If you’re under the impression that your iPhone isn’t a sexy enough piece of technology while not give it a little oh-la-la-la with a bespoke corset. Instant steampunk?
What do you do when you want to read steampunk text adventures on something bigger than your iPod? Wait to buy the new Apple iPad?
Of course not.
You pull out the old Hewlett Packard HP320LX palmtop that’s been gathering dust in the cupboard. The 4MB palmtop hails from 1997 and ran on the failed operating system Windows CE 1.0. Useless, you say? Obsolete you say? Not with a 19th century makeover.
That’s what this alaskan steampunker did, throwing in a $3 leather case to complete the look.
- WANTED -
YOUR STEAMPUNKED TECH
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Coming via technabob, the Frankenstein-inspired Eye-Pod is a fully functional 1st generation ipod nano which can be worn by a leather wrist strap or mounted on its speaker base, complete with its own Victrola horn. A retractable USB cord is hidden away in the base and you can choose tracks by manipulating its optic-control.
Remember those old VHS video cases that were designed to make your tapes look like high-brow books on the bookshelf. Well here’s the 21st century equivalent. The nattily-titled Book Book disguises your MacBook as a leather-bounded hardback. Throw away your slick, modern neoprene case and slip the laptop within the Book Book’s vintage trappings. No-one will ever suspect you’re carrying a grand’s worth of kit under you arm plus your pride and joy will be safe from scratches and scrapes. Each book is hand-distressed meaning that no two volumes are ever the same.
Instant steampunkery. Of sorts. And just in time for the iPad.
Now, steampunk purists will balk at this post as the subject hails from the 1920s (it should proabably be classed as dieselpunk, but lets not go there right now.)
Inventor Frederick R. Burch filed the patent for the Snow Motor vehicle on 27 November 1920. Six years later the January edition of Time magazine that the design had been taken up by Snow Motors Inc, a new subsidery of Detroit Motors. The machine, which could reach speeds of between six to eight miles per hour, was said to be able to handle the deepest snowdrifts thanks to a Fordson tractor power-plant mounted of two revolving cylinders instead of wheels.
The following silent demonstration film, found via intonarumori, shows the beast in action.
The Snow Devil
Over time, the vehicle became known as the Snow Devil and visitors can see an example at the Hays Antique Truck Museum in Woodland, California (shown right – picture courtesy of Wikipedia). This particular example used to battle the snow of the the Truckee area of the California Sierra Nevada Mountains to make sure that the US mail got through.
If you fancy building your own, Burch’s original patent can be found here.
