Slideshow: IPods for Anarchists

After adding some electrical tape and adjusting the wires for the screen, it's done!

This is Abrams' player which inspired Michel Bavin to create the kit that I ordered. Abrams' is smaller, and more anarchist looking, but requires three AAA batteries instead of one.

I pit my kPod against Mark McClusky's Nano at the Wired News office. It's a case of Beauty and the Beast.

Side view of the finished kPod.

Here's the PCB and the box of chips.

I know it seems like a leap, but after a few hours of attaching parts to the board, you soon have the innards of the player splayed out on your surgical table. The rainbow wires attach to an old Nokia LCD screen. The biggest chip is the brains of the board and tells everything what to do. Up top is the memory card slot and on bottom is the headphones jack.

This was my work area, complete with (clockwise from board) de-soldering wick, solder, pile of parts in their bags, a wet sock to clean the soldering iron, the soldering iron, tweezers, and of course the board.

Abrams answers my late-night plea and gets the player up and running in his apartment.