Back in the early 2000s, I turned my dead Macintosh SE computer, which had been collecting dust in the basement for a decade, into a Macquarium—a homemade aquarium inside the shell of an old one-piece Mac. I had it set up at work and it was a lot of fun; everyday, the entire office would stop by to say hi to the current fish, usually a Betta named Beta V1, V2, etc. It took a lot of effort though—cleaning and doing water replacement in the middle of a work environment was always a messy, awkward affair. Eventually our office moved and I used that as a good excuse to bring the Macquarium to an end…and it returned to collect more dust in the basement. Now my old Mac has been reinvented again, this time as a Macterrarium, which I don’t think is a thing (yet). The aquarium has been filled with low-maintenance plants, retrofitted with LED lights since it’s dark in there, and will live in my beloved’s new office. Not sure it will work, but we’ll give it a try. It was fun to pull the old Mac off the shelf and check it out again—if you look closely inside the shell, signatures of the entire Mac development team are in the molding, including Steve Jobs.
UPDATE: She's now had the Macterrarium for about nine months in her office and it's been a hit. Only one plant died; the rest have thrived inside the computer, and apparently it's been a great conversational icebreaker for people nervous that they're visiting the boss's office).
