Ultra Mouse Modification

March 16, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 75 Comments

mouse

When traveling with a laptop, we often find that the list of peripherals that we have to attach can get pretty long. Especially if it is an older laptop without wireless built in. [Dawning] has taken steps to consolidate some of his peripherals(registration required)by cramming a USB hub and a wireless card into his mouse.

He started by dismantling a USB hub. After placing the board in the mouse to see how it fit, he realized that he was going to have to reduce the size. To do this, he removed the USB slots themselves. This forces him to wire things directly to the board, but saves a ton of space. Next, he took the guts from a USB wireless adapter and wired them up. The decorative LED in the mouse was then moved to the wireless card. This way he could see light flicker with his network traffic. At this point, that’s all he’s added, though there’s still plenty of space for other items. He notes that he’ll probably add some storage or a CF reader. The only problem he has encountered is that his mouse tends to get warm during use. What peripherals would you put in there?

Update: [Dawning] let us know that he didn’t actually remove the LED from its original location. He connected a wire from the wireless adapter that causes the LED to short when traffic is going through. Also, there’s a video which you can now see after the break.

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Adding ESATA To An Acer Aspire 1

March 10, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

esata

In another installment of her ongoing efforts to mod the Acer Aspire 1, [tnkgrl] has added eSATA capabilities. During the hard drive upgrade she did, she used the spare PATA connection, leaving an SATA connection free. This time she has gone in and extended it to be accessible outside the case. To do that, she scavenged an eSATA connector from a desktop and simply wired it into the connections on the motherboard. She then mounted it flush as seen in the picture above. In the past she’s covered adding RAM, internal Bluetooth and the hard drive upgrade.

24 Solid State Drives In Raid

March 9, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 63 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs]

In a time when marketing is all around us, companies often have to come up with new and creative ways to get us excited. Some go the viral route, others hire famous spokes people. Samsung did well with this idea. Let some computer geeks build something awesome and have fun with it. They chained 24 drives together to create a whopping 6Terrabyte array. They run various speed tests and even test the drive integrity by bouncing on a trampoline while dangling them from their chords. Yeah, they make the computer geeks a little geekier than they need to be, but who didn’t get excited to see those transfer speeds?

N8VEM Computer With A 3Km Wireless Link

March 4, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 26 Comments

pterm

[James] sent in this project in which he built a tiny computer with text based OS and a 3Km wireless link. The details are a bit scarce, but he used an N8VEM, a Propeller Pocket Term, a 4 line LCD and an RF Transceiver to build it. It runs CP/M, the text based operating system and uses less than a half of a watt, without the vga monitor. With a total cost of 145 and 4 serial ports for sensors, this thing could come in handy. Especially since its low power consumption could allow it to be solar powered. You may recall the N8VEM from an earlier post we did.

Restoring Yellowed Computer Plastics

March 2, 2009 by Eliot 39 Comments

retr0brite1

Many of our cherished computers and consoles from the past have not stood up well over time. It’s not the hardware as much as the color. From Commodores, Apples, to Super Nintendos, the machines have slowly drifted towards a sickly yellow and even brown. The culprit appears to be the fire retardant chemicals used in the plastics. Amiga enthusiasts have spent the last year perfecting a technique that restores the plastic of these machines to its original splendor. Dubbed ‘Retr0brite‘ it’s a gel made from hydrogen peroxide, xanthan gum, glycerine, and ‘Oxy’ style laundry booster. The results are really impressive. If you do start restoring your own machines, caution should be used since it requires strong concentrations of hydrogen peroxide typically employed in bleaching hair.

[via Waxy]

BMOW: A Home Made Cpu

February 27, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 34 Comments

bmow

Building your own CPU sounds like quite a daunting task as it is. Building your own CPU using manual wire wrapping transcends difficult to become an art form. [Steve] has built a CPU by manually wrapping every single wire. That’s 1253 wires, or 2506 wrapped ends. Even if it didn’t work, it would be nice to look at. But it does work, you can see a demo video showing the audio functions after the break. The system is now enclosed in an Acer x-terminal case, so it isn’t as pretty, but its still quite a project. You can follow along as he builds each section, the video, sound, even the keyboard interface. It’s pretty amazing seeing it all broken down to the most basic forms.

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SheevaPlug, Tiny Linux Server

February 25, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 132 Comments

plugserv

This little wall plug is actually a full computer with 1.2GHz cpu, with 512MB of RAM and 512MB of of flash memory. It comes with versions of linux, ported for its ARM processor. At $50, this cool system could be finding itself in a lot of homes. You can get more information from the manufacturer. What uses can you think of for it?

[thanks, everyone who sent this in]