device, and you don’t need a lot of money. Just a few google skills and a little bit of imagination.
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