MagPi the official Raspberry Pi magazine website has featured an interesting homage to Apple Mac computer this week on its blog, created by ex-Apple software engineer John Calhoun. The unique build is powered by a Raspberry Pi 3 mini PC and fitted with an 5.83 inch e-ink display. Named the SystemSix the computer as a modern homage to the System 6 operating system released 31 years ago.
To learn more about the build and even create your very own jump over to the official Engineers Need Art projects page where full details and links to everything you need have been made available via the S6 link below.
“To be clear, this is not an interactive application. It looks like a computer display you could click on or touch the screen of, but it is quite static — only displaying your calendar events and the weather forecast in a retro, computer-like interface. The source code is written in the Python scripting language and is available on my GitHub page.The display stand is laser-cut from 3mm acrylic.
I used a strip heater to put the single bend in the acrylic so it would stand up (leaning slightly back). The Raspberry Pi and e-ink display are mounted from behind. If Raspberry Pi 3’s were available, you could build the thing for roughly $100 USD.”
SystemSix Mac features :
• If you configure it to point to a public calendar it will fetch the next six calendar events and display them (see below, the events are the folder names in the window in “list view”).
• Configure your latitude and longitude in the settings and it will fetch the local weather forecast (see below, being displayed in the Scrapbook).
• In the evening SystemSix displays the current phase of the moon (see below, looking like a “desk accessory” in vintage-Mac parlance).
• The trash icon is displayed “full” on the day of your choice (for me it’s Monday, to remind me to take the trash to the curb for Tuesday pickup).
