A Real Myst Linking Book

[KingVamp]

Which is another Myst iteration I don't see the appeal in...

TBF, these games was never on my radar.

 

[Qtis]

A collectable item for someone. Just like people buying old FF games for hundreds of $. Each to their own I guess.

I have the game (Masterpiece Edition IIRC), but haven't gotten around to actually start playing the game till the end. Maybe some day..?

 

[cocomonk22]

Very impressive work, though I was more into Return to Zork than Myst. It may have been better to use the original book as reference to create a replica instead of tearing apart the original book though.

 

[Coconuts 500]

Such naive comments in here.

This is art. You don't sell a painting for the cost of the canvas and the paint used.

The price is symbolic. Look beyond materialism.

 

[Rydian]

Such naive comments in here.

This is art. You don't sell a painting for the cost of the canvas and the paint used.

The price is symbolic. Look beyond materialism.

So this is art too?
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

I mean it's assembling pre-built computer parts (desktop parts or mobile parts) into a specific case (computer case or a hollow book) and selling the package to you, optionally with specific preloaded software (OS/office/game software, or Myst).

Same concept as this project, right?

So they should feel free to charge an extra $10,000 for their machines (above part/labor cost) and not get mocked, right?

 

[ii-c-going]

Something seems familiar...

 

[T-hug]

If I were a billionaire gaming collector that would be mine. Along with that Zelda nes cart not long ago.

 

[RIUM+]

Hey there! I made this. I bothered to register an account here because this is the most negative, insulting thread about my book on the entire internet. I mean that 100% sincerely, both threads that appeared on 4chan were nicer than this one. Great going.

It's not immediately obvious in that video but the hollow inside the book is just 12cm/4.7". Compare this to even the expert-of-miniaturisation Apple, whose Mac Mini is 17cm/6.7" - and that doesn't have its own internal screen or power source. Hobbyist ARM-based computers can be shrunk down like a breeze (as evidenced by the many ARM dev boards), but hobbyist X86 miniaturisation isn't so easy. The parts in this book are a mix of custom PCBs, hand-soldered boards, custom-ordered parts and aeronautical-grade components. In this power & size category, the motherboard isn't a slow, obsolete thing - 6 months after I purchased it, it's still almost the top of the line system available for *any* amount of money. The CPU & GPU are from different ultra-low-power bins that Intel doesn't sell to the general public, so the system can be entirely passively cooled.

Using a phone or a tablet wasn't an option - I was trying to replicate the look of the linking book from the games *exactly*. Finding a screen with the dimensions, resolution & power consumption that ticked all the right boxes took me two years (and if you think it's too small, it's still larger & higher-resolution than the iPhone 3GS & people don't have trouble gaming on that). You can play Myst & Riven on an iPhone these days, sure. But those versions have had their resolutions reduced from the original PC versions, the iPhone screen is the wrong size and it's also the completely wrong aspect ratio. It doesn't look right as a linking panel image. Additionally, this book plays all the Myst games - even the latest 3D ones. Which is why I had to stay with an X86 design.

For what it's worth, not all old books are inherently valuable just because they're old. Old tax books are a good example. The book Cyan used is basically a 135-year-old cross between a Reader's Digest & a gossip magazine, and most of the time it only carries snippets of the articles which makes it even less useful. Local distributors collected unsold copies of the weekly publication & bound them together to sell as an almanac. It's printed on one of the cheapest newspaper-type paper stocks available at the time & bound in a cover material that is essentially off-cuts from other books (this is why there's at least 14 different bindings of the same book). Even when it was made, the book had very little value. These days, books like this are sold to interior designers not individually but quite literally by the metre - their contents or even their title aren't important & their entire value is determined by the aesthetics of their combined spines. Even still, I have more than one copy of the book & I plan on adding it to Project Gutenberg when I have the time.

The main reason for the price in this book is because of the time involved sourcing all the parts. If it takes me 40 hours to research & source a part that ends up costing only $29.95, even at minimum wage the time involved greatly eclipses the material cost. The time involved in this book was in the high hundreds of hours, on-and-off over 6 years.

