hmmmmmmm.........

If a long coveted cultural icon seems within reach.....

In a form factor of such a scale that it has never been attempted before........

The feasability of the concept is astutely called into question in a forum such as this.........

Inhabited by certifiable mod maniacs such as these my comrades in arms......

High maintenance concerns are determined to the so well founded that.........

Lower maintenance alternatives actually start to sound like work.......

( i don't even wanna think about the smell of some terrariums!)

And even the status as the cultural icon is questioned as passe'...........

Theres only one option left, it boots on, sound the charge, out of the trenches and over the top comrades!

SHOOT FOR KITSCH,

Recipe for a nasty mod:

With assorted plexi and the solvent weld process...
fab an overly thin "display tank" MacAquarium core......
Water only weighs 8 lbs a gallonwhich is _?_ cu in, run the numbers.

Purchase 1 $20 chinzy, NO maintenance tank with assorted plastic fish (with articulated tails), seahorses, 2 really nasty looking plastic "plants", lights, air pump and assorted plastic crap included.

(just like the one next to me now)

Find a pile of assorted other plastic crap to pile into the airspace behind the thin cross section, by traditional engineering estimation process (WAG...ask the student engineer for help quick!),ie. looking at my 20" monitor and hefting my (pretty heavy, i'll change the water & measure *oops.. almost entirely no maintenance* the capacity if you want, there's no documentation at all on hardware for a change!) tank and visual impact of aquatic menagerie, I'd say 3-4" for tank, balance of depth to be backfilled with plastic crud assortment.

Accentuate the almost-but-not-quite-really-close-to-almost-downright-disgusting standard colaration of mock life-forms and available plastic or anything non-biodegradable-so-we'll-try-to-keep-it-out-of-the-landfill-type-stuff that is at hand, with fluorescent paint so that V. Van Gogh would have trouble not barfing when he got load of this thing....

and install black-light.

If it's been done before, let me know, and go with decapitated barbie dolls and defaced wintel equipment in a sort of Toy-Story-Armageddon-in-Seattle motif.

If it hasn't, do it right and Andy Inhatko will be jealous as ****. You better send the pics to MacAddict, the i*****s (Andy excepted of course) on the Mac***** editorial staff will never go for it.

jt

Or you could play with my head by telling me it's never been (in the case that it already has) and that its impossible and wait to see if I'm really idi.......

It's entertaining (maybe not such a good idea in retrospect though) to make/read jokes about getting shock therapy or your brains fried by the 9" BW CRT on early 68k's. The fates OCCASIONALLY dole out doses of "guess it wasn't too smart for me to try that" response conditioning. DON'T COUNT ON IT, even on that long dormant (HASN'T BEEN RUN IN DECADES!)128k that you found in Grandpa's attic. It's NEVER a laughing matter when it comes to any other monitor, COLOR CRT's ARE REALLY DANGEROUS! Have an expert service a monitor that you think might be salvageable, have the same TECH gut the one that's DOA for your MacWhatever! I mean it, ask someone who really knows if you don't believe me, I sure wouldn't try it!

This Army doesn't want any KIA's (KILLED IN ACTION as in DEAD) on the tally sheets.

*sighs and hopes people know he's not kidding at all this time*

*shrugs, looks over at b**t ugly fish swimming in the chinzy tank to the hum of the air bubblingl*

*sighs, envies 'coxy for his restrained eloquence*

*shrugs again*

Ok, play time!

jt

It's playtime?

Not worried about you, figured you'd been around the block a time or two, marchie.

There are impressionable/impulsive prospects for recruitment & active duty out there. Gotta make sure they live long enough to liberate a few 68k's, things quite a few of us take for granted.....
SHOULDN'T BE!

live long and prosper, marchie!

new recruits,
LET'S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE PEOPLE!

You came to the right place for training,

*grins a little*

play time!

jt

*comes back.....puts serious facde back on for reiteration.......*

That's exactly what I was talking about, please elaborate on your first hand experience of a "guess it wasn't too smart for me to do that" response lesson. I'd like to hear it, the Boots NEED to hear it, lessons that I have .......

people make very good conductors...........
and REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD CAPACITORS!
thin wires make cool, but customarily SHORT LIVED filaments.......
filament lifetimes correspond to current, resistance, thickness.........
they burn & die, like people trying to be capacitors, or filaments under just the WRONG conditions for that matter!
but wires don't smell nearly as bad when cooked!

I'll assume that you know the 21' color job is WAY MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE 9" BW TUBE, don't make an @#..............

one of which would definitely be very well DONE! (read DEAD, boots )

trainees, listen up and learn, I'm gonna!

jt

btw: I do graphics, 3d signs & displays and have been known to dabble in the fine arts, sculpture included. Don't dismiss the nasty tank as not being well thought out, and it's been very well previewed (wetware attatched here is low system memory unit w/KA10/FA graphics subsystems). Design is a matter of taste though, those circuits gat fried somewhere along the line, so the project might well thought out, but ill-conceived.

****maniacal grin appears as he swerves back on topic****

*and anticipates a really good war story/lesson*

jt 8-}

*scrolls up to check for spelling errors, looks like a lot of work...*

*looks again....sighs.....so much for restrained eloquence*

*resolves to "endeavor to perservere"*

;-)

What FW said, but an expert's choice of links to, and considered opinions of, tutorials and articles on other sites might be easier, having access to several explanations (pics too maybe) might be more informative (survival account from personal experience would be invaluable).

jt

Search: andy inhatko macaquarium etc. for his howto.....
or look for a link @ macworld's site to his site......
explore links wherever they lead......

report back for mission debriefing:

post the links that you find most helpful
explain why you chose the links that you posted
the guys who take this stuff for granted can fact check your picks
and they report in with their opinions
and suggestions
yadda....yadda......

it's a start.

jt

btw: military organizations strive for coordinated efforts from all levels or.....

