By Anthony King
Amidst the
announcements at Macworld and CES there was a small one that you might have
missed. What with the Apple drama
playing out and Palm throwing a “Hail Mary” with the Pre, who can blame
you? In early January MacMod
announced the 2008 Mod Of the Year.
If this is the
first time you’ve heard of MacMod, just imagine a community full of creative
tinkerers and you’ll get the idea. Sometimes members showcase their new icon sets, at other times, entire
computer cases are fabricated to create a custom Mac.
Co-founder Jacob
Thomason credits the Challenge with bringing the Mac community some of the most
creative and well-known modifications ever created. Remember the Millenium Falcon Mac mini? It was built for the Challenge. Ever heard of the Modbook®? The creator of the iTablet modification
helped Axiotron create the design of the Modbook® nearly two years after his
mod won Mod of The Year.
Each year the modifications
have grown more innovative. 2008
was no exception, and for the first time in the Challenge, a software
modification won Mod of The Year. There were 19 entries into the challenge and you can see all of them by
pointing your browser over to MacMod.com. Based on the final judging, here’s the top 5 finalists.
iLeopard on Pre-AGP
MacMod member Jimjamyahauk: “My mod challenge was to get Leopard running on the old Beige G3,
B&W G3 (with G4 upgrade) and Yikes! G4 computers and ended up getting it
running on a PowerMac 8500! Many
people had successfully installed retail Leopard onto AGP-based G4s well below
the 867Mhz speed threshold – but no one had got any pre-AGP mac to boot.”
iPhone Custom
MacMod member Paul Knight: “Since the
debut of the iPhone I thought it needed a bit more sparkle and wow. Changing
the color through paint was out of the question due to durability issues, I
wanted to create something special…Anyone who knows anything about metal
plating knows that while gold plating aluminum is possible, it is really
scrappy and wears off really easily. This wasn't a viable solution. After a lot
of research and analysis of the iPhone hardware itself I came across an
interesting technology, TiN.”
MacMidi
MacMod member Richard Hunt: “My old
PowerBook has led a tough life. I bought it a few years ago with the screen
hanging off (broken hinges). Having successfully repaired the hinges and
resprayed it (the paint was peeling of the Titanium) it was as good as new.
However, after a few years of hard use everyday, it eventually developed a
screen fault and collected some new knocks and scratches. It seemed a shame to
throw out such a tough old machine because of a screen problem. So I decided to
join the case modding fraternity.”
Xbox G4
MacMod member Phil
Herlihy: “This Powerbook modification is actually a spin-off of another
project….I’m an avid broken Xbox 360 collector, trying to develop strategies
for hacking and repairing once-thought dead consoles. I’ve got plenty of empty
360 cases around with nothing to do but gather dust. When it hit me, The
PowerBook logic boards are tiny. Perfect for one of those cases. Even better
with PSU integration.”
Bricked Mac
MacMod member Rpster: “I was reunited
with Lego bricks with a recent trip to Legoland California. I fell in love all
over again and began searching for ‘the’ project to really get myself back into
Lego building. After some quick searches I found that there have been many Lego
PCs built, most notably Nathan Sawaya with his Maximum Lego PC, and more
recently Luke Andersen’s Black Linux Box. The only Lego Mac I could find was
this tiny Powerbook 5300 powered machine. I felt it wa time for a s ‘real’ Lego
Mac, one that would strike fear in all the Lego PCs & Macs before it.”
Editor: What better way is there to celebrate 25 years of the Mac?
