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ITASOR

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
I've always disliked lights in computers, especially the PCs that are over bloated and over flowing with lights...they're just ugly. I also hate the cases that have a clear window. I can see how some people like them, but to me they're ugly.

Now putting lights in a Mac to me seems useless (which it is...) and ugly, but, I wanted to try it on my G4 anyway.

Previously these 2 mini Antec USB light things were underneath it touching the bottom front handle so it glowed yellowish-green.

Today, I took the zip drive out, mounting the mic module thing on the speaker, attached the two lights inside the zip bay, and put the front bezel back on. The USB cord for the lights goes out a PCI slot and plugs in the back until I get my USB PCI card with internal port. It looked like garbage with the zip drive missing because you could see right into the slot and see the lights and wires clear as day...so...

I took some frosted blue plastic, cut a small strip, taped it behind the zip opening (it matches the powermac color!) and here I am! I also put some clear plastic behind it. Looks really good from the front, since the color is so close.

Here's a video of something I made really quick in Garageband playing. It works better with this kind of music, but also does work well enough with normal songs.

http://itasor.com/macs/powermac_lights.mov (Quicktime required to play).

I took that video with my iSight, so it's a little laggy and not very good quality...it looks a LOT better in real life! I mean a LOT.

Anyone else have any Macs with lights stuff to share? The more I play with these lights the more I like the look of it!

Ryan
 

ITASOR

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
Haha, thanks, I think the coolest part is how good the cover I made for the zip slot looks. :cool:

I need to get a usb PCI card with internal port so I don't have to run the cord for the lights out of a PCI slot...and it takes up my USB port (I don't have anything besides the apple kb/m on there anyway, so it's ok, it shares the printer/HD/etc. through my other computers).
 

Shadow

macrumors 68000
Feb 17, 2006
1,577
1
Extremly creative, but I just don't like it very much. Dont get me wrong, I think the idea is great but I dont think it is very good. Yes I am hard to please :p
 

ITASOR

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
ChrisG said:
Extremly creative, but I just don't like it very much. Dont get me wrong, I think the idea is great but I dont think it is very good. Yes I am hard to please :p

:p To tell you the truth, I don't like it very much either. It's fun for a little while, but annoying lights flashing all the time isn't. It also completely destroys the cleanliness/crisp of the mac on the outside.

However, I think I'm going to leave them in there because you can't see them when they're turned off, and I don't need the ZIP drive...ever...My blue cover for the slot is also nicer looking than the black one of the zip drive, so I'm just going to leave it.
 

rickvanr

macrumors 68040
Apr 10, 2002
3,259
12
Brockville
Do they not teach there, their and they're in school anymore? :p

Cool idea, it looks neat, but I'm guessing it gets old by about the second song.
 

diddy

macrumors 6502
May 13, 2003
258
0
Las Vegas, NV
This is how my G5 looked for a while. :rolleyes:

I, too, feel terrible.
 

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