Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

Objects in Flux
[Figure 6-9]
Apple iPod running iPodLinux, 2008.
Image is author’s own.
14/ This narrative was pieced to-
gether from numerous posts on the
iPodLinux forum, http://ipodlinux.
org/forums/ accessed 21 May 2008,
and an account written by Nils Sch-
neider available through the Internet
Archive, http://web.archive.org/
web/20070601200428/http://www.
ipodlinux.org/stories/piezo/index.html
accessed 21 May 2008.
118
iPodLinux development team. When run on
the iPod, the code caused the iPod’s piezoelectric
transducer (the device that produces
the audible clicking noise when the iPod’s
buttons are pressed) to make a ‘squeaking’
sound. Schneider discovered that by varying
some of the code’s parameters he was able to
produce a range of different sounds. It occurred
to Schneider that he may be able to use these
sounds to transfer data. Selecting two distinctly
different sounds, Schneider wrote a program
that would translate the binary data stored in
the iPod’s memory into a series of clicks and beeps that could be
output through the transducer. Then, with the help of fellow developer
David Carne (screen name Busonerd), he constructed the signal
analysis software needed to convert the audio back into binary data.
It took eight hours to dump the entire 64kb of data from the iPod’s
flash memory out the piezoelectric transducer. Schneider constructed
a small recording studio from a cardboard box in order to limit
external noise. The resultant recording was then input into the signal
analysis software. After a number of failed attempts, Schneider succeeded
in reconstructing the data from the iPod’s memory. Using this
data the iPodLinux development team were able to reverse – engineer
the bootloader code and successfully install Linux on the fourth
generation iPod. 14
As de Certeau claims in The Practice of Everyday Life: ‘there is a
certain art of placing one’s blows, a pleasure in getting around the
rules of a constraining space’ (1984, p. 18). This ‘pleasure’ is clearly
evident in Nils Schneider’s actions. For Schneider, and the other
members of the iPodLinux development team, the iPod is a place
of experimentation where iPod use becomes a highly complex form
of play, an exploration of ‘the limits of what is possible’ (Stallman,
2002). iPodLinux team member Bernard Leach explains that the
project is partly for fun but it also has a more serious purpose: ‘It
changes the iPod from a consumer device, where the manufacturer
sets the rules about what it will and won’t do, into a general purpose
device’ (Knight, 2005).