slipperyskip
New in Town
- Messages
- 28
- Location
- McAlpin, Florida
Maj.Nick Danger said:
This project was based on a combo hotplate/toaster appliance that I thought was interesting.
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Art Deco Home Theater PC
- Thread starter slipperyskip
- Start date
This project was based on a combo hotplate/toaster appliance that I thought was interesting.
CharlieH.
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,169
- Location
- It used to be Detroit....
Gee... that's beautiful!
DeeDub
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 223
- Location
- Eugene, OR
Quick!
Somebody help me get my jaw off the floor!
Those are some of the most beautiful machines I've ever seen.
:cheers1:
Somebody help me get my jaw off the floor!
Those are some of the most beautiful machines I've ever seen.
:cheers1:
Datamancer
New in Town
- Messages
- 9
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
Hey guys, this is Datamancer, creator of the The Nagy Magical-Movable-Type
Pixello-Dynamotronic Computational Engine‚Ñ¢. I found you guys through my referral links. Nice place you've all got here.
Skip, I love your designs! You'll have to teach me the intricacies of shmoozing free parts out of manufacturers. Everything I build is made from found parts and dumpster dives, basically. Corporate sponsorship might be nice. Does mini-itx give stuff away very often? They seem like the best boards for cramped mods.
-~D~-
Pixello-Dynamotronic Computational Engine‚Ñ¢. I found you guys through my referral links. Nice place you've all got here.
Skip, I love your designs! You'll have to teach me the intricacies of shmoozing free parts out of manufacturers. Everything I build is made from found parts and dumpster dives, basically. Corporate sponsorship might be nice. Does mini-itx give stuff away very often? They seem like the best boards for cramped mods.
-~D~-
slipperyskip
New in Town
- Messages
- 28
- Location
- McAlpin, Florida
Datamancer said:
Thanks. I don't have any official corporate sponsors. Usually it is just someone in their marketing department who is a fan of art deco and my work.
They would all probably enjoy this site as well.
Just do good work and most everyting else will follow.
Datamancer said:
Welcome to FL - you did a nice job on that Computational Engine TM
Is this anything like the process you used to convert the typewriter?
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/underwood/
Datamancer
New in Town
- Messages
- 9
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
Story said:
Thanks!
I've seen that underwood mod before. It's good, but I think he sort of halfassed the keyboard. Aside from that, it's a great mod.
I'm using the same typewriter, but im leaving it much more intact. It will still click and clack like a manual, but the swing of the keys will be restricted a bit so you still get the speed of a digital. I was even considering reworking the key layout into the Dvorak format as a sort of personal joke. If you look up the history of the QWERTY keyboard, you'll get the joke. The idea of a "manual Dvorak" is hysterical to me. Right now im considering making it wireless too.
-~D~-
priestyboy
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 132
- Location
- Olympia, WA
slipperyskip said:
Whoah!
Looks like something out of the "original" Time Machine movie.
EVERYBODY!!, you "have" to check this out.
Datamancer
New in Town
- Messages
- 9
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
Hello again everyone.
If you all liked the Computational Engine, you will probably enjoy the latest addition, the "Opti-Transcripticon". It's a flatbed scanned mod built into a large tome. It looks right at home next to the 'Engine.
(Sorry Skip, I don't mean to steal your thread here or anything)
Thanks for all the compliments, everyone!
-~D~-
If you all liked the Computational Engine, you will probably enjoy the latest addition, the "Opti-Transcripticon". It's a flatbed scanned mod built into a large tome. It looks right at home next to the 'Engine.
(Sorry Skip, I don't mean to steal your thread here or anything)
Thanks for all the compliments, everyone!
-~D~-
CharlieH.
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,169
- Location
- It used to be Detroit....
What a gorgeous piece of machinery.
The Wingnut
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,711
- Location
- .
Wow...imagine a laptop built like that! A whole new meaning to 'notebook' PC!
Incredible work.
Incredible work.
Datamancer
New in Town
- Messages
- 9
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
I actually have a laptop all planned out. I just need a donor laptop that's halfway decent. (hint hint nudge nudge anyone anyone?)
Sadly, NO laptop manufacturers will give anything away to casemodders or hobbyists.
Sadly, NO laptop manufacturers will give anything away to casemodders or hobbyists.
