Vintage Gadgets I've Bought for Some Reason: Bynamics Desk Director System Six Hundred

I'm told when it was originally sold, the Desk Director went for almost $900. From who else? Sharper Image.

As is fitting for a Sharper Image product, I will now be trying to figure out how to wire the handset up as an iPhone dock. (It actually seems dead simple for even a soldering simp like yours truly.)

You can buy one new today for just $240. (I paid a cool $30 from a guy on Craigslist who insisted I plug it in and "give her a whirl.")

[#1 posted by NorrinRazael , February 2, 2009 10:09 PM]

Holy fuck this is pimp.

I rarely phrase anything I say in this manner, but you've really created cause for anomaly.

Once it happens, though, please, a video of you getting a call and answering it, with feet-on-desk 80s S.T.Y.L.E.

Or it didn't happen.

[#2 posted by gadgetophile , February 2, 2009 10:58 PM]

I don't know where to begin. As a child some of my most treasured posessions were the portfolios my Dad would bring home from conferences. The ones with the 'built in' solar powered calculators.

I think the one with the membrane keyboard was the most super-pimp. But this thing just puts them to shame. I'm in love.

[#3 posted by Anonymous , February 2, 2009 11:38 PM]

Ipod dock? Oh no...Bluetooth that handset. I would go further and try to transplant a cheap pay-as-go cellphone into it.

There's also plenty interesting you can do with the LED displays, such as PC system telemetry, like fan speed or CPU temp or suchlike.

bkd

[#4 posted by Jane Kansas , February 3, 2009 5:33 AM]

mmmmmmmm want

[#5 posted by cha0tic , February 3, 2009 5:57 AM]

"It actually seems dead simple for even a soldering simp like yours truly."

This from the guy that tried to run electricity through one wire? :) We'll see.

[#6 posted by Rob Beschizza , February 3, 2009 6:12 AM]

Did it come with a Sponge Bob fry cook spatula?

[#7 posted by Maldenized , February 3, 2009 6:45 AM]

What are all of those buttons? Telephone keypad, calculator?

[#8 posted by clockbound , February 3, 2009 7:07 AM]

Well, there's the volcano erupt button, the giant moon laser button, the fluffy white cat button, I mean, these things tend to pile up. Before you know it you have all these buttons!

[#9 posted by Nelson.C , February 3, 2009 7:49 AM]

Uh, what is it? A combination telephone and desk-tidy?

[#10 posted by Hal , February 3, 2009 8:29 AM]

is that leather? you need to get it embossed.
maybe with LEGO studs.

[#11 posted by Halloween Jack , February 3, 2009 12:46 PM]

I'd love love eleventy-skadillion times love to have a black leather blotter with a row of programmable LED monitors on the front edge (about as high as the displays on this thing) and some sort of trackpad on the right.

[#12 posted by dculberson , February 3, 2009 12:58 PM]

It is decidedly 31337.

[#13 posted by patter , February 4, 2009 8:03 AM]

There's even a company still selling them - http://www.cadigital.com/office.htm

Looks like a time capsule to the internet of 10 years ago.

[#14 posted by thebishopofturkey , February 10, 2009 8:56 PM]

I think the Old Man has one of those on the conference table at OCP in Robocop.