Portable Commodore 64 – The Picodore 64


This has been making the rounds lately:

Here are a few pics of my own DTV Hummer project. I had an old PSOne LCD screen lying around and I thought I’d make a C64 laptop. Actually, it’s more like a C64 PDA! It measures 6.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches (15.5 x 16.5 x 4 cm) when closed. It can run from an AC wall adapter or 6 NiMH AA batteries. The keyboard is hacked from a portable folding keyboard for a Jornada PDA which outputs RS-232. I’m using a PIC 16F88 to decode the signals and re-encode them to PS/2 (that was an ordeal to figure out). The PIC checks to see if an external PS/2 keyboard is connected on power up. If one is hooked up, it will route data from that instead. There is an internal ampilfied speaker as well as connections for audio and video output on the back. There’s a serial connection for a disk drive and an SD card slot in the side for a 1541-III but I haven’t been able to get that to work yet. I also have a connection for a userport/joystick. The joystick in the picture is a hacked Atari keychain joystick. The mini joystick wasn’t in the original plan but after I accidentally discovered it on ebay, it seemed perfect.

[via hack-a-day]

Project homepage

Petscii Forums "PETSCII.COM" – Unveiling the Picodore 64 – a Commodore PDA!

Miyazaki Copper Building Clock

Very cool!

The above, is a giant, mechanical, copper and automaton filled clock designed by Mr Miyazaki (he of Laputa, Naussica, Howl’s Moving Castle and other Ghibli anime fame).  It sits pride of place outside the NTV building in Tokyo – with mechancial people doing their thing as the clock strikes hours etc.  Mr T Indindoli wrote to tell me about it – and I am ever so glad – it’s a giant Steampunk clock if ever there was one, with big gears and funny clawed talon legs holding it up.  I’m a big Ghibli fan, so seeing a giant copper clock (very reminiscient of the style of Howls Castle) is delightful.  I’m only sorry that the only YouTube video we’ve found so far is taken in the dark.  Still, you can read more about it both at Mainichi and the Table of Malcontents – and you can bathe your eyes in the pretty illustrations over at what looks like the official clock site (all Japanese, alas).

I’d post a link to a translated version of the official clock site but it’s a Flash page (Boo! Hiss!)
Here are a few stats about the clock:

The clock, which is 12 meters tall, 18 meters wide and weighs 28 tons, was made from 1,228 copper plates, and displays 32 mechanical trick features. The clock resembles images from Miyazaki’s film "Howl’s Moving Castle," and at fixed intervals blacksmith dolls come out of the clock as music is played.

So if your in the area make sure you go to the Shiodome district and have a look at this marvel.

[via brassgoggles]
Huge mechanical figure clock designed by Oscar-winning anime director unveiled at NTV 

Open Clip Art Library

Need some clip art and just don’t want to plow through the Office download site, or maybe you haven’t partaken in the Redmond Kool-Aid and use Open Office but still want pretty clip art to liven up that boring sales report or add some flair to the TPS reports. Over at Open Clip Art Library you can find thousands of clips that are just waiting to be used in new and exciting ways! It’s all Public Domain and Creative Commons here my friend so take what you want and if your handy with the art supplies maybe you can contribute to the site.

Open Clip Art Library :: openclipart.org :: Drawing Together.

Find Yourself on the Map of the Internet!

Have you ever wanted to visualize the entire layout of the IP addresses on the Internet and at the same time wanted to know just where you fit into things? If so this is just for you.  I never knew that the Internet looked like a hand drawn map. I’ve had my suspicions…

What? This site plots any IPv4 address on the map from last Monday’s xkcd comic. In other words, it shows where you lie in the structure of IP addresses — so your placement has more to do with the pecking order of the computing industry in the late 1980s than with actual geography.

How? The comic uses a 4th-order Hilbert curve to arrange /8 blocks, and within each of those I’ve assumed that the /16 blocks are arranged in similar Hilbert curves, just smaller.

This is the little patch of IPv4 that TeamDroid lives on. It’s got a nice view and the neighbors aren’t too loud.

Find yourself on the Map of the Internet!

Cool Water Jet Action Shots

Waterjet in actionThis has got to be one of the best stunts to advertise a moderately obscure service I have ever seen. What is a water jet? Remember how when you were a kid (or maybe you still do this) when you were told to water the lawn you inevitable ended up seeing how deep a hold you could make in the ground by blasting it with the finest setting on the nozzle? Ok, that’s called ‘hydraulic mining‘ but the idea is the same. Shoot ultra high pressure water through a super fine hole and you can cut through stuff. Sometimes a bit of grit is added to give the jet some better cutting action. Wood, plastic, metal, cloth… Just about anything can be cut this way. It’s better than a laser in some ways because there is zero heating. You could cut butter this way if you wanted to. Anyway, this is a link to a great FAQ on the process and some stunning photos on how to seriously void the warranty on your game systems.
[via fosfor gadgets]
Water jet pictures

Fishighway – Aquarium of the Future?

I saw this on Boing Boing today and I knew I had seen this a few years ago. With a bit of work I was able to find the original site. The fishhighway domain is gone but thanks to Wayback Machine it still lives on. (Make sure you check out the images on Archive and not the other site that is just serving up the photos and raking in the ad bucks). Apparently it’s based on an old patent from 1877, you can see an image of it here. It’s a clever idea but even if you can clean the tubes with a magnitized cleaner it would still be a pain. But as aquariums go it does look awesome.

fishighway.com (via Archive.org)