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Hardware Hacking Technology

Hardware Reuse Contest Entries Revealed 136

Posted by timothy from the quick-translators-will-get-insightful-mods dept.
teqo writes "The outstanding German computer magazine c't had a contest in which they challenged readers to submit their coolest recycling projects for obsolete hardware, and the entries have been revealed to the public now. There is an artsy and a practical category, and although it is in German, the pics make lots of submissions intuitively grokkable." (On the right hand side of the page, click the links beneath "Kunst" -- artistic -- and "Funktion" -- functional.) My favorite is the laptop with a solar-powered backlight.
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Hardware Reuse Contest Entries Revealed More

Hardware Reuse Contest Entries Revealed

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  • To find the pictures (Score:3, Informative)

    by b00m3rang ( 682108 ) * on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:20PM (#11602747)
    Follow the links under 'Kunst' and 'Funktion' on the right side bar.

  • My german isn't so good (Score:5, Funny)

    by odano ( 735445 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:23PM (#11602760)
    The only german I know is "Die Bart, Die", and it isn't on the site.

    I'm lost!

  • Hubble (Score:5, Funny)

    by mr i want to go home ( 610257 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:25PM (#11602777)
    I see they didn't give a prize to my idea of reusing Hubble as a.....wait for it....

    TELESCOPE!

  • Super Bowl Ad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <<shadow.wrought> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:28PM (#11602801) Homepage Journal
    My first thought was the Super Bowl Ad close to the end of the game (maybe even right after) in which the kid builds the robot in the garage. Its a Nationwide ad and is hilarious. If you have not yet seen it, watch for it!
    • 3rd quarter, see here. [aol.com]
      • There is an ad for the "Robots" movie in the third quarter, but no ad for "Nationwide" or did he mean nationwide? There doesn't seem to be anything involving kids and a garage either.
        • It was for Nationwide Insurance. The "Life comes at you fast" line of commercials.

          ***Commercial Spoiler Ahead***

          The kid puts together a robot and then brings his folks out into the garage. They beam at the kid as the robot waves, and smiles (his mouth is made up from what appears to be graphic equalizer slides). Then laser beams shoot out of the robot's eyes and it starts blowing up parts of the garage. It turns, see the family car and blows it up;-)

          I think it was on after the game during the post

  • First a DDOS, now a Slashdotting (Score:4, Interesting)

    by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbender&gmail,com> on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:32PM (#11602824)
    Poor heise online servers, they just survived days of SYNflooding [theregister.co.uk] and now they're being slashdotted.

  • Recycling Ram (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sepper ( 524857 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:32PM (#11602825) Journal
    I see that someone else had the same idea... http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55850 [heise.de]

    I've been doing this since I had a broken piece... years ago...

    I still have about 15 30pins Simms (Goldstar) left... Anyone want a keychain?

  • Hardware Obsolescence (Score:5, Funny)

    by Captoo ( 103399 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:46PM (#11602903)
    Do they have a precise definition of what constitutes "obsolete hardware?" If they're talking about functional obsolescence, then a calculator may not be obsolete for decades. A CD-R becomes obsolete the moment that someone copies an AOL CD. A Pentium 4 becomes obsolete the moment that it belongs to my grandmother.

  • Pretty Cool (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DrKyle ( 818035 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @08:53PM (#11602945)
    I haven't really had the time to browse all of the ideas here, but this one really stands out to me

    RFID and Barcode Beer Fridge [altavista.com]
    If looks aren't decieving, you can use this baby to check your beer supply, and maybe even let you check from work to see what you need to pick up on the way home for the weekend.

    • Re:Pretty Cool (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Tr0mBoNe- ( 708581 )
      I enjoy the Gameboy universal remote. My meger-translationability does not help much.

      And the Amiga Guitar one is pretty messed. This makes me want to go off and make my old 8086's into more useful fish tanks or laptops.

    • Re:Pretty Cool (Score:4, Interesting)

      by k4_pacific ( 736911 ) <k4_pacific@yah[ ]com ['oo.' in gap]> on Monday February 07, 2005 @10:42PM (#11603588) Homepage Journal
      My uncle did something similar to this back in the '70s. His roommates and him shared a keg, and they needed a way to decide hoe much each's share was. He put a switch on the tap handle and connected it to a panel with three keyswitches and three hour-meters like you see on forklifts. Each roommate had a key, which connected the appropriate meter to the tap switch. If someone tried to fill a glass without inserting and turning their key, an alarm would go off. Whenever they'd buy a keg, they would note how far each meter changed since last time and divy up the cost accordingly.

