Make Your Own Transparent iBook

Blackstealth sent in linkage to an attractive and clever mod for the Apple iBook. The TronBook takes the idea of a transparent iBook and takes it a few steps further. I wish we'd see more laptop mods of this quality.

Comments

Picture Mirror...

[FyRE666]

Here for when the site inevitably goes down :-)

RE:

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple produces transparent pre-production models of every product. Sort of a final debugging - that way, if a chip blows, or there's a stress on the plastic somewhere, it can be identified quite easily...they've been doing this for years...

Re:And lose the magnesium cover?

[xTina]

The iBook doesn't have a magnesium cover but it does have a magnesium frame:

<snip>
That's why it's made of ultratough polycarbonate - the same material used in bulletproof glass - and has an internal magnesium frame for added strength.
</snip>

(from http://www.apple.com/ibook/)

Re:Transparent prototypes

[Draoi]

I can vouch for that, having worked there in diagnostic engineering. Early models were made in perspex as soon as the basic form was decided upon. The product design team used this to ensure that everything would fit in the final unit, that the airflow was going to work out, etc. Also, you could easily look through a unit and immediately know if it had a modem, the latest processor card, etc. Cool stuff. The *really* early units were made of of sawn-up sheets of perspex which had been glued and taped together. The components were glued or velcro'd into place & the whole box was about three times bigger than the normal product. I can recall the first TiBook looking like this in the lab .....

Another thing Apple does is colour their PCBs according to the design/manufacturing phase. EVT boards (engineering trials) were red, DVT boards (design trials) were blue & PVT/production were the standard green colour

Re:Does it come in black?

[jlower]

Get some plastic scratch remover if the surface isn't painted. It's a lot like rubbing compound for cars. You should be able to find it at bigger hardware stores.

I've used it to remove scratches from plexiglas aquariums. Takes some patience and elbow grease but it works.

Re:Two words.

[stripes]

Ummm TiBook?

The TiBook while it is very nice does have a few drawbacks. It is physically wider. As a more costly item it may be more of a theft target. Worst of all (to me) it has a whole lot less 802.11 range (the iBook and PowerBook G3 tends to have much better range then most PCMCIA 802.11 cards, the TiBook has somewhat worse range then 802.11 cards). There are a lot of good things about the TiBook though.

Japanese imports

[jchristopher]

Mods for Apple laptops are apparently incredibly popular in Japan - they have all kinds of stuff like replacement colored light up keyboards, etc. Not just one-off mods, but actual production parts that you can buy at retail.

There are plenty of links to replacement keyboards and such for other Powerbooks like the Wallstreet, Pismo, etc, but for some reason, nothing has appeared yet for the IceBook. Anyone have any links to cool mods for it? A keyboard would go great with a paint mod.

Realistic here

[2nd Post!]

The iBook is covered in polycarbonate plastic. The same stuff they use in ultra hard shatter resistent eyeglasses and in bulletproof glass.

Unless you're carrying steel surgical instruments and diamond cutting blades in the bottom of your briefcase or in your backpack, the iBook will probably suffer, at most, cosmetic scratches from the run of the mill stuff.

Alloys will deform *and stay that way* where the polycarbonate will flex and return it's shape. The iBook itself has a polycarbonate shell, a magnesium frame (you wanted alloys? you got it), rubber mounting for the drives and other components, and it's got an extra sturdy hinge for the screen.

The only stronger laptop I can imagine would be the Panasonic ToughBooks. Everything else I've seen (even my Titanium PowerBook) pales in comparison to an iBook.