Reader EPooch needed a USB attached display for a future project. From initial research it seemed that most available solutions involved using a “usb to serial” adapter followed by a “serial to parallel” adapter and finally connecting that to the parallel interface on the lcd; Far from elegant. Eric decided to try using a USB to parallel cable intended for use with a printer. His first cable didn’t work out to well because of poor documentation. He ended up finding an adapter from Belkin that would work. Oddly, it works even though the cable was supposed to be Windows only and the Mac version of it isn’t made for OSX. Keep up the good work Eric and we hope to see more from you soon.

Continue reading “Parallel LCD On OSX” →

Yes we are back again with MORE cubeness. This is yet another Japanese doing. It’s crazy that someone even thought of this, it’s like saying “Hey! Know what would rock? A Sun SparcStation2 inside a cube!” Well maybe not that bad, but it’s a NeXT cube. The failed one from the ’80s. Still Jobs, just not Apple. They gutted an Apple G4 Cube machine and made a sleek, well, next cube out of it. Even a pretty Next logo is there to complete it.  Seems like cube hacks and mods are the new fad

a couple of days ago, an engadget reader posed an important question:

Does a non-fugly cd-alarm clock exist? It is the Holy Grail of gadgets. How Sony can make a gorgeous T1 or T3 digital camera and still make clocks that look like ass confounds me.

now there is hope for fugly alarm clock haters.  anders lundberg has solved your problem and built an alarm clock into a mac g5 case.

the howto is written in swedish, but it’s also well documented in the universal language of jpeg.  it looks like he was able to create a custom led array that fits the hole pattern of the case, while using the guts from an every day alarm clock to drive it all.  thanks for the link, gary!

update: a reader over at tuaw has translated the howto to english

Continue reading “G5 Alarm Clock” →

hackaday reader lazzwaldo writes:

I’m too impatient to wait for someone else to come up with this, so here’s a quick’n’dirty (working) prototype of a Mac Mini Dock so I can use it in my truck or Jeep as a CarPuter, then be able to unplug it and take it elsewhere.

It consists of milled aluminum stock (perforated for ventilation), ProPoxy formed around the connector ends, and soft/”female” velcro to give a firm but smooth slide on the sides.

What it doesn’t have is a good way to UNplug it yet; I will install a tug strap to be able to disengage it. All connectors are present except for the phone/modem line.

there have been concepts, but i believe this is the first ever real life mac mini dock.  nice job!

Continue reading “Homebrew Mac Mini Dock” →

here it is folks.  the first overclocked mac mini.

“I have settled on 1.42GHz speed for my original 1.25GHz Mac mini.  1.5GHz settings gave me some glitches in Xbench Altivec routines and very weird behaviour at 1.58GHz”

some may say 6%.  i say rock on!

Continue reading “Overclocking A Mac Mini” →