  • Article Text in case of Slashdotting: (Score:5, Funny)

    by brilinux ( 255400 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @09:08PM (#11603039) Journal
    Mach flott den Schrott
    Ihre Meinung ist gefragt: Bewerten Sie die Einsendungen des Recycling-Wettbewerbs

    Mit der Ausgabe 25/04 startete c't Ende November 2004 den Recycling-Wettbewerb Mach flott den Schrott, der die originellsten, schönsten und nützlichsten Konstruktionen aus High-Tech-Schrott belohnen soll. Die wesentliche Teile der Objekte sollen aus gebrauchten Computern oder ausgemusterter Peripherie stammen und sie sollen anders genutzt werden, als der Hersteller sich das ursprünglich gedacht hat.

    Der Wettbewerb hat zwei Kategorien: "Funktion" und "Kunst". In der ersten sollen Werke antreten, die im weitesten Sinne eine technische Funktion erfüllen. Dazu gehören beispielsweise Roboter, Messgeräte, Uhren und Lampen. In die zweite Kategorie fallen alle Werke, bei denen allein der künstlerische oder ästhetische Wert im Vordergrund steht.

    Auf diesen Seiten präsentieren wir die Wettbewerbsbeiträge. Sehen Sie sich um, staunen Sie, lassen Sie sich zum Nachbauen anregen und diskutieren Sie in den Foren mit, die es zu allen Projekten gibt.

    Außerdem bitten wir um Ihre Mitwirkung an der Online-Nominierung der Endrundenteilnehmer. Bewerten Sie jedes Projekt bis zum 18. Februar nach vier Aspekten mit Schulnoten. Dazu finden Sie unter den Objektbeschreibungen jeweils einen Link.

    Die besten Konstruktionen nehmen dann an der Endrunde auf der CeBIT 2005 teil, wo wir sie auch auf dem Stand des Heise Zeitschriften Verlages (Halle 5, Stand E38) ausstellen. (je)

    ---
    I hope that that was immensly helpful to all of you!
  • Vast ist dis? Neiner blinkenlights [jamesthornton.com]?

  • My PC recycling thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @09:23PM (#11603136)
    I cut the DIN 5 connector (old style keyboard) and the PS2 mouse connector (MiniDIN 6) off very old obsolete motherboards.
    Then I combine them with a 40 cent microcontroller (AVR Tiny11) to make MIDI tone module controllers from standard PS2 keyboards.
    It works really well. Press the keys, notes go on, release keys, notes off. Just like a piano keyboard but smaller and much cheaper. There are, however, certain key combinations that don't play full chords. I'm not sure if it's the internal keyboard matrix decoding or the microcontroller's firmware.
    • Care to link this?
    • It seems like most newer keyboards don't have the problem of recognizing too many keys at once. I remember playing mortal kombat on my old 386 with two people on the keyboard and the trick wasn't skill, but to press enough buttons to keep your opponent's key presses from being recognized.
    • We were still using a Mac SE30 (from 1989) as an answering/fax machine but "upgraded" it a year ago to the present Color Classic (made in 1993) running System 7.5.1 so we could access it over the local network. The Classic running 24/7 is also used to allow an old Apple Laserwriter (which still works just fine) with only an Appletalk interface to be accessible via ethernet. The answering/fax function is provided by a DoveFaxPlus 2400baud modem. I wonder if this setup would qualify for a prize?

      • You can put an SE/30 on the network too. Look on ebay for ethernet cards for the SE/30. You can even get ethernet cards for the old Mac SE. (I had one in the kitchen for a few years for a terminal. Then I got married.)

        Actually, my SE/30 was an SE with an upgraded SE/30 motherboard. BTW, the SE/30 with an external SCSI disk makes a pretty decent personal mail server. Put Net or OpenBSD on it, and off you go.

        The SE/30 was one of the all-time great Apple products. It would take 128MB of RAM when that was a

    • There are, however, certain key combinations that don't play full chords. I'm not sure if it's the internal keyboard matrix decoding or the microcontroller's firmware.

      AFAIK, (PS/2) PC keyboards are limited to something like three or four simultaneuos key presses. As you suspect, it must have something to with the keyboard matrix, the interface spec, or both.

      I have experienced a similar effect with various MIDI sequencing packages, using a PC keyboard as the controller, so I would say you can rule out

  • Server (Score:2, Funny)

    by MisterTeabag ( 664494 )
    Is there a plan to recycle their webserver?
  • And my favorite one is the LED/IC insects. Go figure. http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/56058 [heise.de]

  • Nice one (Score:3, Informative)

    by imsabbel ( 611519 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @09:32PM (#11603189)
    http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/56016 [heise.de]
    Thats a nice hard disc bike :)
  • http://www.larkfarm.com/honeywell_answers.htm

    http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TheCompMusRep/TCM R- V13.html#Animals

    My father used to have a miniature of the Honeywell Animals kangaroo as a paperweight.

