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  • Bloom County's Banana Jr 6000 lives on as a fantastic case mod

    by 
    Kelly Guimont
    Kelly Guimont
    10.26.2010

    If you're too young to remember it, the Banana Jr 6000 was a thing of beauty that appeared in the comic strip Bloom County, which used to run in these things we called newspapers. (You can find out more about newspapers on Wikipedia and by asking your older relatives.) To this day, Bloom County still cracks me up, and I can quote you more of those strips word for word than is probably healthy. Anyway, Bloom County featured a character/computer called the Banana Jr 6000. I loved him so. He made his grand debut just about the time that I got interested in the machines made by another fruit-named computer company. He was a clever little television worshipper who taught me that Dan Rather was a god, tequila hallucinations are to be avoided, and poor translations are hilarious. Eventually he strolled off into the sunset, and I always wondered how things went for him after that. At one point he was threatened with having his memory chips put into programmable toaster ovens, but thankfully that never came to pass. Instead, John from the RetroMacCast took his love of Bloom County and some free time and built his own Banana Jr 6000. It is a glorious thing to behold. He posted a few progress shots on his Ning blog, and getting to see it take shape is fun to watch. Get a good look at the gallery for the finished product and see if that last photo doesn't remind you of something. This is the sort of case mod that I love most. It's done with such care and attention to detail. It helps that it includes something I love (like that Millennium Falcon/Mac mini case mod from back in the day), but really, anyone who puts this sort of time and effort in deserves all the accolades they can get. I adore this case mod, and I love even more that it can actually be used with current software since there's a mini inside. I give this one four Basselopes. Thanks to exiledsurfer for the tip!