Customer Reviews

62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer: (And Other Discarded Electronics)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first few pages contain information useful for a "new to electronics" person--things like resistor color code and what to do with capacitors.

While there is a temptation to consider this a manual for electronic scavengers, I think it works on a couple of deeper levels.

First, it opens the door to electronics as an art form; you can take old parts and create something that doesn't use electricity at all. You can make things that are useful or just interesting. All things don't have to have a practical function--or be beautiful. Conversation pieces are good for--conversation-- (something we may have to work harder at as face to face communication is replaced by electronic gizmos).

Second, this book makes us think about all the good stuff that we throw away just because it gets erratic or outmoded.

To sum it up, this is a good book for the artist, for the electronic beginner or the person concerned about trashing things rather than finding a new purpose.

After being told for many years "what are you going to do all that stuff" I found an answer in this book. I have been in electronics since 1970 in high school and have "collected more than my share of items "needed to be fixed". This book makes a step towards the answers. Many of the "projects" are silly, but I guess that is the point. IT CAN ALWAYS BE USED. Turns out it is a great coffee table book for the geek in me.

This book is such a fun read! I purchased it for my mother because it looked very interesting. The author is whitty and very creative. We keep it on the coffee table and it's quite a great conversation piece! I'd highly recommend it.

I bought this book for my husband's birthday. He works on computers for a living and loves to do little projects so I thought it would be perfect for him :) The book is nice with a lot of different ideas in it, but there are too many that are useless. I do understand that when making things out of a dead computer you probably won't really be making a lot of useful things, but I just thought it would have more guy oriented cool projects in it. Not to sound sexist or anything, but making projects from a dead computer really seems more like something a guy would do (at least a much higher percentage), though I'm sure there are girls out there that do it too. So, being able to make sparkly trinkets for a cell phone just doesn't seem too appealing LOL ;) All in all, I wish there were more useful projects in the book and that it was a little less "go green" which in this circumstance seems to produce junk :( My husband has yet to make anything from the book ideas, it's been 1 month since his birthday...that is perhaps a review in itself.

I got this book as a gift for my married son. I went through and made comments on the various projects. It is a lovely book with practical, attractive projects.

Note: my son's official job title is "Network Technology Specialist." This book was made just for him.

This book has just the right level of detail to inspire you to do cool things with (what are now ubiquitous) dead computers. What better way to recycle than to make practical things - or even objects of art?

This book was super useful and has a lot or projects that I want to try. Anyone with old electronics cannot live without this book.