Related, and possibly inspirational
Inconspicuous Consumption: Hiding the Plasma TV
Homeowners Begin to Treat Flashy Electronics as Eyesores;
Speakers Disguised as Sconces
By ANDREW LAVALLEE, The Wall Street Journal
1 FEb 07
When Ryan Heuser was putting the finishing touches on his restored 1960s-era house in Newport Beach, Calif., he wanted to preserve its period look and minimalist interior. It wasn't hard in the kitchen, which the 34-year-old outfitted with Boffi cabinets and sleek appliances like a Viking range and Miele dishwasher.
But the living room, where he planned to install a home-theater system, was trickier. Even high-end loudspeakers were going to be too clunky for the room, he says. "I really wanted something that blended seamlessly," says Mr. Heuser, president of Paul Frank Industries Inc., an apparel company.
So he paid about $7,000 for three thin speakers that are embedded in the wall and hidden behind a screen. The system, called Artcoustic, includes an "acoustically transparent" fabric that consumers can have images printed on, making the speakers look like framed artwork or a wall panel.
Big home-entertainment systems and flat-screen plasma television sets may remain status symbols for some, but as prices continue to drop -- and the devices become ubiquitous -- an increasing number of consumers are downplaying their living-room gadgetry.
Manufacturers, for their part, are adding decorative touches to soften their components' looks. Others are offering products that disguise liquid-crystal displays as Picassos and speaker systems designed to be works of art in themselves.
Artcoustic sales have increased 50% a year in the U.S. for the past four years and are poised to generate more than $3 million in revenue in 2007, says StJohn Group Inc., the Bellingham, Wash., company that sells the line domestically. "The typical customer for this has probably never even ventured into a hi-fi store," says John Caldwell, StJohn's co-founder.
A handful of manufacturers have previously offered "lifts" -- devices that let TV sets flip down from ceilings or emerge from furniture -- but this next generation of devices attempts to hide electronics in plain sight.
VisionArt, a unit of Solar Shading Systems of Costa Mesa, Calif., makes prints that retract in their frames to reveal plasma TV sets. The motorized frames sell for as much as $18,000. Vice President Dave Froerer says the line, now in its fifth year, has seen sales increase 40% to 50% a year, helped, he adds, by falling flat-panel prices.
"Plasma doesn't carry the prestige that it used to," he says. "Hanging a $20,000 TV on the wall, there was something to be said for wanting people to see it. The thing right now is to hide electronics."
Judith Sexton, co-owner of Media Decor LLC in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which offers a TV-masking device called HideandChic, echoed the sentiment. "While the television's on, that's one thing," she says. When it is turned off, "the lady of the house and the designers find it a little ugly. It's just like a big, blank, black square on the wall." She declined to specify HideandChic's sales.
World-wide sales of flat-panel television sets nearly doubled last year to 48.5 million units, from 25.6 million in 2005, according to iSuppli Corp., a market-research firm in El Segundo, Calif. The average selling price for plasma TV sets dropped to about $1,700, from nearly $2,500 in 2005.
Chicago interior designer Jessica Lagrange incorporated a VisionArt piece into a client's Lake Shore Drive penthouse, reproducing a 1934 painting the client already owned -- "Michigan Avenue," by J. Jeffrey Grant -- to cover a plasma TV set. "A big black screen just seemed out of character with the style of the room," which has a more traditional design, Ms. Lagrange says. With the system in place, she adds, "You'd never know there was a TV behind it."
VisionArt also sells editions of works signed by its painters and photographers, and employs Ren Wicks, a former ad agency art director, to prospect for talent at expos and online. Artists used to rebuff the idea of providing work to cover TVs as a "contraption," Mr. Wicks says, but he now has a backlog of inquiries from artists from places as distant as Kuwait and New Zealand.
Other companies are reintroducing wood, a material more evocative of antique armoires than contemporary design, to home electronics. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, LG Electronics displayed a prototype wooden frame for a large plasma screen, and Chief Manufacturing Inc., of Savage, Minn., unveiled a line of decorative pine frames for 32-, 42- and 50-inch flat-panel TVs that retail for $699 to $879.
The company also offers a five-millimeter glass overlay that turns the TV into a mirror when it is turned off, though it reduces the TV's brightness about 5%. The mirror kits cost $549 to $1,199.
