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Mac G3 + Shop Vac = Shop Mac 71

Posted by Hemos from the what--about-hoover dept.
Jay Langhurst writes "Take a peek here for photos and explaination on how an 8 gallon shop vac can be converted to a home for an Apple G3. I guess air circulation isn't an issue after this switch."
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Mac G3 + Shop Vac = Shop Mac More

Mac G3 + Shop Vac = Shop Mac

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  • How STUPID! What about MacOS X? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    today I built the new PINE, ncftp, and nmap without any problems on a G3/233 with MacOS X Does /. say anything about the release of MacOS X? No.. I saw nothing.. just this stupid article about a vacuum cleaner made into a case. So what?? How about a story about how Apple is helping out the open source movement by at least putting a *stable* name behind some of the software? (Red Hat is still a very young company, and when you say "Open source" to the bosses sometimes, they think "Oh, that buggy hacker stuff, linux, right?" but now they can think "Oh, Apple.. we know them!" - hey, it's definately a good thing)

  • Re:not axactly admiration (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I feel pity for anyone who has enough time on there hands to do something this stupid.
    I envy anyone who has enough time to do "productive" stupid things!
    I rarely have time outside of work to do fun things like this, most likely end up going drinking with some friends (talk about unproductive) or go home and chill. Just because he isn't a couch potatoe, don't antagonize him.

  • Re:It has to be said... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about a Beowulf cluster of these? You could really clean up with them!

  • This is kinda cool too. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Introducing the iMac 2. [acorncreative.tv]
  • what's the story behind that page?
  • Before anyone submits this as a new story it's been posted before!
  • 1 am PST, it's been posted for 15 minutes, and the damn thing's already /.ed-and no, it's not running on a Mac, at least not according to Netcraft [netcraft.com]... Here's the Google cache [google.com]...
    Regards,
  • Slow news day I guess.... this is just pathetic. Isn't there SOMETHING else going on in the computer world right now?

  • The reasons are obvious! (Score:4)

    by Mr. Flibble ( 12943 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @01:06AM (#341894) Homepage
    Why would someone want to do this?
    (I accept the fact that you are most likely an old style troll, but I shall bite.)

    1) Mobile. It makes your system really easy to move around (ever been to a LAN party?)

    2) Can't complain about air circulation/cooling.

    3) You get dust bunnies in your system? Me too. Now, the dust bunnies are in the right place from the start!

    4) "Uh, Sure dear, I would love to vacuum the house, but I am using it to play Quake right now..."

    5) Its wholesome geeky fun.

    (Sure, people say that this Mac sucks, well, I will have to build a PC with Windows into a large fan, then you could say my system blows.)

  • i know (Score:1)

    by Nima ( 14762 )
    <why>cause we can</why>
  • Mobile. Okay. It has wheels. Sure.

    Air circulation? It's not a shop-vac anymore, it's the casing from a shop-vac. There is no motor, no airflow.
  • Seems like you need to not grouse at Apple and find a service center that knows one end of a screwdriver from the other.

  • I would be neat to do something with the crazy iMac, like turn one of those things into a cube. You can pickup a second hand imac for a few hundred dollars. After that you have a very low heat/cost risc architecture system that would make a fantastic home network server, etc.

    the only problem is that stupid monitor that is attached. (I would love to have something as small as a cube and cheep as a iMac in my closet for MP3 storage, internet sharing, web server and of course distributed.net block crunching. :)




    --------------------
    Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?

  • Nice chassis, but... (Score:3)

    by Master of Kode Fu ( 63421 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @12:57AM (#341899) Homepage
    ...damn, is the fan noisy!
  • He'd put the guts of the shop vac into the G3 case.

  • R2R2? (Score:3)

    by passion ( 84900 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @08:25AM (#341901)

    I wonder if this is how they came up with the idea for R2D2...

  • Not a troll, just imagination deficient...

  • This one takes the cake... (Score:3)

    by jsewell ( 86485 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @12:54AM (#341903)
    /. has posted a lot stupid things people do to computers, but this has got to be the DUMBEST one yet. It completely boggles the mind. I can't begin to imagine WHY someone would want to do this.

