Note: This is an account of a hacked Boogie Bass, as seen in the New York Times and on the BBC and on Vona's own website.

During the summer of 1999 I was living in Hanover, New Hampshire, with my friends Ben Guaraldi and Lauryn Zipse. One quiet sunny morning I woke up late and walked into the living room to find Ben dozing on the couch. At the sound of my entrance, he opened one eye and we looked at each other for a moment, each still experiencing post-sleep stupor. In an uncommon epiphany, it was suddenly clear to me that I could communicate to Ben the entire contents of my just-barely-awake mind with one single word:

Pork!

Clearly, a whole world of human experience can be expressed with this one simple word. Even if you don't agree, Ben did. So, on that quiet sunny morning in Hanover, we had a whole conversation using only the word pork.

As time passed we became ever more impressed with the dynamic range of the p-word. We began to get creative about how we communicated "pork" to each other. Then, while shopping at the local CVS, I stumbled upon the Boogie Bass.

The Boogie Bass is nothing short of a little animatronic wonder. Now put two and two together. Pork. Bass. Talking Bass. Christmas was fast approaching, and I as yet did not have a gift for Ben.

How To Make A Talking Fish Say What You Want It To Say

After removing the six screws that hold the back of the Bass' "plaque" (each cleverly hidden beneath a rubber mounting foot), I discovered that the inside of the plaque is mostly air. Plenty of room for adding some "special" circuitry. Clearly we would not want to destroy the existing circuit. We can hijack its power drivers for the motors. And besides, the messages it comes with are pretty hilarious. Especially after you have heard them over 100 times.

A little investigation with an oscilloscope revealed that the control of the Bass' head/tail/mouth is extremely simple: energize the corresponding motor, and the head turns out, the tail extends, or the mouth opens. De-energize the motor, and the corresponding body part returns (by a spring) to its "rest" state. We've got binary actuators here folks. And it was clear that we could tie in to the gate inputs of the motor drivers with some simple diode-or circuitry.

There is a toggle switch for changing modes, along with a trimpot for adjusting the volume in special mode, an LED for feedback (very useful during software development), and four DIP switches for setting the "special" sub-mode. There are currently five such sub-modes:

Record This is the mode for recording a new message, up to 20 seconds long. Only one "special" message is supported at a time. When the button on the front is pushed and held in, any sound will be recorded until the button is let out (or 20 seconds is reached, whichever happens first). New "special" messages can be re-recorded as often as you like, and doing so will erase the existing "special" message (and reset all head/tail/mouth movements).

Record Mouth In this mode the movement of the mouth can be recorded. Press and release the button on the front to start playback of the "special" message, along with any existing recorded tail and head movements. While the message is playing, press and hold the button to open the mouth. Release to close it. The mouth movements recorded here will be played back subsequently whenever the message is played in Play, Record Head, or Record Tail modes. It can be difficult to get the timing right, so it helps to have a digital stopwatch on hand. And you can of course re-record the movements as many times as you like (re-recording the movement does not erase the current audio or movements of the other body parts).

Record Head This mode allows the movement of the head (either flat against the plaque or turned to face you). Operation is similar to Record Mouth mode.

Record Tail This mode is for recording tail movements. Operation is similar to Record Mouth mode. Play When the button is pushed and released in this mode the currently stored message is played back, along with any recorded head/tail/mouth movements. The front of the fish is unchanged, except for the addition of a small hole for the microphone: Pork!

I wrapped the fish in its original packaging, with the mode switch left at "special" and with the batteries inserted. Ben's reaction when he pressed that button was as priceless as you can imagine. Which is quite priceless if you know Ben.

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