If you’re a Myst fan, redditor riumplus has the perfect project for you: A real-life linking book where the book part has been replaced by a self-contained desktop computer, and smoothly runs all versions of Myst with the help of a touchscreen embedded in the page.
The Myst games included are Myst Masterpiece Edition, realMyst, Riven DVD edition, Riven Elementary, Myst III: Exile DVD edition, Myst IV: Revelation, Cyan’s canceled MMO attempt Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Uru: The Path of the Shell, Myst V: End of Ages, The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition, and Crowthistle. Basically, it’s a playable book of Cyan’s titles.
The book runs Windows XP, and everything the setup needs is loaded from a 32 GB flash card. The LED-backlit touchscreen sports a 640 x 480 size, and the battery can last up to two hours. The book employs 1 GB of RAM, a 1.6 GHz Intel Z530P CPU, and an Intel GMA500 chipset, which can run DirectX 9.0c. Interestingly, the book is passively cooled, and riumplus notes that due to its size, “the only way to deal with heat in this book is to just avoid creating it in the first place.”
Riumplus notes that everything runs smoothly, including the 2005 Myst V: End of Ages, which runs at 30 frames-per-second, and the book can run Half-Life 2 at around 30 frames-per-second as well. Check out a video of the book below.
Riumplus also stated that the project took around six years, though in the reddit thread stated it was only about an hour a day, which still adds up to quite a bit of time if that wasn’t hyperbole.
(via reddit)
- A couple Myst speedruns, both under two minutes
- All in-game books in Oblivion bound into real-life book
- University sells students $180 art book that has no art