Wood Contour Inc., based in Neustadt, Germany, sells wood LCD monitors for personal computers, while Suissa Computers of Thornhill, Ontario, launched in September with a variety of limited-edition, wood-encased PCs that range from the deconstructed, contemporary "Revolution" to "Yasuko," a $6,400 piece of hardware that wouldn't look out of place on a mantel.
The idea behind the products, says Howard Suissa, the company's 37-year-old president, is to "create something that people would want to showcase as a device in a living room." The systems are assembled to order, he says, using Intel and Advanced Micro Devices chips, Nvidia video cards, Seagate Technology hard drives and other well-known providers. Suissa also offers ornamental detailing, such as a PC inlaid with white gold and five carats of diamonds, which recently sold for about $25,000, according to Mr. Suissa.
"They're signed, they're numbered. They're not only computers or functional systems, but works of art," he says. Still, he added, the wait for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista slowed sales, since some customers held off PC purchases until the new operating system launched.
Anne Janis, a veterinary researcher in Fayetteville, Ga., originally bought her set of Wood Contour peripherals because she suspected her plastic keyboard was irritating her fingers. She likes that the purpleheart wood of her monitor, mouse and keyboard complements the sage and cranberry interior of her home office.
"I didn't want something that looked yucky," she says.
Inconspicuous Consumption: Hiding the Plasma TV
Homeowners Begin to Treat Flashy Electronics as Eyesores;
Speakers Disguised as Sconces
By ANDREW LAVALLEE, The Wall Street Journal
1 FEb 07
When Ryan Heuser was putting the finishing touches on his restored 1960s-era house in Newport Beach, Calif., he wanted to preserve its period look and minimalist interior. It wasn't hard in the kitchen, which the 34-year-old outfitted with Boffi cabinets and sleek appliances like a Viking range and Miele dishwasher.
But the living room, where he planned to install a home-theater system, was trickier. Even high-end loudspeakers were going to be too clunky for the room, he says. "I really wanted something that blended seamlessly," says Mr. Heuser, president of Paul Frank Industries Inc., an apparel company.
So he paid about $7,000 for three thin speakers that are embedded in the wall and hidden behind a screen. The system, called Artcoustic, includes an "acoustically transparent" fabric that consumers can have images printed on, making the speakers look like framed artwork or a wall panel.
Big home-entertainment systems and flat-screen plasma television sets may remain status symbols for some, but as prices continue to drop -- and the devices become ubiquitous -- an increasing number of consumers are downplaying their living-room gadgetry.
Manufacturers, for their part, are adding decorative touches to soften their components' looks. Others are offering products that disguise liquid-crystal displays as Picassos and speaker systems designed to be works of art in themselves.
Artcoustic sales have increased 50% a year in the U.S. for the past four years and are poised to generate more than $3 million in revenue in 2007, says StJohn Group Inc., the Bellingham, Wash., company that sells the line domestically. "The typical customer for this has probably never even ventured into a hi-fi store," says John Caldwell, StJohn's co-founder.
A handful of manufacturers have previously offered "lifts" -- devices that let TV sets flip down from ceilings or emerge from furniture -- but this next generation of devices attempts to hide electronics in plain sight.
VisionArt, a unit of Solar Shading Systems of Costa Mesa, Calif., makes prints that retract in their frames to reveal plasma TV sets. The motorized frames sell for as much as $18,000. Vice President Dave Froerer says the line, now in its fifth year, has seen sales increase 40% to 50% a year, helped, he adds, by falling flat-panel prices.
"Plasma doesn't carry the prestige that it used to," he says. "Hanging a $20,000 TV on the wall, there was something to be said for wanting people to see it. The thing right now is to hide electronics."
Judith Sexton, co-owner of Media Decor LLC in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which offers a TV-masking device called HideandChic, echoed the sentiment. "While the television's on, that's one thing," she says. When it is turned off, "the lady of the house and the designers find it a little ugly. It's just like a big, blank, black square on the wall." She declined to specify HideandChic's sales.
World-wide sales of flat-panel television sets nearly doubled last year to 48.5 million units, from 25.6 million in 2005, according to iSuppli Corp., a market-research firm in El Segundo, Calif. The average selling price for plasma TV sets dropped to about $1,700, from nearly $2,500 in 2005.
