A computer expert and his colleagues built the world's first PC with a customized Irn-Bru liquid cooling system and called it the "Aye Mac."
John Lawson and his colleagues love Scotland's other national drink so much so that they do not just drink it every day. They also decided to use its bottle as a centerpiece of their computer system.
"We are always drinking Irn-Bru in the shop," said Lawson, who owns PC Doctor in Edinburgh. "And I wanted to do something different to attract some attention."
The computer's design finds a practical use for the glass bottles of Irn-Bru as these will no longer be accepted for return to shops by Dec. 31 this year. While Aye Mac uses a real 750 milliliter glass Irn-Bru bottle, the coolant used is not actually the carbonated soft drink but an orange-colored liquid that looks incredibly like Irn-Bru.
The bottle is connected to the flowing tubes that are filled with the faux-bru liquid that cools the computer and its circuits. Most of the cooling systems used in computers are fan-assisted but a number of high-end machines use water-based liquid.
Lawson said that it took him more than a year to complete the project and it required him to use parts coming from as far as Ukraine. He said that it took a while to get all the different parts, especially the coolant liquid that looks exactly like Irn-Bru.
Lawson said that although they cannot use the real thing on their machine, they were able to replicate the exact look of Irn-Bru in the computer system.
The computer is now on display in Lawson's shop window. Lawson said that it is a good way to showcase their ability to create all sorts of different custom systems. The computer has so far been catching the attention of people who pass by. Lawson said that the computer is like a piece of art capable of functioning like a normal computer.
"We've usually got something interesting in the window, usually the insides of old computers, but this really shows the sort of stuff we'd like to do," Lawson said. "At the moment we don't have it up and working because it looks better like this in the display and we'd like to keep it clean but it is definitely capable of working."
