The MessagePad; a thoroughly hacked macbook turned tablet

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: laptops hacks, macs hacks, tablet pcs hacks Tagged With: ,

Hackaday Links April 5, 2012

April 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A Remote Sphero-Control Trackball

sphero drives car

Sphero is a cool little ball that can roll around under the control of a smartphone.  Although super-cool by itself, in this application it’s been hacked into a sort of trackball to drive a remote control car!

Arduino Voice Control

Arduino voice control

[Sebastian] Wrote in to tell us about this article about using the Arduino EasyVR shield to add voice control to your project. Worth a look if it your application calls for voice-control.

OpenBeam Tiny 80/20-Like Extrusion

openbeam extrusion

Openbeam is a Kickstarter project designed to produce an aluminium extrusion for building stuff.  Although we’ve seen lots of this kind of thing, the small 15mm profile is quite interesting, and it’s designed to use off-the-shelf hardware, which should save on costs!

Hexapod + iPad = Fun for All

hexapod-ipad

There’s not a lot of information on this hack, and the price or this hexapod device isn’t even listed, so we’ll assume it’s quite expensive.  On the other hand, it’s got a cool video of it being controlled by an iPad, so maybe it will give you some hacking inspiration!

USB Sound Card Write-Up

usb sound card

[George] wrote in to tell us about his USB sound card write-up. Before you think that this is a dupe of this post, he freely admits to building it nearly identically to the one previously posted. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but [George] is also requesting some feedback on his blog and the aforementioned post. feel free to let him know what you think in the comments.  Please be polite!

Filed Under: Hackaday links Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Antique Electromechanical Calculating Machines

March 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

electromechanical calculator Hamann 505

The decision to use electronics for our calculating machines has long been decided.  However, that doesn’t mean that mechanical engineers didn’t put up a valiant, if ultimately futile, fight. [Dvice.com] has an interesting article comparing the calculating technology of the 1960s, such as the [Haman 505], to today’s iPad.

This comparison and pictures were made possible by [Mark Glusker]’s excellent collection.  These models can be divided into two categories, rotary calculators, and printing calculators. According to [Mark]‘s site, the printing calculators stayed on the market a few years after the rotary calculators, which were off the market by 1970.

Although we may never see machines like these made again, anyone even a little bit mechanically inclined would be hard pressed not to be inspired by this collection. Be sure to check out the video of a [Madas 20BTG] calculator after the break to see what one of the rotary models looks like in action! [Read more…]

Filed Under: classic hacks, misc hacks Tagged With: , , ,

Tablet cover from old hardcover books

February 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Here’s a way to look hip and destroy books at the same time. This table cover is made from an old hardcover book. It’s not difficult to do, an afternoon is all it takes, and if you follow all of the instructions we’d bet this will hold up for a long time.

It’s basically another version of the Moleskine cover for the Kindle Fire. You find a donor book (second-hand shops are packed with ’em) with a hardcover which you really enjoy. Kids books would be the most fun because of the artwork – if you can find one thick enough. With book in hand remove all of the pages. This will leave the binding a little flimsy, and since this is a project by the company which make Sugru, you can see why they used the moldable adhesive for that purpose. But check out the brackets in the picture above. They covered the Kindle in cling wrap, then molded Sugru around the corners. Once set, it can be peeled away from the plastic wrap, but will retain its shape. Nice.

Filed Under: tablet pcs hacks Tagged With: , , ,

Circuit Playground – An electronics reference app from Adafruit

February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s not everyday that we review software around here, but the folks at Adafruit recently put together an iOS app that I figured might be of interest. Their iPad/iPhone compatible application is called “Circuit Playground”, and it includes all sorts of handy electronics reference tools. For the context of this review, it should be noted that I paid for the application myself, and that I have had no communication with the Adafruit team regarding my assessment of the app.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: iphone hacks, software hacks, tool hacks Tagged With: , , , , , , ,