Wow! The third time! This means that I must be famous, a legend among the corps!

excessively long post endangering status.............

jt

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Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 18 Jan 2002 07:04:19

*slinks from disheartening experience in concurrent thread, hoping lively discussion of artistic sensibilities will revive his.....*

HEY, WHAT HAPPENED OVER HEAR? WHO KILLED OFF THE THREAD, WHY AREN'T WE
BACK ON TOPIC BY NOW! *sighs........*

I only said to go crazy carefully........
I wouldn't wish sanity on my plastic fish!

COME BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!

jt :-(

That's the same I'd heard - but also to stop whatever you're using to do the discharge from arcing to the contact under the cap, and welding its little self there :D.

What I'd like to see is a tank/terrarium that uses the original glass from the front of the crt, adapted as the front of the tank. I know this would take quite a lot of work - perhaps breaking the neck of the tube, and having someone experienced with glasswork do the cutting/polishing needed. It may not even be possible.

(yes, crt's are under vacuum and I know they have the phosphor coating - but it does come off :D. when I was little I broke dozens of them for fun cos my father was insane and often brought home broken televisions to 'fix'. he'd always throw them out - but anyway... while the neck breaks so easily, the front takes a lot of work. a lot of LOT of work. Like, hammers just send them flying across the ground with a chip out of them kind of work! :D.

I have a pet mouse who's getting bored of his surroundings, and a Plus with a dead screen here...

dana

IIRC, that discharge tool was for the original Mac and the Fat Mac. The official documents say that you're supposed to ground the tool to the ground lug on the case, but it's very easy to ground it to the chassis by accident. One problem: the motherboard is grounded to the chassis, so if you discharge to the chassis, the motherboard is toast. The resistor is there so that, even if you do discharge to the chassis, there's less of a discharge across the motherboard and so it will be undamaged.

The problem with this tool is that it didn't discharge the CRT completely all the time; it was advised to follow it up with the old screwdriver-and-alligator-lead tool. The newer discharge tools made by Apple starting with (I think) the Plus and still made now have no resistor.

(Of course, people, correct me if I'm wrong...)

GORDOOM
Commander, Academic Operations Reserve
(University of Toronto, St. George Campus)
total Macs liberated: 14
(as of January 7, 2002)

My dad does leaded glass and some of the techniques/tools I've seen him employ might be useful. If you can't use the glass from the original 9" because of the tight curves, you could start with a larger Apple Monitor and scribe/chip the waste away with (special?) pliers. Dad's also got a cute little diamond blade powersaw for cutting shapes.

When I was little, I was insane and, at the dump with my buddies, used many .22 long rifle cartridges to ventilate crt's from various distances. Maybe this insanity thing skips every other generation, dad's ok, but he and my son both think I'm still insane.

jt

p.s. all the discharging instruction/tool specs I recall included the resistor trick and discharging into the chassis of the Mac. I'll try to find some links a/o paper doc references for you, Marchie. Maybe a good bibliography will provide additional content for your manual.

I thought of that - but with the face of the monitor and the glass in that area being so incredibly thick, I wasn't sure it would be a good way to go about it. Some of the b&w television tubes I've seen had nearly 2 inch thick glass around the tube front!

quote:

---

When I was little, I was insane

---

or perhaps heat... run around the edge with a gas torch then kaching... cold water... or something.

quote:

---

...etch the menubar burn-in onto the inside.

---

This one is right up your alley, a plexi bending kit (heating element/wire) would be LOTS safer & easier, btw
http://homepage.mac.com/torgo/Two-Page%20MacQuarium.html

The full museum page is excellent, but will probably take FOREVER to load on dialup, but click before mealtime and make sure you "open link in new window" for details:
http://www.theapplecollection.com/Collection/MacAquarium/

?????........* not sure who I am by now *
ciao!

if needed/wanted individual links to these Maquaria can be added.

Not iff the wall outlet is turned OFF, the only reason I leave the power plug in is so the case/PSU is grounded.

I have a slight prob with this, I'll get to in a minute.

But others may need some clarification on this topic.

If you need to physically turn a switch on and off, you are useing what is termed Hard Power. When working in equipment like this, keep it plugged into a grounded outlet (a real one, not a Ground to Neutral, see distinctions in previous post)

If you are useing anything where you can start the computer fromt he keyboard, you are useing Soft Power and you Never Never Never Ever work inside them plugged into a wall. You should plug them into proper grounding equipment, like a ground mat that plugs into the ground of the outlet, but not the current carrying wires.

The reason I have issue with useing an outlet with a switch, is when you have a grounded to neutral outlet. The neutral wires run thru the switch, and you can;t be guaranteed that you are "safe" when the switch is turned off.

Now, with all that said...

My house is NOT grounded properly, and I use un grounded outlets with my computers, but never when repairing them. I have one grounded outlet in the kitchen I use.

Although soon, I'll be grounding my particular ciruit to a ground rod (the ground needs to not be frozen)

~Marchie

~Chaplain Marchie
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
Holder of the Compact Mac Stick of Justice, with Explodeing CRT head

jt

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 10 Feb 2002 14:45:53

Desktop on tank links:
http://homepage.mac.com/torgo/MacQuarium%20Plus.html
http://homepage.mac.com/torgo/MacQuarium%20Images/Two-Page%20MacQuarium%20Main.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/torgo/MacQuarium%20Images/MacQuarium%202.jpg

Terrarium:
http://terrarium.geekvoice.net/

jt_