    It's so stupid you actually have to admire the guy, for being twisted enough to think it up in the first place, having the balls to do it, and even more balls to admit it, take pictures, and allow someone to post it on the web.

  • yay (Score:1)

    by ceranta ( 86805 )
    okay... so this is some guy who took the innards of the g3 and threw them inside a shop vac?

    WHY YOU THROW CHIP!!!

    --craig
  • Just to be a jerk off... That wide of a display wouldn't be CRT based. It would be flat screen. :)

    ---
    Free, original, comedy MP3s!

  • Well since Windows is infinite crap, this problem can be solved easily!

    Rubbermaid + Windows = Trash
    finite + infinite = finite + infinite

    Windows - Rubbermaid = Trash
    infinite - finite = infinite - finite

    No matter how much you add or subract from an infinite quantity it will always remain infinite! And since we have a seemingly infinite amount of trash sitting in our landfills, trash could be considered infinite. There, I hope this shed some light on the matter (ps: dont flame me for some stupid mistake or flaw, it should be taken as a joke, not fact)
  • I must say, I'm disappointed that he took out the "vac" part of the shop vac. He didn't really need the space, since the fan and power assembly only takes up the very top part of the unit. If he'd left it on, it would be far more useful: spill your snacks, vacuum it up; spill your drink, still vacuum it up, since shop vacs are cool that way; cpu overheats, but it on blow for a few minutes (no need to spend all the time cutting out holes for the fans along the top of the case).
  • I guess you can really say that this system sucks!
  • I think I am going to buy an expensive machine in a case that is an example of elegant industrial design and put the guts in something much uglier and less functional (except the wheels). Plus he ruined a perfectly good vacuum. What's next? Potato Mac? Mac with a Burlap Idaho Potato bag case? Mac Jacket? Kevlar wearable Mac? Mac Bar? Mac that dispenses chips? Mac Truck? Maybe I will dust off my mom's old Mac LC and turn it into a /. phenom. There has to be dozens of more useful or at least more interesting case designs out there. DM
  • Anyone remember "The Black Hole"?
    Remember those 'trash-can' bots they had..
    All he needs to do now is

    Funny how things from the past come back to bite you.


  • Man, do you think Jobs will crush this clone maker too? Or will he just let them clean up???

  • Yeah, but lets not forget laaaaaast time we doubted a prototype mac. "Oh geez, that can't possssssssibly be a real mac, look at it, it is just a cube" One person in particular wrote an entire webpage dedicated to WHY it couldn't be true and he went right down to the physics of it. "There are 3 screws in this picture"..."and only 2 from this angle" Come to find out it was the Mac Cube. I bet he felt stupid. So now I take my fake mac pics a little more seriously.

  • Re:It has to be said... (Score:5)

    by Chagrin ( 128939 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @01:06AM (#341913) Homepage
    You must be living in a vacuum to think something like that. Macs like these clean house.
  • some people have just too much money!
  • a solution to the Cubes heating problems!
  • Well, his G3 Shop Mac probably runs alot better than my recently purchased iMac. Visit http://www.whyihateapple.com for the complete Apple Hardware horror story.
  • This one is fake.

    If you look at the side view, it sports a standard CRT display tube through the colored lexan. The front view, however, shows a TFT flat panel display.

    Normal CRTs don't do very well with a severe aspect ratio. It is hard to get the electrons to the correct place on the screen when the horizontal and vertical distances are dramatically different.
    -----------------

  • My computer sits inside a big metal box in order to shield it from RF interference - it's a big faraday cage.

    In the last picture on the web page, the "Shop Mac" is shown sitting on a desk next to some speakers and a few monitors. I am wondering what havoc the RF from both sources plays with the CPU and system bus?

    One imporovement to the design would be to line the inside of the shop vac housing with aluminum foil. This would greatly help the RF sheilding if it is indeed a problem.
    -----------------

  • Check out the main site [applefritter.com] for more good stuff.

    The PowerMac built into a Smith Corona typewriter case [applefritter.com].