  • Huh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ich kann nicht Deutschen lesen Sie unempfindlicher Klumpen!

  • ACHTUNG! (Score:2, Funny)

    by ArticleI ( 842868 )
    Alles touristen und non-technischen peepers!

    Das machine control is nicht fur gerfinger-poken und mittengrabben. Oderwise is easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowen fuse, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Der machine is diggen by experten only. Is nicht fur geverken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseenen keepen das cotten picken hands in das pockets, so relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights.
    • And for our German readers...

      ACHTUNG!

      Kombjuder-Raum

      Dieser Raum is voll bis unner de Deck mit de dollste elekdrische un vollelekdronische Anlaache.Staune und gugge derf jeder, awwer rummworschdele un Gnöbbsche drücke uff de Kombjuder dörffe nur mir,

      die Exberde.

  • skirt star need a guitar! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by buttahead ( 266220 ) <tscanlanNO@SPAMsosaith.org> on Monday February 07, 2005 @10:03PM (#11603372) Homepage
    Since skirt star need a guitar, no meal remained for me: ... Amiga 500 + guitar neck.

    Coworker: Andre Pluemer and friends, those from time to time parts of the Sperrm?

    Rock on... berzerker! [altavista.com]

  • Open Source Hardware (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Caseyscrib ( 728790 ) on Monday February 07, 2005 @11:25PM (#11603839)
    A company really needs to step in and make open-source hardware. Think about how much money and waste we could save if every year instead of buying a new cell phone we could just download new software onto it. The same goes for a car CD player. Don't like the interface? Want MP3/Ogg/MP4? Want strong encryption for your cell phone? Just download an update.

    The best feature of this is that you will extend the life of your product by a long time. PDAs, Cell Phones, MP3 Players, video game systems, Digital Cameras... they would all benefit. Sure, the initial hardware cost might be a little bit more, but in the end I think the cost would be worth it.

    • While I don't think companies are particularly eager to end planned obsolecence (Please, won't somebody think of the Profits!), some groups are making open source hardware. The GNU Radio project http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/ [gnu.org] makes wholly software-configurable radios. Nifty things for ham radio operators such as myself.
    • It would be nice, but embedded processors and the power reqs for them change all the time. Some stuff just can't handle what you want it to do.
      You're also assuming that there is a ton of people who can program for the devices. There isn't, and it takes a fair bit of time / money to start programming for them. (This is kind of assuming you're not just using the .net Compact Framework (which I'm guessing you're probably not, this being /. and all, but it is a pretty easy way to program for ARM, MIPS, et al.)

  • Favorite (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SpeedBump0619 ( 324581 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @02:12AM (#11604474)
    While the solar backlight might be interesting I just can't ignore these [heise.de]

    they're just so darn cute.
  • Those light shades made from a thousand CDs are pretty cool looking. I want one for myself, but it seems pretty hard to do in the post AOL cd error. I guess I need to start collecting. Here is the link http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55857 [heise.de]
    • It wouldn't be expensive to just buy blank CDs for this purpose. At that volume you could get a good deal and the finished light would probably be cheaper than a designer equivalent at your local 'arty' furniture store. You could pad out a couple of hundred CDs by scavenging for free ones.
      • From the picture it looks as if they have a thousand CD's on that thing (I am only guessing).. So if a good price for a 100 CDR's is $30, that means I need about $300 just for the CD's not to mention the light. I would like to make it cheaper, but I dont know how.
  • It's about time they focused on recycling computer parts. I have to admit I wasn't too wild about their prior recycling efforts. All they came up with are things like lampshades, book covers, yarn, felt & socks.

  • categories translated (Score:4, Informative)

    by Living WTF ( 838448 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @06:23AM (#11605060)
    artistic
    - objective sculptures
    - shape, light and sound objects
    - symbolic stuff
    - flat objects
    - environment
    - jewelry
    - fancy stuff

    functional
    - computer equipment
    - furniture
    - home and garden
    - kitchen equipment
    - light engineering
    - measurement engineering
    - robots and models
    - sports and toys
    - sound and picture
    - clocks
    - miscellaneous
  • So imagine a scenario when globalization collapses and no one has the ability or technology to manufacture complex goods like computers. All we'll have left is the remnants of circuit boards that will either be used to hobble together computing devices or art because of its increasing rarity.

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