MightyOhm.com

Hi,

I've just discovered this forum, after watching Jeff's presentation on how to hack the Asus WL520gU wireless router. I've never done any electronics hacking, but I'd love to learn how to do it. Do you recommend any books or website to start learning?

I also think it would be a good idea to have a list of learning resources somewhere in this forum. (For people like me )

If you think this post is inappropriate, please remove it and accept my apologies for bothering you.

Thanks a lot,
Joao

Don't worry, you are in the right place.

My favorite book for beginners is Getting Started in Electronics, by Forrest Mims III. It's an older book, but still in print and very relevant today. Good introduction to resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc, but don't expect anything about Arduino. I wrote a short review about it here: http://www.mightyohm.com/blog/2008/12/t ... r-written/

Speaking of Arduino, that is another great way to start learning electronics and microcontrollers. You can buy an Arduino from Adafruit Industries (http://www.adafruit.com) and there are some good tutorials on that site as well. With an Arduino and some LEDs and resistors, you can learn a lot.

What about electronics interests you the most? Do you want to solder things together and build stuff? Write software that controls hardware? Reverse engineer consumer electronics?

Thanks a lot for your message Jeff!

Answering your question, I'd like to start by writing software that controls hardware. What I like about your radio project is that it doesn't involve many electronics know-how, but you can still revert the device for whatever you need. That, for me, is the ideal beginners project for someone like me that doesn't know anything about electronics, but knows something about writing software (and Linux, and cross-compiling, etc.).

However, I'd like to progress and to be able to design simple devices, solder things, and build stuff That's why I've asked for references: I'd like to make this one of my hobbies.

I'll check out the Arduino webpage and when I decide what my first real project is, I'll let you know

Many thanks for your help,
Joao