Chicago interior designer Jessica Lagrange incorporated a VisionArt piece into a client's Lake Shore Drive penthouse, reproducing a 1934 painting the client already owned -- "Michigan Avenue," by J. Jeffrey Grant -- to cover a plasma TV set. "A big black screen just seemed out of character with the style of the room," which has a more traditional design, Ms. Lagrange says. With the system in place, she adds, "You'd never know there was a TV behind it."
VisionArt also sells editions of works signed by its painters and photographers, and employs Ren Wicks, a former ad agency art director, to prospect for talent at expos and online. Artists used to rebuff the idea of providing work to cover TVs as a "contraption," Mr. Wicks says, but he now has a backlog of inquiries from artists from places as distant as Kuwait and New Zealand.
Other companies are reintroducing wood, a material more evocative of antique armoires than contemporary design, to home electronics. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, LG Electronics displayed a prototype wooden frame for a large plasma screen, and Chief Manufacturing Inc., of Savage, Minn., unveiled a line of decorative pine frames for 32-, 42- and 50-inch flat-panel TVs that retail for $699 to $879.
The company also offers a five-millimeter glass overlay that turns the TV into a mirror when it is turned off, though it reduces the TV's brightness about 5%. The mirror kits cost $549 to $1,199.
Wood Contour Inc., based in Neustadt, Germany, sells wood LCD monitors for personal computers, while Suissa Computers of Thornhill, Ontario, launched in September with a variety of limited-edition, wood-encased PCs that range from the deconstructed, contemporary "Revolution" to "Yasuko," a $6,400 piece of hardware that wouldn't look out of place on a mantel.
The idea behind the products, says Howard Suissa, the company's 37-year-old president, is to "create something that people would want to showcase as a device in a living room." The systems are assembled to order, he says, using Intel and Advanced Micro Devices chips, Nvidia video cards, Seagate Technology hard drives and other well-known providers. Suissa also offers ornamental detailing, such as a PC inlaid with white gold and five carats of diamonds, which recently sold for about $25,000, according to Mr. Suissa.
"They're signed, they're numbered. They're not only computers or functional systems, but works of art," he says. Still, he added, the wait for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista slowed sales, since some customers held off PC purchases until the new operating system launched.
Anne Janis, a veterinary researcher in Fayetteville, Ga., originally bought her set of Wood Contour peripherals because she suspected her plastic keyboard was irritating her fingers. She likes that the purpleheart wood of her monitor, mouse and keyboard complements the sage and cranberry interior of her home office.
"I didn't want something that looked yucky," she says.
Datamancer
New in Town
- Messages
- 9
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
Thanks Story, I appreciate you tracking me down about the donor furniture and whatnot. Thanks for the shoutout about my move too. Sorry, I've been out tinkering in the Lab a lot lately and haven't been following my forums.
It's true. I'm planning on moving to Cali (Long Beach/LA area) at the end of spring, hopefully to try my hand at some movie propmaking. I'm pretty much going into this cold, so if anyone has any recommendations, advice, contacts or insight into the industry, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again, Story.
-~D~-
It's true. I'm planning on moving to Cali (Long Beach/LA area) at the end of spring, hopefully to try my hand at some movie propmaking. I'm pretty much going into this cold, so if anyone has any recommendations, advice, contacts or insight into the industry, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again, Story.
-~D~-
Julius Xavier
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 223
- Location
- Milwaukee, WI
Datamancer I have a laptop for you if you want it.
It's by no means new but I would be willing to let you putz around with it IF I get the final product...
You can contact me at AdventureHunter@hotmail.com
-Julius Xavier
It's by no means new but I would be willing to let you putz around with it IF I get the final product...
You can contact me at AdventureHunter@hotmail.com
-Julius Xavier
Datamancer
New in Town
- Messages
- 9
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
Haha thanks, but yeah I don't think that'll work out.
I decided to just pour some money into my HP Pavilion and try to repair the known design flaws in it that HP refuses to acknowledge or honor.
I decided to just pour some money into my HP Pavilion and try to repair the known design flaws in it that HP refuses to acknowledge or honor.
The Wingnut
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,711
- Location
- .
Wow...
I really need to get into fabricating. Some of the stuff I could churn out with just simple milling machines...ahhh, the imagination runs wild.
I really need to get into fabricating. Some of the stuff I could churn out with just simple milling machines...ahhh, the imagination runs wild.
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