I'm not seriously trying to sell the book, that price is just there to stop people offering to buy it off me for $200 (which has seriously happened, more than once). It's also there to give people an idea of how much work was involved, because it's nowhere near immediately obvious just how much effort I've invested in this book over the last half-decade. And you guys make fun of me and call me a stupid ass. Thanks.

 

[Rydian]

If the hardware is custom-built and not a readily-available dev board with a screen slapped on, you might want to point it out prominently (unless you did and reposters skip that).

It's easy to look at that and assume it's something like an x86 version of an arduino, or even some ARM board running an emulator.

Regardless, if you weren't charging $10,000 or whatever over the parts, people wouldn't be nearly as taken aback. Even one-off custom portable console builds (360 laptop, portable SNES, etc.) don't demand nearly that much in profit.

 

[Veho]

For what it's worth, not all old books are inherently valuable just because they're old. Old tax books are a good example. The book Cyan used is basically a 135-year-old cross between a Reader's Digest & a gossip magazine, and most of the time it only carries snippets of the articles which makes it even less useful. Local distributors collected unsold copies of the weekly publication & bound them together to sell as an almanac. It's printed on one of the cheapest newspaper-type paper stocks available at the time & bound in a cover material that is essentially off-cuts from other books (this is why there's at least 14 different bindings of the same book).

Well I guess it's time to chew on my own foot. From what I first read about this project, the book was originally titled Myst, and you gutted it to build the linking book (so much for checking my sources). I didn't even bother to check the project page. That's why I said you could/should have made a copy of the book instead; turns out that's what you actually did (well, sort of), and the ass in this case was me. I apologize.

 

[raulpica]

Hey there! I made this. I bothered to register an account here because this is the most negative, insulting thread about my book on the entire internet. I mean that 100% sincerely, both threads that appeared on 4chan were nicer than this one. Great going.

Too bad I didn't see this before you registered I tip my hat off to you, good sir. I think that most negative thoughts in this thread spewed from the fact that most people assumed you butchered a really rare book

If it's cheap, I don't see anything wrong with that. Knowing that you will preserve it to Project Gutenberg also makes it even better.

Don't take me wrong, but from what I've looked, every component in there looks "bog-standard". By that, I mean there's no homemade PCBs (those are easily recognizable), but everything looks premade and sold somehow.

I clearly see a PicoPSU in there (nice choice), and LCD controller (which presumably got bundled with the LED screen) and its buttons, and the nanoITX mobo. Along with a battery pack and other little doo-dads.

Not to punch on your work, but that's why you might've received some criticism from our members. It's just because the time-spending part can be easily forgotten and not taken count of, and the pics don't quite exhalt how much detail such a project would require.

Thanks again for taking your time to post on here, great job again

 

[Rydian]

Well spent time definitely plays into the price of something, but when so much time is spent and paid for that wasn't actually spent assembling/building/finishing the device, people are going to feel ripped off... especially with such a high cost.

I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't sell at that price.

 

[Another World]

Hey there! I made this.

i found it a rather interesting project, which is why i chose to bring it to our front page. if i had the money to make a serious offer i would try extremely hard to own this book.

-another world

 

[Hells Malice]

Well spent time definitely plays into the price of something, but when so much time is spent and paid for that wasn't actually spent assembling/building/finishing the device, people are going to feel ripped off... especially with such a high cost.

I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't sell at that price.

I'm not seriously trying to sell the book, that price is just there to stop people offering to buy it off me for $200 (which has seriously happened, more than once)

I'm not entirely sure why you have you dick wrapped so tightly around the COST of the thing, why not just see what the hell hes done and say "neat" and move on...clearly the price is there as code for "stop fucking asking".

 

[Rydian]

When you put a price on something and then mention why you're charging that much, it sends the "This is for sale" message.

I mean it's like chick dressing like a slut and then getting offended when you check them out. If you don't want guys staring at your cleavage, then cover it, don't purposely flaunt it.