    The toaster modem [applefritter.com] (quite an antique).

    A PowerMac 7600 built into a 1940s Zenith radio case [applefritter.com] (check out the CD-ROM drive!).

    Not to mention this industrial monster [applefritter.com]...

    ASA


    ------------------------------------------------ -- -----------------

  • Maybe I will dust off my mom's old Mac LC and turn it into a /. phenom.

    You will find they already have a perfect use: doorstops.

  • Cool. (Score:3)

    by modraken ( 162541 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @12:45AM (#341921)
    I always said that macs sucked :)
  • Someone has finally harnessed the great sucking power of a Mac for a vacuum! Keep the nozzle away from the family cat and everything should be fine...

    (This is a joke, albeit a bad one. ;)
    ---
    www.stallman.org is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on FreeBSD
  • Except for the small snag that OS X and its apple-created software is not open source...
  • it's not running on a Mac

    As a matter of fact, or at least claimed by the site, it is--although an obscure and obsolete variant of one. The top-level page [applefritter.com] claims that the site is run on an "Apple Network Server" [applefritter.com], nicknamed a "Deep Dish."

    Needless to say, you don't see a whole lot of these. I'm not suprised that: 1) It was slashdotted; they only have a 180Mhz PPC chip, slow even by PPC standards, and 2) Netcraft didn't know what the fuck it was.
  • And here we have a supposed "slashdot veteran" or perhaps just an "internet veteran" calling someone ... "newbie luser scum". I dont know anyone who used the spelling "luser" past their first year on the internet... which means either: 1. Your are a newbie too. or 2. You are a loser who still uses the spelling "luser" and probably "kewl" as well. You quite possibly even consider yourself 313373, and think I should ph34r you for it. Not buying it, and not caring either. Go spank your monkey or something. [CK]: The real CyberKnet has slashdot UID 184349. You'll just have to settle for the imposter.

    ---
  • I use a G3 at work, and mine sucks too.

  • 21 inch iMac (Score:5)

    by erotus ( 209727 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @02:28AM (#341927)
    Personally, I think this mod [applefritter.com]is way cooler. Check it out.
  • This just truly boggles the mind.

    It's like... wondering 'What would happen if I replaced my coffee with ground walnuts?'

    Yes; it makes absolutely no sense!

    Well, I guess this guy is creative to a fault =)

    Me, I would have thought it more interesting to take a G4 Cube and placed it inside, say, a juicer!

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • Isn't there SOMETHING else going on in the computer world right now?

    news.bbc.co.uk [bbc.co.uk] has a story called "Life gets serious for Linux" with a link to the CeBIT technology fair [cebit.de] which is going on in Hannover from the 22nd to the 28th of March.
    --

  • So how do you explain all those "letterbox" tvs I've been seeing in high-end a/v stores for, like, the last decade? Isn't the HDTV on Jay Leno a 16:9 CRT?

    I don't doubt that they are at least more difficult to make, but aren't they widely available nonetheless?

    I'm curious about this issue with CRTs; please elaborate if you could.

  • No EMI/RFI shielding. If I was him I'd line the whole thing with copper mesh (EMI) and/or shielded sound absorption material (RFI).
  • Check out the iRack [marathoncomputer.com], by Marathon Computer. It allows you to rack mount an iMac in 1U of space, sans monitor of course.

    Only problem is, it costs $400 and does not include the guts of the iMac-- you provide those.

    ~Philly
  • So, i guess the vaccum reference is this guy's way of saying that macs really do suck?

    ...i couldn't agree more...
  • Most computers have metal cases with three prong plugs (the third plug keeps the case at earth ground. This increases safety to humans (in the case of a short, the system is grounded-- less electrocution hazard) but more importantly protects the computer from ESD (electro-static discharge).

    I would be less worried about air circulation and more worried about the ESD problems...

    Oh well, you don't have to be crazy to be a computer geek, but it obviously helps....

    // Q:Why don't I become a Windows programmer?
    // A: I like my helf-duplex
    pipe (); //so
    fork (); //you.

