Sure, there have been Apple/Halloween mashups lately, but these Mac-o-Lanterns steal the show as far as I’m concerned. With the creative use of spray paint, some epoxy paste, and a little photoshop work, the guys over at Bad Banana Blog took an old Mac Classic and gave it new life as holiday decor. I’ll be expecting Old St. Mac to rear his head when December rolls around. Check out more photos here. [Gadget Lab via Tuaw via Bad Banana Blog]
U&J Macs is a small Mac store in Akihabara that’s practically a museum to old Apple computers. It’s got loads of old iMacs and old G4 towers, as well as tons of old PowerBooks. And if you already have an old Mac that you’re trying to keep up to date, there are bins upon bins of “Junk,” or spare parts from any number of different models of computer. There’s also a bin of cheap PowerBook and MacBook batteries, although for $10 I’m not sure how much juice is left in them. galleryPost('ujmacs', 12, 'Old Mac Warehouse');
Nintendo’s finally ending their support (read: repair) of the Nintendo Famicom (NES), as well as the Super Famicom, the N64, the Gameboy and the Gameboy Pocket in Japan. You’ll have to play those games on an emulator like the rest of us who moved past the ’90s. [itmedia via Arcade Renaissance via Kotaku]
One industrious modder decided that the bet use for his newly acquired Mac Classic was to make it into this personal jukebox. After ripping out the CRT monitor, he was able to squeeze in a new LCD display, 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, extra 750GB drive and power supply. The only external modifications included expanding the disc drive for CDs/DVDs and adding a tiny opening for an IR receiver. OS X was modified to automatically load FrontRow upon booting, completing retro functional sweetness. Bonus pic:
newVideoPlayer("ballmercrazy_gawker.flv", 475, 376);As if we needed more proof that Microsoft exec Steve Ballmer is legitimately insane, here’s an ad(?) for Windows 1.0 where he “acts” like a crazy used car salesman, listing off the amazing features of his shiny new OS (it comes with Reversi?!). It’s fun to see while we’re coming up on the 22nd anniversary of the first Windows, and also interesting to note that this wouldn’t work with Vista. I mean, he totally wouldn’t be able to yell out the differences between all the versions without having a heart attack. [How to Split an Atom via Neatorama]
newVideoPlayer("chinesemagician_gawker.flv", 475, 376);It’s not quite Asimo, but this Chinese magician automaton (read: crappy wooden robot) does one thing and one thing only: make other wooden automatons appear and disappear from containers (we don’t count sporting a bad arse mustache as a thing). It’s going to be auctioned off on October 28 at Skinner in Bolton, MA, if any of you are interested. Illusions, Michael. [Boing Boing]
This is what you do with your old tapes, I guess, when you move into the digital age: chop ‘em up and turn ‘em into iPod Nano cases. Lined in neoprene and finished in acrylic, they cost $45 CAD (a touch over $45 US). And although it’s aimed at the last-gen Nano, there are, apparently, plans to fit the fat boy version into the cases. [45 Nano Cases via Treehugger]
This “X-Y position indicator for a display system” is better known as the world’s first computer mouse invented by Douglas Engelbart. With a shell built from wood, two wheels tracked the movements of the device. It’s too bad the patent expired in 1987 before the real money came rolling in.
Other interesting factoid: Engelbart’s team nicknamed the device a “mouse” and the on-screen cursor a “bug.” One term took off while the other died a gruesome, lonely death. Hit the jump for a bonus pic.
Consider the Bavarian hunting jacket with built-in MP3 controls. Consider it, and then wonder why you’d want to listen to oompah music while you blast away at anything in feathers, fur &mdash or if you’re Dick Cheney, anyone who’s standing too close to you. To drown out the screams, I suppose. There is also a pair of matching lederhosen as well, which we already covered earlier this year.
Nerd hunk on desk vs. Nerd hunk on desk. Which would you do? [Boing Boing]
