MacBook Air Superdrive does work on other machines
Slimline external drives tend to be ugly or rubbish. The one Apple made for its MacBook Air is the exception. However, it requires more juice than even two USB ports can provide, meaning it won't work on any other machine — or so goes the story! Tnkgrl's hacked it, however, and finds that it uses a simple hardware handshake to lock out non-Air machines. She's posted a how-to to get the ostentatious optical up and running on anything, powered by only a single USB port.
Here's video of it running on a HP Mini-Note:
Macbook Air superdrive for all [tnkgrl]
5 Comments
Leave a comment
RECENT COMMENTS
Pete on MacBook Air Superdrive does wo...
"I had no idea the drive didn't work with other computers; shame on you, Apple. ..."
zuzu on MacBook Air Superdrive does wo...
"What's with the hate? There's a hack and now you can have some fun.<..."
Santos on MacBook Air Superdrive does wo...
"What's with the hate? There's a hack and now you can have some fun. ..."
bardfinn on MacBook Air Superdrive does wo...
"DTPhantom: Because Apple is 25 years behind Microsoft on the "Why isn't this si..."
DTPhantom on MacBook Air Superdrive does wo...
"Now there's a surprise Apple using proprietary hardware to lock out customers. ..."
AT |
|
- Tapecraft: art made with tape and markers
- Baby goose with homemade leg brace
- Michael Jackson didn't sell 750 million records
- One-of-a-kind Star Wars vinyl toys for kids' charity
- Iranians say "no" to Nokia over reports of surveillance collaboration
- Richard Metzger interviews Julien Nitzberg about his documentary film, "The Wild Whites of West Virginia"
- Spider pizza may be delicious, but I will not be eating it.
- Injections of soil bacteria make mice happy
- Things to say during sex (Doogie Horner flowchart lulz).
- Soldier won't go to Afghanistan because he doesn't believe Obama is the president of the United States
DTPhantom
#1 – 8:13 AM June 25, 2008
Now there's a surprise Apple using proprietary hardware to lock out customers. And how is Apple better than MS?
bardfinn
#2 – 8:37 AM June 25, 2008
DTPhantom:
Because Apple is 25 years behind Microsoft on the "Why isn't this simply usable?" curve.
Unfortunately, because we aren't seeing an internet tablet from Apple, the iPhone and iPod touches can't access any USB storage or SD card, and now THIS, Apple may find the curve is logarithmically exponential rather than gently sloped.
Santos
#3 – 10:02 AM June 25, 2008
What's with the hate? There's a hack and now you can have some fun.
zuzu
#4 – 11:53 AM June 25, 2008
The hate is because this hack shouldn't be necessary to begin with. Interoperable standards such as USB are called standards for a reason. (What exactly is Universal about a Universal Serial Bus device that only runs on one type of machine?)Contempt may be heaped on any product or company who spends development resources on making something not work. (DRM epitomizes this phenomenon.) Computers have enough difficulties without people purposefully creating new problems.
Pete
#5 – 4:32 PM June 25, 2008
I had no idea the drive didn't work with other computers; shame on you, Apple.