[Richard] pointed out this mini-itx laptop. The idea behind this particular design is to enable upgrading every component as needed. The case is aluminum, and the wiring inside is an exercise in patience. It’s not the first DIY laptop we’ve seen, and it doesn’t have batteries, but it’s the first I’ve seen with two internal hard drives.
Update: There is a battery, it just gets very little mention. It’s hiding under the DVD drive and one of the hard drives. Anyone know what kind it is?
[Ben Heckendorn] put together this little beauty on engadget. It’s not quite as over the top as the XBox 360 laptop, but there’s a reason for that. He’ll be putting up a How-To series covering the construction. If you’ve been pondering building a portable yourself, it’ll be a nice jump start for your hardware hacking skill-base.
Laptops aren’t always the bomb/drool/mountain dew proof machines we wish they were. [TomTheGeek] was suffering from a loss of his I, 8 and K keys. Like a laptop Reaver, he sliced out the old keyboard and spliced in a compact USB keyboard. He likes the look, I’d probably whip up some acrylic spacers at the least and fill the exposed areas.
Ben’s been working on this one forever. This new version 2 Atari 800 laptop features a CF drive, a RS lcd, original Atari hardware and lots and lots of friggin soldering. That keyboard is hand wired, along with the CF adapter. Unlike the xbox 360 laptop, this one’s got Ni-MH batteries that are good for about an hour of play.
I’m posting this a little early because it’s gonna be popular. Ben Heckendorn has been up to his tricks again. This time he built a 14 pound, water cooled 17 inch XBox 360 aluminum cased laptop. It’s got all the outputs you could ever need. This one is very good. He was kind enough to write up the build and do a nice photo shoot. Oh, this is very, very nice.
[Update: Skyler] set up a mirror.]
The keyboard on [IraqiGeek]’s aging Averatec started to fail after two years of use. He didn’t want to pay $60-80 for a replacement. Instead he decided to dissect a cheap membrane keyboard and use the key contacts out if it. The how-to is really thorough and covers the disassembly and reassembly of the complex key supports in the notebook.
I’m amazed at how many people are willing to chop up their brand new toys. Take [edahc]’s brand new MacBook Pro. He decided to mount a Sony Puppy FIU-600 fingerprint scanner in the case. The device is powered directly from the DC board. I think the MacBook Pro may actually lend itself more to these types of modifications than most laptops because of the large flat metal surfaces on the case. More so than say your standard lumpy plastic Dell.
