As a student doing biomedical research, I built a paper electrophoresis apparatus out of an old mouse cage – which was clear plastic of just the right size to attach the electrodes to. It worked fine at separating & identifying certain proteins & a commercial version would have cost thousands of dollars – not that they would have paid for it lol.
Now the “dark side” (more in line with the current negative connotation of hacking): As a teenager, when people called home they used a pay telephone and inserted coins at the direction of a human operator, who confirmed coin amounts by listening to bells sounded as coins went in. Several seconds after the call was placed the operator pushed a button that caused the inserted coins to drop into the coin box. Otherwise they would come back out the coin return when the call was done. So if you knew which wire to cut & splice back together inside the cable feeding the phone booth, temporarily disconnecting it so the “keep the coins” signal never got to the phone, then you could place free long-distance calls, cheerfully inserting coins when required but getting them back out at the end. Everyone loved to scam the phone company, especially in the late 1960s.I provided this service I to a bunch of people for a short while – “youthful indiscretion.” My bad. What’s the statute of limitations? lol