I am about to refurbish my clipboard by replacing the old rusty clip mechanism with a shiny new one and I was wondering what other people had made from un-needed PCB's?
My clipboard is made from a circuit board that I laid out in the 70's using the old crepe tape and dot on mylar method that didn't pass incoming QC. It was for a 6809-based data acquisition system. The fuse holder on the clip was a bad idea for a pencil holder that I don't intend to add to the refurb.
The inset of the reverse side shows a properly routed "star ground" in the analog section, just for the heck of it since star grounds have bee atopic on this forum. That big 32-pin pattern was for the ADC80 a/d converter. State of the art for the time!
While working at a used computer store / electronics recycling depot, I covered a wall in the lobby with 600+ used motherboards. It was pretty sharp (looking).
Tribalmonkey:
While working at a used computer store / electronics recycling depot, I covered a wall in the lobby with 600+ used motherboards. It was pretty sharp (looking).
Sorry. No pics...
I'l bet that does look pretty cool!
I made a clock out of an old Mac motherboard that happened to have a convenient mounting hole near the center for the clock mechanism's shaft. Kinda hard to read at first glance.
I still kick myself for not buying a core memory panel at a Meadowlands fest back in the mid-80's. I saved my "fest money" (money at a fest is worth more than the same money not at a fest) for what I might see later (we had just gotten in, one often-broken rule was look at everything first then buy), and spent it on something I no longer have while that panel of core would still be hanging on my wall had I bought it.
BTW, core panels are worthy of wall space.
Really cool westfw! After seeing your creation I was thinking of making a jewelry with some passive components (smd resistors) and edge contacts or make RFID tags on them. You can use them as keys to open garages, doors or secret rooms or something.
GoForSmoke:
I still kick myself for not buying a core memory panel at a Meadowlands fest back in the mid-80's.
I remember seeing one of those when I was much younger but not knowing what it was. Did all of those memory panels have the ferrite beads woven between the wires? I don't remember that aspect of it.
It was fun to touch, watching all those fine wires pop when you rubbed your hand across. sigh kids.
BulletMagnet83:
I once had the idea of tiling a wall with old ceramic PGA-package CPUs, with the gold lids on them. I still might, one day.
Hard to do unless:
You are made of money
You already have a fair size collection of these CPUs
Your household average height is that of the Yoda or hobbits
These processors are hard to come by nowadays. You can pay $20-30 each on ebay and they don't all look good, mostly because they are headed for gold extraction. I happen to be a collector. It's harder and harder to get those gold lids. If you want a pentium pro or other bad boys, be prepared to pay $40 each. I'd be interested in making a belt buckle with one of these if I know how to make belt buckles.
BulletMagnet83:
I once had the idea of tiling a wall with old ceramic PGA-package CPUs, with the gold lids on them. I still might, one day.
Hard to do unless:
You are made of money
You already have a fair size collection of these CPUs
Your household average height is that of the Yoda or hobbits
These processors are hard to come by nowadays. You can pay $20-30 each on ebay and they don't all look good, mostly because they are headed for gold extraction. I happen to be a collector. It's harder and harder to get those gold lids. If you want a pentium pro or other bad boys, be prepared to pay $40 each. I'd be interested in making a belt buckle with one of these if I know how to make belt buckles.
Simple, just attach it over a smaller simpler buckle.
liudr:
If you want a pentium pro or other bad boys, be prepared to pay $40 each. I'd be interested in making a belt buckle with one of these if I know how to make belt buckles.
What a great news! Really!
I have a couple of those. They are so old I thought they were worth nothing. I don't actually collect old CPUs, but I have lots (60+) of them, of all kinds, from 1993 and beyond. I must have Cyrix 486s, all sorts of Intel (including 2 Pentium Pros), AMD, and so on. I have several generations of Pentiums, including Pentium I, Pentium MMX, Pentium Pro, II, III, 4...
BulletMagnet83:
I once had the idea of tiling a wall with old ceramic PGA-package CPUs, with the gold lids on them. I still might, one day.
Hard to do unless:
You are made of money
You already have a fair size collection of these CPUs
Your household average height is that of the Yoda or hobbits
These processors are hard to come by nowadays. You can pay $20-30 each on ebay and they don't all look good, mostly because they are headed for gold extraction. I happen to be a collector. It's harder and harder to get those gold lids. If you want a pentium pro or other bad boys, be prepared to pay $40 each. I'd be interested in making a belt buckle with one of these if I know how to make belt buckles.
All very good points Just a beer-idea really... awesome but impractical/impossible. But there IS a lot of e-waste out there, and a lot of people who don't know what they have. The other killer is that my ambition often outstrips my patience. I'd get one wall of the shithouse done and give up
