Mechanical Memory Key stores your data with the precision of an Antide Janvier timepiece
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Jun 8th 2009 11:24PM
posted Jun 8th 2009 11:24PM
Listen up, steampunkers: Have you been having a hard time finding an appropriate USB thumb drive to wear on a gold chain next to your pocket watch? Artype's 16GB Mechanical Memory Key is a handcrafted beaut, with materials that include Purpleheart for the case and twenty-six rubies. When this device is drawing USB power it glows green from beneath the gears, taking you back to your days as a hacker during the reign of Queen Victoria. Sadly, the device pictured above has already been sold, but at $165 a pop we're sure this particular artisan has plenty more of these guys in the works. Two more glamor shots for you after the break.
[Via Boing Boing]
[Via Boing Boing]
What transfer speed did they have back in that age?
Depending on the gearage, anywhere between 1:1 and 1:5
60 seconds per minute?
looks like an almond.
That's pretty sweet!
The first one is damaged..
Can you find it?
AHAHAHAH marvelous!
I'm not going to lie that looks intense.
Would be cooler if gears turned while reading/writing.
Would be cooler with apple logo.
Agreed but that would require a motor which means that you would have a magnet right next to your memory.
Not a problem with flash mem its is electronic not magnetic.
It wouldn't be a problem to put in a micro motor to drive the gears. The USB port provides enough juice for that. However, you wouldn't be able to leave the gears exposed as it is now, or there would be tons of problems, like getting something stuck in them while they're moving, getting something stuck in them while they're *not* moving, shifting the gears out of position, etc. etc. You'd have to change it to have a clear acrylic cover over the gears, and that would increase cost and size (and complexity) significantly. You'll also have to actually put some thought into gear choice and placement... if you look closely the gears for this one don't actually mesh together at all.
Wha'd be cooler would be if it could store 16GB mechanically in the gears. No go on that one either though.
StammesOpfer,
I would have thought it would... they call it Electro-Magnetism for a reason, right? Magnetic fields alter electronic pathways.
On another note, right now, it's just some steam punk pile of poop... they would have won some serious award if they made the USB drive round or square and made it into a real chronometer. Watch, for those that don't know what that means. Heck, I wouldn't mind a pocket watch that had a USB drive in it.
@iK: Well, that's a little unrealistic. However it would be really cool if they did make a working USB thumb drive using gears that stored, say, 16 bytes. (If you store data with gear position, say a single little gear could store 16 different values perhaps represented by binary black/white coloured dot sets on the flat part of the gear, you need 32 little gears to store those 16 bytes.)
Of course, technically this would be a bit silly since (a) 16 bytes is not much use to anyone, (b) it would have to somehow simulate the rest of the filesystem since filesystems don't fit in 16 bytes, (c) the electronics on this thing would obviously be doing a lot more real work than the gears would.
But it would still be pretty neat. :) And, actually, might have an educational purpose - just to show how incredible it is that electronics can store so much data in such a tiny space.
I think I seen Wyatt Earp with one of these things.
A gentleman's flash drive.
If the gears don't move, what's the point?
To look ridiculously badass, of course.
nice. very, very nice.
I think all of my flash drive based dreams came true.
I might actually buy one, it's depressing that I'm even considering it, but GEARS!
am I the only one to think... 165$ holy crap that is less than I expected!
Not saying I would buy one, but when I started reading the article I expected it to be one of those usual 'luxury' products that don't bother to advertise their price.
Well it's about $150 more than a regular 4gb flash drive so...
@Badger_badger_badger: and yet, the price isn't that far off from the current prices of 32GB flash drives...
Well, not me. If the gears moved, I would think it worth the $165. But just as decoration, I dont think its worth much more than a regular 16Gb USB drive. But everyone is entitled to there own opinion. After all, value of art is a subjective quality.
Well... as I said, I don't exactly plan on buying one! I was just shocked that the price wasn't somewhere in the neighbourhood of 500++. 165 for a 16 gig usb that was handcrafted with such detail... that isn't too unreasonable.
I thought exactly the same thing. I was going to guess 400-600.
Very nice craftmanship
I would have figured it to be significantly more expensive. At that price, I can see myself owning one of those in the not so distant future.
Wow! This is something Robert Conrad would have had in the TV show The Wild Wild West. NOT the Will Smith version. Robert Conrad pants were much tighter.
In September of 1965, a new television show hit the air on Friday nights on CBS, and in the process confused those who attempted easy categorization. Was it a Western? Was it a spy thriller? Perhaps it was a SciFi fantasy show...
was he black?
This is the type of USB key the Dos Equis guy would have.
"I don't always use sneakernet, but when I do, I prefer a ridiculously overpriced pseudo-mechanical walnut memory stick. Stay porny, my friends."
-jp
lol finally something to do with all those spare mechanical watch parts I have from breaking all of my mechanical watches =(
Where do you hang it from?
why would you spend so much just to save your files?
with the cap on, it looks like a pinched off turd.
adven2rous, have you been eating watches again?
DO WANT.
i wd probably get one if they lower the price just a bit :[