Powerbook Slaughter

A couple of Powerbooks were kicking around so without further ado I slaughtered them. I suppose that means this is snuff photography:

Don't say you weren't warned...

Dymaxion Auto-Matic Buckminster Fuller

This ought to lay to rest the persistent ugly rumours that everything I make is somehow useful.

Presenting the Dymaxion Auto-Matic Buckminster Fuller. It's a retro-futuristic black and white screen mounted into a 1950s (or so) radio chassis, which generates and displays text that American luminary R. Buckminster Fuller might have said if he were a piece of software.

Festive Meets Nerdy

I like vacuum tubes. Have I mentioned this before?

I have a mental registry of small projects that involve vacuum tubes and one long-standing idea is a Christmas tree ornament. Here's how it goes.

(This involves fire, broken glass, and probably all of the chemical horrors of the 1950s. Say your prayers, wear eye protection, and Don't Be Stupid.)

Vacuum Tube Hacks

Hi all,

Here's a collection of mini-hacks I've been collecting for a while. The theme: vacuum tubes.

Q: Alec, why are vacuum tubes awesome?
A: Get out. I refuse to answer stupid questions.

Webster Chicago Wire Recorder

Hi all,

I was going to save this for a rainy day but I'm too excited to get it posted because it's pretty awesome.

Cassettepunk MP3 Player: How to do it

Hi all,

Here's a few words on how this hack (the second one, that is) was done. This is a reconstitution of some old notes I made during the process.

This focuses primarily on the software side -- the hardware side can be pieced together from the photographs, aside from the one hardware modification to add a second USB port to the WL-HDD device.

This post contains no pictures and a lot of grisly detail. You have been warned.

Cassettepunk MP3 Player

Hi all,

Time for another hack. I've been doing these for a few years and though they're pretty diverse there are some common threads: one, they often involve music; two, they involve a particular niche of time after something has ceased to be useful but before it's gotten interesting as an antique. Call it "Cassettepunk".

Fate can be unkind to technology

Anyone else remember this late '90s commercial?

Mystery Laptop

I wrote here about the difficulties laptop manufacturers had in the late 1980s combining hard drives and battery power, and made the suspect statement that the Macintosh Portable in 1989 was one of the first to feature both.

I might have found a better contender. It's definitely a strange one:

Old Gear Lives On: A Hack (Part 2)

Hi all,

I've wanted to document the technical side of some hardware hacking for quite a while. Here it is, continuing from the less-nerdy first part.

The project: Turn a 286-based Compaq Portable III into something more modern.

The motivation: to be honest, my sole motivation here was to be able to haul it down to Cafe Prado, a thou-shalt-be-at-least-this-hipster-to-enter coffee shop on Commercial. Nobody's allowed in without at least a Macbook Pro and I wanted to plunk this beast down on a reinforced surface and see what happened.

Old Gear Lives On: A Hack

For some unaccountable reason, the Compaq Portable III is one of my favourite computers. When you first see one, you're not sure if you're looking at a printer, or a disk array, or what: