Laptop in a suitcase

This was a leisure time project that seems to help to get the mind off the more complicated art projects, but still fullfils some of the (neccessary?) need for “creative” work.

What’s the hack? I had (and still have) an enormous box for my computer that served me well over the seven years, but it was a horror to transport it around. When my son bought a new computer he sold me (quite cheaply) his old motherbord, processor and RAM. I only had to add power supply, hard disk and – a suitcase.

First examples of this kind of “hacking” I could see by a media, activist and artistic group from Barcelona / Spain, but it was later told to me that some other hackers use it (Jaromil) and that it was a Russian artist Alexei Shulgin who introduced it to “Europe”.

Within a month or so I combined some old gear (also my seven years’ old computer guts) and made two suitcase computers – a red one and a black one. The two suitcases are extremely cheap ones (no aluminium…) but so far proved to be sturdy enough. The two together measure less than the old box. However I had to get rid of floppy disk (no problem there), cd-burner (hm, I might get an interchangeable USB 2.0 version?) and all but the lowest profile PCI and AGP cards (I kept the modem, since I need it and it fits in).

In future I’ll be on watch for any kind of cheap LCD that would fit in but until that time it’s ok – monitors are less “intimate” than computers – any one will do.