An Apple II Watch Would Be So Much Better

The Apple Watch is OK, I guess, but a miniaturised Apple II strapped to your wrist? Now that would be cool.

This Instructables project is a complete build for an Apple II-themed smartwatch. You get the authentic beige housing, two whole disk drives to house your magnetic storage disks, and even a not-so-digital crown to navigate the command-line user interface.

The build uses an Arduino board to run a very simplistic software, which completely accurate replicates the functionality of the real Apple watch:

clock – shows a random analogue clock face

fitness – fills up “progress bars” for moving, exercising, and standing

pictures – cycles through a selection of bitmaps

phonebook – displays a list of abbreviated names

weather – shows a photo of Earth

music – slowly animates a flower opening

utility – displays a static photo of a butterfly

disk manager -blinks the disk drive LEDs a couple times

The main case itself was a fairly simple 3D-printing job, with all the relevant files posted online. If you want to make your own, you’ll need a 3D printer to call your own, reasonable electronics knowledge, and a decent mullet wig to round things off. [Instructables]


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