I found the gutted case of a compact Mac of some sort. I think I paid $20 for it.
I then headed to some local home improvement store to find a piece of lighting diffusion cover for a drop ceiling, as well as a nightlight and some switches.
Over to the Salvation Army thrift store for a cheap lamp to harvest the lampshade and harp.
A couple of hours later and this was my Frankenstein creation.
The lamp on top worked by pushing a button I installed on the back of the Mac. Inside the Mac was a shoddily installed nightlight that softly illuminated the "display". The photo here is the Mac Lamp in my parents' basement about a year after I got home from college.
I eventually kept it on my desk at work for a couple of years. Sadly, someone thought it would be better off in the garbage. It went missing during my week off for my wedding. The ad agency I was working at was consolidating two buildings into one. My lamp mysteriously disappeared during the move.
Not that I would have a place for it today, but I guess it saved me the pain of throwing it away when I no longer had room for it. Or maybe that someone saved my house from burning down.
Anyway, I figured I'd share one of the things I did to maintain sanity during college.
