Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve featured our fair share of portable Atari 2600 mods, but I don’t think any of those can hold a candle to this one. Speaking of candles, the future owner of this one of a kind handheld should keep it away from even the tiniest of flames, because its case is made entirely out of wood.

The mod was made by eBay seller retro_mood. Inside the varnished wooden case is a 3.5″ TFT screen, a 700mAh battery that should last up to 3 hours per charge, two player controls – one of which was made out of a PlayStation analog stick – and the guts of an NTSC Atari 2600 console. Retro_mood also added digital volume and brightness controls as well as composite video and mono audio outputs. Perhaps most importantly for a handheld, this Atari 2600 has a pause button! Its weight – 600g (approx. 1.3lbs) – borders on iPad territory though, so minus points for portability there.

Ultimately though, retro_mood intends this handheld to reside not in the deep pockets of a collector. He’s selling it for a cool $1,240 (USD) on eBay. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but neither do wooden cases.

[via GameSniped]

I’ve heard of corrugated cardboard being used to house computers, but this project takes cardboard computing to a whole new level. Niklas Roy used rubber bands, rope and cardboard to create a functional, mechanical computer and plotter.

Niklas Roy taught an electronic media class at Germany’s School of Art and Design Offenbach. The goal was to create a series of mechanical cardboard computers from scratch. Shown here is one of those machines. This fully operational NAND gate and plotter were designed out of Finnish cardboard. The complete system was assembled using super glue, adhesive tape and tie wraps and rubber bands.

The plotter has axles and slide rails made out of welding rods. There are two rotary dials and a switch, which move in a plane, controlling the movement of a pen as it “vectors” to produce low resolution graphics on a sheet of paper.

Be sure to check out Niklas’ blog for more of the contraptions built by the class. This is definitely an awesome project, and it makes you wonder what you could do at home, given enough time and ingenuity.

[via designboom]

Looks like the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit is sort of working now. The TARDIS still looks like a phone box, but at least it was half-successful in trying to disguise itself as a soda vending machine.


This is actually the work of some pretty talented nerds who had both a love of soda and a love for Doctor Who – both of which can not be quenched. Epic Comics in Orlando, FL took their boring old soda machine and converted it into this awesome TARDIS.

I guess this means that there is a Doctor inside who feels like he is in a time loop from hell; damned to roam the endless halls of the TARDIS in search of cans of pop at every push of the buttons, before walking back to the door and dropping them in the slot for your enjoyment. Good work. Finally the Doctor has been outsmarted. Not to mention enslaved. You guys are evil! But I love it.

[via Obvious Winner]

If you use an Apple Smart Cover – or something similar on your iPad – and wish you could have something like this on your iPhone, look no further because we’ve got you covered. This iPhone Smart Cover hack will work for many people dying to have this.

This hack requires you to have a jailbroken iPhone, so if you haven’t got one, it won’t work. Once you’ve got that, you’ll need to get a case, like TwelveSouth’s SurfacePad for iPhone, which is designed to work like an iPad smart cover. The only missing thing is the automatic unlock feature. In order to replicate this, add the Always On Proximity tweak from Cydia, which turns on your phone when something isn’t in the proximity of the screen.

You can use any iPhone cover that works in the same way, but it’s definitely a cool hack if you love the way that your iPad unlocks when you uncover it.

[via CultofMac]

I think that one of Microsoft’s biggest mistakes in recent years is Windows RT, and by extension the Surface RT. I’m not saying Windows RT devices are useless. It’s just that seen in the context of their release, they are products that can confuse and scare off potential Windows 8 users. Microsoft might be better off supporting this hack that lets full Windows programs run on Windows RT.

Xda-developers forum member mamaich is currently developing a program that enables Windows RT devices to run applications that were originally intended to run on the desktop version of Windows. In other words, it’s going to turn a Surface RT into a Surface Pro (with weaker hardware). Mamaich is aware and clearly states that even in its finished state, the program isn’t a cure-all. It won’t be able to launch some desktop applications simply because there are many hardware and software limitations in Windows RT devices. We do know that it can launch Heroes of Might and Magic 3, though.

Head to mamaich’s thread on the xda-developers forum to download or find out more about the program. Mamaich lays out the intricacies of the program in this particular post. This isn’t for the faint of heart though; the program is in beta and it requires you to jailbreak your Windows RT device.

[via Lifehacker]