MOST PEOPLE HAVE the good sense to throw away electronics when they have been dropped a few dozen times. But broken cases, missing buttons, and things that don't work even close to 100% are not something that slow down Thea DeSilva, author of
HGTERM. No, shedding parts are not an obstacle at all if you are determined, have a hot melt glue gun, lots of free time and not that much money.
So, with that in mind, let me introduce you to the world's rattiest laptop, one that still functions, mind you. It is, or was an Apple Powerbook G3 of one flavor or another, and in a brilliant weight saving move, all the drives were removed. The battery pack went too, as did the white paint, just about every button not on the keyboard, and every cover that was at one point attached. In a tribute to Apple's engineering, the hinges and the top latch still work perfectly.
On went the obligatory stickers, and the back of the translucent keyboard keys were painted pinkish or blue. These weight savings add up to a remarkably light laptop, but one that is quite hard to boot seeing as it does not have power or storage of any sort, much less an OS.
So, not wanting to waste a perfectly good laptop, Thea decided to go after it with the glue gun. First, the green battery pack on the back so it would boot, right above the Mao sticker. Then, once power was restored, on went an SD card reader so you could load and store data, complete with really exposed wiring, you can see the copper in places. Then there is some thing below that, and another thing covering up the top of the Beavis and Butthead sticker. Last, a keyboard light was pasted on to the top of the lid so you can type in the dark.
Practical and functional, sheer Bauhaus. It even boots 'Debian something', a claim that I can verify, it did boot, and did run HGTERM, and I could not tell you for the life of me what the OS was. If you ever wondered why Bauhaus never got around to laptop design, look at the closeup and thank whatever you worship that Jobs is anal about detail. No, thank him/her/it/they twice at least.
So, when Thea came over for the pictures, she called me up to set up a time. What did she call me on? Well, quite possibly the world's rattiest phone. See?
I know what you are thinking, 'Gee, that looks JUST like the back of a second generation NGage with a large speaker hot melt glued and wired to the top of the phone!' Well, you would be right, it is a second generation NGage that has a large speaker hot melt glued to the top and wired down for good measure. There is a belt clip there too so it won't fall again. Practical and elegant.
If you think the front can't match that, think again. All the plastic surrounds are gone, long gone, and all that remains is the rubber membrane of the stuff under the plastic buttons. There are no markings, no nothing, but it does work. Really. No, I mean it, she called me several time, and I called her. If it doesn't, she is really good at faking conversations on it at middle-eastern restaurants.
So, there you have it, the rattiest functional laptop in existence, and the rattiest phone in existence, all for the price of one article. They all do what the owner needs them to, and if anything, the NGage looks a little better, and works a lot better than the unmodified version. Ingenuity strikes when one has no money and works on open source projects for a hobby. All this said, if anyone out there at Apple or Nokia wants to take pity on poor Thea and upgrade her equipment, I am sure I can arrange a trade so you can have these unique case mods for your corporate museum. Surely it would be a win/win situation for both. Barring that, I could burn them and send you pictures, possibly post a story too. Let me know, or write her directly.
The INQuirer
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