Friday, October 13, 2006

Steampunk Laptops and Horseback Shorthand

Earlier today,I stumbled across this site, which while in Japanese has several pictures of this wonderful machine:



Now, I'm not sure if this is a movie prop or some actual working prototype of a steampunk laptop. But, I am sure that it looks like something from the movie Brazil and that it is absolutely wonderful. I've got an obsession with stuff from the early 1900's, and love how this draws so heavily on it, with a classic typewriter keyboard and even a morse key by the mouse.

In addition to that discovery, I also had a coworker forward this link to me. It's for a writing style called Groote. Groote is apparently a short hand developed by an aid to a Dutch general, who needed to develop a form of shorthand that allowed him to take notes while riding on horseback. Awesome.

EDIT TO ADD: A coworker said that he read a site that stated that the laptop above is an actual functioning laptop. Which makes it Double Rad™.

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