steampunk laptop

Too much time on his hands: Rich Nagy, aka Datamancer

The project: an HP ZT1000 laptop, modified to look like it was constructed using Victorian-era design and materials. (If you're not familiar with "steampunk" designs, you can get an explanation here.)

Time to complete: approximately two and a half months

Here's a shot of the exterior of the laptop. Beautiful, no?

Here's how Datamancer describes the project:

"This may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It features an elaborate display of clockworks under glass, engraved brass accents, claw feet, an antiqued copper keyboard and mouse, leather wrist pads, and customized wireless network card. The machine turns on with an antique clock-winding key by way of a custom-built ratcheting switch made from old clock parts."

Here's the inside:


The detail on this project is incredible. Check out the brass faces on the keys, and the tiny plastic "gems" placed over the original keyboard LEDs. The F holes are speaker grills.


Video of the winding key being used to turn on the computer:


Pictures and video are courtesy of Datamancer. You can view his page about the steampunk laptop here. He tells me that it took him "about 2 or 2.5 months" to complete the mod, and that "most of those work days were about 10-12 hours."