Orion's Prophecies

Rotten Apple

What is quickly turning into my favorite christmas present is the ipod that failed it's regular test of rectilinear motion. It was dropped from a motorcycle at 25 MPH. Dead Screen, Dead Hard drive.

Prolouge
Popped it open, poked around a little, poked around online. Decided I wanted to try to get it working again. Dillema: ipods are evil. Having really good friends is such a huge key in life "Sera: hacked ipods arent ;)" Is it any wonder I like her as much as I do?

I was going to go with a Seagate hard drive to replace the dead one, but after conversing with Reid and webbing some more, decided I would try going the CF / Microdrive route with it. Waiting for that adapter to come, his attempt wasn't successful. He's got a dead controller. As I wait for the adapter to arrive, I fixed the screen. The kits are all over ebay, it's a cakewalk. I should hope we don't need pictures of a new screen here.

I was looking at the outside of the case, white and metal just like every other one, only with some scuffs, dents, tire marks. It's character, but not enough. Inspiration is a strange thing.
Back in my college days [H]ardOCP was a regular part of my day, reading all the updates staying on top of emerging hardware, not that I could afford any of it. When the G4 macs came out, they took one, and did a total mod on it. Their Rotten Apple. Bleeding edge x86 electronics stuffed in the apple case and givin a wicked paint job.

I hate to steal the name, because I admire them a great deal, and there's a limit to what I can mod inside an ipod. But, I haven't thought of anything better.

This is my Rotten Apple. This is its story.

In the Beginning...
I'll dispense with the standard shots and dismantling. They all look the same

Apples aren't white....
Same of you may have already guessed what's coming with the tape. I wanted to paint between the white and the clear of the cover, but they weren't coming apart easily enough to be worth the effort. The original thought was royal to deep blue, 2 white racing stripes like a mustang. I couldn't find any pinstriping tape to do that with and by the time I realized I could have done it with the stuff I did use, I wasn't redoing it. I already spent way too much time working on that part. This has more character anyway.

The click wheel was first up, as it was going to be the easiest part. Woodgrain. It looks really neat in places you don't expect it. My truck's getting that as soon as I find some good vinyl, but that's for another time.

...They're green or red
I was going to buy the paint, then I remembered I had some Mystify paint. (Now Mirage) Green to dark red/orange, I didn't care that much. I figured it would look cool. I didn't know what I was in for.

Pictures don't do it justice. And you know if I'm using pictures as bad as some of them, that's the best shot there was to show color. That last one on the side showed some trasition. The black button has been replaced with electric tape untill I paint the button. The screen section isn't cracked. That part was covered untill the final clear coat went on, and that was a fairly heavy coat. I have no intention of trying to hide or remove it. It's a good reminder of its history.

Pause for life

The button has now been painted, and the woodgrain redone in favor of a darker colour and vertical orientation. The pad had to be superglued to the case as there was no other way of holding it in once it was reassembled. It had some sticky holding it in ther eoriginally, but was baked up by the hard drive. (that's right kiddies every time you push a button you're pressing on your hard drive.)

Out with the old...
The old drive was a 60 gig toshiba pos that couldn't handle a lousy fall. Going in currently is a Seagate 8GB microdrive. It's a refurb unit, and was dirt cheap. Works nicely too. To use this you need to get an adapter off ebay to hook it to the 1.8" drive interface. The pins fit, but they don't work the same way. Plan ahead, these all ship from asia. There are thoughts of going to CF solid state, but I'll wait on prices for a little while. 16GB $70, 32GB $150 right now.

The eagle eyed will notice a jumper is gone between the first and second pictures. The pins too. Funny thing really....when you closed the case, the pins hit the back of the metal case. Grounding jumpers this way is bad. Got out the soldering iron and popped the pins out, and shorted the connection on the back side of the board. The blue piece went too. It was somehow causing problems, and has been replaced with a few pieces of anti-static foam.

Cover your ass...
This is where it all really falls apart...I've now painted the back twice and I'm still not happy with the results. The first time the paint peeled off while removing the stripes. The second time went better, but just doesn't meet my quality standards.

I used a different process the second time, but won't go into details since it sucks. I also went to the trouble of doing the little odd pieces of plastic that stick through the case. Silver ink and black nail polish. Had I silver nail polish I would have used that too.

"Mine doesn't do that"
During the testing phase, I found the CF adapter has a small red activity LED on it. I thought this would be neat to see, so I measured carefully, and drilled a #58 hole directly over the top of it. The hole was sealed with clear paint, and works rather well.

At long last...

What you cant see there is the screen has a funky pixelation to it from the clear coat on top. It's together and it works exactly as it should.

Paradox
Now it looks kickass outside, but it sounds like shit. I had always discriminated ipods for being ipods. Now I get one, try it out, and find that they really do sound like crap. I'd expect that kind of sound quality from a cheap unit, but not one like this. Shame on you apple. My other problem is that you can't drag and drop files onto it. Why? again, apple sucks. Proprietary interfaces mean proprietary controls, and they get to control you. I used songbird to put the music on there, it's just a little buggy being version 0.4.
So if you are audiophile, or wanna be, you need to get something better. My cowon players have only ever impressed me. So it's got issues, and I probably won't use it, but end up giving it away. Will I still repaint the back? Absolutely. If I'm going to to it, I may as well do it right.

What's in a name...
Songbird wanted me to name my unit. After careful consideration, rotten apple is what it is, not who it is, I found one well suited. In keeping with my habit of naming all my computers after stars in Orion, I decided it will share the name of the tip of Orions Sword: Hatsya

SongBird