  • Yes, I was hoping the vacuum still worked, then you could turn it on and sweep up spills around the work area.

    Has anyone dropped the contents of a Mac (or an overclocked PC) into a refrigerator yet? That would be a great hack if the cooling function was left intact. You could cool the components and have a place to keep drinks in the work area cool. Also, just by opening the door, you'd get easy access to do upgrades.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Y'know, if you wanted something fairly water resistant, and with positive buoyancy, you could do worse than this beastie. Just mount the disk drives and what-have-you a little higher up, and you're golden. It could be useful if you lived on a flood plain or in a sewer, as many people do.

    Seriously though, that's potentially a very robust case, and it brings computer hardware aesthetics one step closer to the R2D2 look, which is bono in se.

  • I agree -- it seems to be fake. Doubt if the product actually exists, but, man, are they good with graphics! I decided to take a look at their portfolio, which has a 'link' that they forgot to link to anything...

    Anyone want to fess up and explain what's going on? I think they're either going to be sued by Apple for releasing information prematurely, or they completely made this up.
    ________________________________________________


  • RubberMaid + Windows = Trash
    Windows - Rubbermaid = Trash

    Electro Magnetic Pulse [antioffline.com]
  • Who's to say it couldn't be a flat CRT? They do exist you know...
  • ...and since someone is going to ask for an example, here ya go: Tau Series PureFlat(TM), Wide-Screen HDTV-Compatible Monitor [panasonic.com]
  • Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. As I mentioned in another post above, witness this flat screen CRT television [panasonic.com].
  • Macintosh: Think Different, But Please Not That Different

    --------------------------------
  • Can I have your G3 case so I can try to squeeze my athlon in there and have it looking all sexy under my desk?? Please??? email me at znu@gmx.net if you think we can cut a deal :-)
  • Proof, once again, that computers and drugs do mix.
  • See also Jacky PC [jackypc.com] for PC "tuning" (In French).
    ----
  • The computer will probably not suffer from it.
    The monitors may suffer from some magnetic fiels if they are not shielded.
    The speakers will probably have some humming.

    ----
  • I feel pity for anyone who has enough time on there hands to do something this stupid.
  • Wish I could find the link (without actually trying hard) but have seen a pictures of a computer built into a large portable box fan, with fan blades still attached. No mention if it fan actually worked.
  • I think this harkens back to a Slashdot poll.

    Anyone else remember: "Appliance I Can't Do Without"? As a refesher the options were:

    TiVo
    Computer
    Microwave
    Vacuum
    Refrigerator
    CowboyNeal
    Television
    Home Stereo

    Most people seemed to think if you had a computer with the right video card, processor cooling device, speakers, and such you could do it all. But there was always the problem of the vacuum. I seem to recall a number of people simply said they had no need for a vacuum (scary!). This guy obviously took the problem to heart, and what a great solution! He even picked the perfect computer because as we all know:

    Mac's suck!!!
  • I think that this is a very good use for both a shop vac and a mac.... GOOD JOB!!!!
  • Mac(k) Trucks already exist. ;-P
  • that has been on the applefridder site for at least a year, i believe that /. has posted something about mac hacks before. old news on a sunday....f-ing perfect

    m.kelley
    www.mkelley.net
    www.geekreader.com
    www.vixol.com
  • I just wanted to say that even though like 60 /.ers posted the "this proves macs suck" joke, I thought each and every one was funny. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying! Or maybe I'm just crying cause I just read 60 really worthless posts.

    Pretty cool hack, particularly so for the wheels.

    -Austinc
  • I didn't even know this was up here :). Glad someone informed me about the new found exposure.

    Just to clear something up the origional G3 case was sold before I created the ShopMac. Actually I got $250.00 for it... So even after the shole conversion I got an origional looking case, and $175.00 in my pocket.

    Thanks for the comments guys, it's cool to see some feedback on my work. Keep em coming...
  • Actually interms of FR problems there isn't as much as you might think. Also the motherboard pegsCPU Heatsink, CD-ROM's and HD are all grounded via a cable from the Power Supply. I did take that into consideration.

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