Oh man, if just figures that someone would figure out how to mass produce these. Here’s a little history. Years ago, back when I would frequent surplus yards in hope of finding cool crap to build things out of, I came across a small dewar flask. I figure it was once used to hold liquid nitrogen or something. It had a cool looking spun aluminum case and a wide mouth. I figured it would make an excellent glass for cold beverages. I was right, a little dry ice in there would keep something cold for hours. Anyway, I added a few doodads to the top and a few vents so the carbon dioxide vapor could escape in a dramatic way and for an added bit of flair I added a hook inside of it for a green glow stick. It went over quite well at the local science fiction conventions (yeah, I’m a nerd).
A friend of mine that was also a builder of odd things spotted it and decided to build one too. The light up mug race was on! This went on for a while, he made one with LEDs, I made one with an electroluminescent display… It ended with him trying to build one that would display messages. This was around 1990 so the electronics involved were pretty darn huge. No micro-controllers at all, nothing but logic chips. It never got off the drawing board even after getting my help with it. After than the great mug wars were officially called a draw and we got on to other projects.
Now I see that someone has done it, made a hug that will display messages. I can only hope that it is hackable and uses a real matrix display and not a shadow mask with a light behind it.
This is the sales blurb:
Light up your next conversation with the Message Mug. The Message Mug can be used with its special “pick-up ON / set-down OFF” power switch or use it with it’s “Continuous ON” setting. Complete with a frosted illuminated mug, the Message Mug is battery operated for complete portability.
Hold’s 16 oz of beverage. Requires 4 x AA Batteries (not included)
Featuring 8 interchangeable scrolling messages:
* Cheers Bottoms Up
* Happy Burp Day
* Single & Available
* I’ll Drink to That
* Happy New Year!!!
* Designated Drinker
* Got Beer? Got Beer?
* I’m a Party Animal
You know, because of the low price and the fact that it says “interchangeable” I doubt that this is the ‘holy grail’ of the old mug wars. Still, it might be fun to get and make a display mask thats says “I know I’m a dork”. 🙂