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Hardware Reuse Contest Entries Revealed

Posted by timothy on from the quick-translators-will-get-insightful-mods dept.

teqo writes "The outstanding German computer magazine c't had a contest in which they challenged readers to submit their coolest recycling projects for obsolete hardware, and the entries have been revealed to the public now. There is an artsy and a practical category, and although it is in German, the pics make lots of submissions intuitively grokkable." (On the right hand side of the page, click the links beneath "Kunst" -- artistic -- and "Funktion" -- functional.) My favorite is the laptop with a solar-powered backlight.

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Pretty Cool by DrKyle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't really had the time to browse all of the ideas here, but this one really stands out to me

    RFID and Barcode Beer Fridge
    If looks aren't decieving, you can use this baby to check your beer supply, and maybe even let you check from work to see what you need to pick up on the way home for the weekend.

  2. My PC recycling thing by Simonetta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I cut the DIN 5 connector (old style keyboard) and the PS2 mouse connector (MiniDIN 6) off very old obsolete motherboards.
    Then I combine them with a 40 cent microcontroller (AVR Tiny11) to make MIDI tone module controllers from standard PS2 keyboards.
    It works really well. Press the keys, notes go on, release keys, notes off. Just like a piano keyboard but smaller and much cheaper. There are, however, certain key combinations that don't play full chords. I'm not sure if it's the internal keyboard matrix decoding or the microcontroller's firmware.

  3. Reflective/Transflective laptop displays by raygundan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Instead of trying to do a solar-powered backlight, I wish more manufacturers would offer the option of a reflective or transflective LCD screen. This is like the screen used in the Gameboy Advance-- in bright sunlight, it looks fantastic. Indoors, they're not quite as nice as backlit, as they are typically sidelit to bounce the light off the rear reflector. It's a tradeoff. But you could use your laptop with no backlight power as long as there was good ambient light.

    There was at least one laptop made with one of these-- If I remember right, it had a Transmeta CPU, but it's been a while. NEC Versa Daylite, or something close to that, and I think some of the Panasonic Toughbooks designed for outdoor use have them as well.