13 Responses:

1. duskwuff says:

   16 years ago at 2:30 am

   The fact that the page points out that the "raptop" has a trackball, speakers, and USB ports makes me think this thing might actually work. The title suggests it may have an (ancient?) NEC laptop at its core.

   (If the text is all showing up as mojibake, switch the text encoding to shift-JIS. It's still all strange moon characters either way, but you can still pick out occasional readable bits like "U S B".)

2. aris1234 says:

   16 years ago at 2:47 am

   Looks like the one Brice was using in Max Headroom.

3. firewyre says:

   16 years ago at 4:53 am

   Did you find this on Make? I looked at the translation of the page and posted on the blog they got it from that I thought there was a Mac in there somewhere. I'm pretty sure it works though - else why would they say that the speakers worked surprisingly well!
   http://ccgi.firewyre.force9.co.uk/brassgoggles

4. sherbooke says:

   16 years ago at 8:35 am

   Brazil!!!

5. mc_kingfish says:

   16 years ago at 9:32 am

   That is 83% awesome.

6. evan says:

   16 years ago at 10:03 am

   I can't tell from the text whether it's real or not, but that's most likely because I can't understand it all.
   The top says something like "made from your dreams. notebook." and I think it says he had a spare laptop to hack up. Mentions that this time it's not a mac, which makes me think he might have done this sort of thing in the past.

   He makes a reference to Terry Gilliam and Cronenberg at the bottom. Appears to be an artist: http://ironwork.jp/monkey_farm/botoms/nurseglove1.html

7. nightrider says:

   16 years ago at 12:26 pm

   It looks like this was their second attempt. Their first was with a Mac, so that's why there are claims in the text of the page you linked to not being a Mac. The first one looks like it was just an art installation, but the second seems a bit more feasible. Still... I can't tell if it works or not. Why are there no pics of the "raptop" powered up?There are some pics here of their first attempt. They didnt' have a space bar on the "keyboard" so they actually used a sewing machine's foot pedal for the spacebar. From the looks of things, there was all the proper wiring in place...Here's a shot of the underside of their first keyboard.and the top side of the keyboard:MONKEY FARM!(wtf?)Apparently they make all kinds of cool stuff.A Fiat with a bulldozer shovel & bulldozer treads...A geodesic dome house...What do you think they'll try next?...How about a freakin' Gundam robot?

   • jwz says:

     16 years ago at 1:00 pm

     That's so awesome. I have an old typewriter, with the intent of doing something like this to it, but after spending weeks on Phase One, trying to make it work just as a typewriter again (it's all gummed up) I kinda stopped trying... I even tracked down a reprint of the original 1920 service manual! Those things are insanely complicated...

8. djverablue says:

   16 years ago at 2:21 pm

   OMG!!!!! i must have one!!!!!

9. satanlvsu2 says:

   16 years ago at 11:51 am

   http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=286

10. martling says:

    16 years ago at 1:57 pm

    William Gibson notes this resembles the typewriter he wrote Neuromancer on.

11. hipliz says:

    16 years ago at 9:01 am

    Ever since I saw "Brazil" in 1985, I've been wanting to make a functional art project out of my old Apple II, an ancient typewriter and a small B&W monitor. Oh well, too late. :)

12. dzm6 says:

    16 years ago at 2:45 pm

    This morning, at just shy of 6:00am, this typewriter was mentioned. Story was something like "technology bloggers have been forwarding photos to each-other of spiffy typewriter laptop ... debate as to whether it actually works ... yadda yadda."

    They closed with:

    "One blogger wrote 'Even if it turns out that this doesn't actually work, I still covet it.'"

    Seems you're being stalked again.