while packing & carrying boxes all day long (I’m currently moving to my new apartement), I used the time listening to some SXSW 2006 panels. [I started listening to this great podcast a few months ago - there's more than 90 hours of high-class content, though at some panels audio-quality sucks]. it was on “consumer is the producer: DIY media” where I learned about x0xb0x (pronounced ‘zocks box’), an open source hardware-project by MIT graduate Limor Fried.
x0xb0x is basically an exact clone of the TB303, a synthesizer/sequencer manufactured by Roland in the early 80ies, which later got picked up by protagonists of the uprising house/techno-scene. the TB303’s unique sound eventually led to the development of a subgenre named acid-house. today, music enthusiasts still trade original TB303’s on ebay.
being open source hardware, everything you need to know to build your own x0xb0x is published on the project’s website: circuit board-schematics, firmware, part-lists, software and - most important - instructions on how to transform a bag of parts into a working piece of gear. on the forums, the DIY-community is giving support, sharing mods & hacks and posting music created on the x0xb0x. the x0xb0x is a great demonstration of what could happen if manufacturers started to open up their products to the consumer, similar to what iRobot did with their vacuuming robot Roomba, which is definitely one of the most-hacked consumer-devices today.
