The MessagePad; a thoroughly hacked macbook turned tablet

hacked macbook

Remember the times before the iPad existed? When a tablet PC was actually a full computer in a tablet form factor? Yeah, those days we were all so very optimistic about the future of tablet computing. Don’t think we don’t appreciate the new amazing toys that we’ve got around with the plethora of tablets to choose from, but we still dream of fully functional tablet computers.

[Brian] wrote in to show us his build of a fully featured tablet macbook conversion dubbed the MessagePad. Though we’ve seen a wide selection of home spun tablets before, this one has an impressive list of added features. It boasts both front and rear facing cameras, an SSD drive, a built in Teensy, and a line-in. It doesn’t matter if you believe in the dream of a full blown pc in tablet format, or if your preference would have been a Windows or Linux machine. You’ll surely love the bevy of photos he took along the way as he was hacking and slashing on this thing.

DIY Windows 8 Tablet

[hackitbuildit], from instructables, has brought us a a DIY windows 8 tablet. To make the tablet, an old laptop is used that meets the minimum requirements of windows 8 preview, a touch screen conversion kit, and of course the software itself. The laptop is first prepared by removing the casing around the screen, and if you just go by the pictures it kind of looks like he is ripping it apart! Though if you look at the video screws are being removed.

The screen is flipped around and laid on the keyboard with a couple spacers between them, as many laptops use the keyboard area as heat sinking. The touch screen is installed, and some wood strips are hot-glued to the outside to fill in the gap between the screen and base. With a little paint you’re left with a large, but functional windows 8 tablet to get started developing for.