The Cowtown Computer Congress

The space is really coming together, and last night looked like I expect many nights will look as we prepare to open the space 24/7 for makers, hackers, and tinkerers to collaborate with one another. It was cool to see some toys, projects and brainstorming already underway at our underground lab.

It was retro-computing night, apparently. This is my Zenith ZWL-184-97 “SuperSport”. It’s rocking an upgraded CPU (8086 with 8087 co-processor) at 8MHz, a 20MB built-in HDD and a 4-greyscale CGA monitor.

Victor tore into his Apple //e. He feared that the drive had been “eating” disks, so he took to it with Everclear. One drop for the read head. One shot for Victor. Two drops for read head. One, Two shots for Victor. No, he didn’t drink it.

The ultimate test: Oregon Trail! Success!

Nekkid Apple pr0n:

Someone put a license plate frame on the plate I donated to the space.

And hevnsnt brought in the LED banner

… then Jestin defaced it…

Billy Crook’s Remote-camera robot was a big hit. The camera mounted on the claw transmits audio and video back to the visor being held in the background.

A Robot’s eye view:

Arduino hacking

An old rack-mount modem bank, repurposed as an LED display project.

This robot is controlled by an R/C car remote and uses normal (albeit slightly modified) R/C servos. It’s designed to fit inside a typical hamster ball and then you can stroll around. The battery pack bracket hangs from a second servo, so steering is handled by changing the center of gravity. Sorry, no camera attached to this one.

Originally posted at HiR Information Report