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Ye Olde World Charm

Posted by Soulskill on from the anachronistic-appliances dept.

The Solitaire brings us a link to Datamancer, where Richard R. Nagy shows off his Steampunk Laptop. The attention to detail and the creative style, which includes a copper-plated keyboard and speakers shaped like violin f-holes, make this an impressive case mod. From Datamancer: "This may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It features an elaborate display of clockworks under glass, engraved brass accents, claw feet, an antiqued copper keyboard and mouse, leather wrist pads, and customized wireless network card. The machine turns on with an antique clock-winding key by way of a custom-built ratcheting switch made from old clock parts."

6 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Re:alternatives by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can spot these hidden goatse links quite easily. Let's break the code

    Here's a search for "test" on google

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=test&btnG=Google+Search

    Now q is the search string. btnG is the function. If I clicked I'm feeling lucky I'd have got btnI instead.

    Let's look at the parent link.

    http://www.google.com/search?Searchq=old+world+case+mod&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&gn=10&refer=4e9fd9f4624c02685096769364a81d95&ref=cff0e9b1f2db017a44b88bb0d174771d&q=goatse.ca&btnI&link=hooray

    Searchq is ignored by Google. The next few things are obfuscation too. At the end we see q=goatse.ca and btnI which means I'm feeling lucky. First hit on goatse.ca is the dreaded image and btnI means "I'm feeling lucky", i.e. jump to the first hit.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Ye olde worlde .... YECH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Ye Gods.

    Once upon a time, there was a letter, Thorn. It made a th sound. It came to look like the letter Y. Then it disappeared. What we are left with is Ye Olde Everything.

    Thorn in the form of a Y survives to this day in pseudo-archaic usages, particularly the stock prefix Ye olde. The definite article spelled with Y for thorn is often jocularly or mistakenly pronounced /ji/ or mistaken for the archaic nominative case of you, written ye. It is used infrequently in some modern English word games to replace the th with a single letter.


    Sigh. Anyway, the computer is amazing. I have to find one of those Underwoods.
  3. Corel Cache by Razed+By+TV · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.datamancer.net.nyud.net:8090/

  4. Re:Too bad about the cover by CensorshipDonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you read the article, you'd see he originally attempted actual, moving clockwork on the back powered by an electric train motor. However, in order to hold gears in the very precise positions necessary, their axles must be set in a thick piece of material. This made for a top case so thick and heavy the laptop would overbalance and fall backward when opened. So, he instead went with a thinner, workable cover and cosmetic only gears.

  5. Re:what the fuck is a steampunk? by paleo2002 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I guess you didn't like Bioshock then . . .

    I'm not a big fan, I've only read The Difference Engine. Stephenson's Baroque Cycle may count too. The point of the genre is to draw attention to the parallels between the modern boom in technological progress and innovations on a similar scale which appeared at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries. Appreciation of history and all that.

    As for aesthetics, well art simply is.

  6. Gizmodo interview with Datamancer by Fzz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Seeing as Datamancer's site is slashdotted, you can catch the laptop on Gizmodo . Better still, here's their interview with Richard Nagy, its very talented creator. Cheers, Fzz