I was so inspired by Jason Coon’s macrochips project – 4” slate drink coasters laser-engraved to look like notable chips from computing history – that I had to design and make some of my own. I don’t own a laser cutter, but the local hardware store had one available, and I was able to convince them to let me engrave similar slate coasters despite them not being among their pre-defined set of available engraving targets (keychains, mugs, and the like). But what to pick? I decided to go with some chips that were meaningful to me:

  • Apple A17 CPU
  • Nintendo 64 CPU
  • Sony PlayStation CPU
  • Broadcom Raspberry Pi 5 CPU
  • NVIDIA Media and Communications Processor (from the original Xbox)
  • IBM PowerPC 603 CPU (from early PowerPC Macs)
  • Motorola PowerPC G4 CPU (from later PowerPC Macs)
  • AMD K6 CPU
  • Intel i386 EX CPU

The hardest part of designing these was tracking down vector versions of some of these companies’ now-obsolete logos, extracting them from PDF files and datasheets, but I think the designs turned out pretty good:

My macrochip designs

Once designed, it was time to hand them off to the laser cutter:

Laser cutter mid process

It was fun to watch the designs get laid down by the laser cutter:

The results turned out alright:

My macrochip designs as slate coasters

Though, there were a number of text layers I forgot to convert to outlines, so the engraving prep software replaced them with Myriad instead of the specific fonts I had chosen. As well, a few early attempts were also a little mis-aligned. I could certainly do better if I had time to sit and make adjustments with my own laser cutter…