Server Enclosure From 22 Rolls Of Tape

July 9, 2010 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

Who needs metal, wood, or acrylic if you are talented with duct tape? This server is housed in a 20-sided enclosure made entirely of duct tape, 22 rolls of it. A team of seven completed the project after eight build session over the course of about ten days. It’s currently in use at this year’s MillionManLan 9 as confirmed by this incredibly boring live feed.

However whimsical, we do appreciate the build process. Tubes are rolled until they reach the specified thickness, then cut to length on a chop saw. More sticky stuff is applied to the joints and piece by piece the frame comes together. From the diagram laying off to the side in one of the pictures it looks like they did the smart thing by designing this in CAD before getting their hands dirty sticky.

Acrylic Hackintosh Housing

June 29, 2010 by Mike Szczys 47 Comments

[Rui Gato] needed a powerful yet portable machine for his performances. If it’s on stage shouldn’t it look good too? We loved watching him construct an acrylic case for his setup. He’s skilled with a rotary tool and the work he put into the case fan grill alone is impressive. Video after the break.

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Building A Cluster Of IPaq PCs

June 17, 2010 by Mike Szczys 37 Comments

[Steven Pigeon] got his hands on ten iPaq computers that a friend acquired through an eBay auction. The older machines were in good condition but the march of technology had left them behind as casualties. He’s given them new life by assembling a cluster. The first order of business was testing the hardware to make sure it’s working. [Steven] used memtest86+ that comes along with the Ubuntu distribution of Linux to find one bad memory chip in the bunch (a revelation that took 10 hours to discover on the slow hardware). He assembled the unit above with MDF as a support structure and threaded rod to hang the boards. He ended up with a beautiful module and his next step is to choose the operating system that will pull the whole thing together.

We find this build every bit as beautiful as the file cabinet cluster. It’ll be interesting to check back with him and see what kind of performance he can get out of it.

Sound Card Driven Servo Motor

May 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LG2Ecsk13Q]

[Darrell] is using a sound card to drive this servo motor. The motor draws power from a cellphone battery with the control signal coming from one of the audio channels. It’s not too surprising that this works since the motor just needs a PWM signal to operate and that’s what is used to create the different frequencies of sound on electronic speakers. We’re not sure what [Darrell’s] got planned for this system but he mentions that two servos can be used, one on each audio channel. If you’re not using your sound card this would be a way to stop using the Arduino for that mail checker and just use a little flag attached to a servo. When mail comes in the appropriately engineered sound raises the flag.

Build HAL Into Your Kitchen

May 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 31 Comments

Instead of building a $500 iPad into a cabinet [Gojimi] used the old hardware he had lying around to building this kitchen computer. He did buy a few items such as a used touchscreen and a bar code scanner but the 2 GHz computer was just collecting dust. It’s running Windows XP, talks to you like HAL or KITT, and scans the bar codes on food as you add it to the pantry or using it for meals. The lengthy video after the break covers all of the features, such as Weight Watcher’s calculations, food information, recipe book, unit converter, weather forecast, browser, and digital picture frame. It seems to have more features than the iPhone kitchen lookalike but it also looks dauntingly complicated. But we still want one.

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Z80 Emulated On PIC Hardware

May 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

[Jaromir Sukuba] built a very portable, low power consumption Z80 emulator using a PIC microcontroller. Looking through his build photos we love the clean and resilient construction which includes a breakout board for the PIC 32MX795F512H that interfaces with the main board via pin headers and sockets. He’s using a home-built keyboard and a 4×40 character display but there is also the option to communicate with the device over an RS232 connection. Oh, and yes it plays Zork, which seems to be the benchmark whether you are emulating a Z80 with AVR hardware, or if you built one from transistor-transistor logic.

Altair 8800 Pc Case Can Emulate The Original Hardware

April 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

The Altair computer is commonly considered the genesis of personal computing and for that reason it has a special place in the hearts of many. [Bob Alexander] brings back the glory of the Altair 8800 plus a lot of added computing power. This PC case houses a Core i5 system but the front panel isn’t just for looks. He designed a PCB and resized an image of the original Altair front panel to end up with a fully functioning control interface. In the demo after the break you’ll see that the buttons can be used for power and reset and the LEDs can show random Altair-like patterns. But the interface can also works in conjunction with an Altair emulator to perfectly mimic the original Altair experience. This is a great way to sidestep the buyer’s remorse one might experience with a standalone kit.

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