Forget the Apple Watch—here's the Apple II Watch

PC World ^ | 4/12/15 | Nick Mediati

[markomalley]

The Apple Watch looks to be an impressive piece of gear—it’s sleek and attractive, and offers plenty of interesting and useful features. But if you’re looking for something a little more old-school, might we suggest the Apple II Watch?

The DIY Apple II Watch comes from the mind of Instructables user Aleator777, and it takes design cues from the classic Apple II computer. A bulky, beige, 3D-printed plastic shell replaces the modern metal-and-glass enclosure of Apple’s real-life offering, and a Teensy 3.1 microcontroller acts as the Apple II Watch’s brains.

Aleator777 used a 1.8-inch LCD as the screen, but in true Apple II form, it displays everything in black and green. As for the band, there are no Milanese loops or sport bands here—just a simple beige woven wristband.

[Swordmaker]

Anyone else notice the new Apple Watch app that is automatically (at least for me) downloaded onto your iPhone?

It's part of the iOS 8 upgrade. It's part of the linking mechanism for the Apple Watch iPhone interface.

[amigatec]

I used to have an external drive for a Commodore 64 that you had to slap the top of it sometimes to make it work. My 1999 Dodge pickup works the same way, sometimes the gauges quit working, slap the top of the dash and they work just fine. It's done ever since it was new.

And a friend had a Commodore C64 with a bad power supply that would get hot, we used to get a small pan from the kitchen, fill it with ice, and sit it on top of the PS to cool it down. It would work just fine the ice melted. :)