MAY 01

But in the past few weeks, we've seen quite a few new electronic devices housed in wood, and so we went on a search. A long search, it turned out, for all the best, coolest and most useful products in wooden computing.

We found that wooden computer products did indeed exist, and have for some time, but that it's not something one comes across in America. In fact, most of the websites we're linking to here are in other languages. But the pictures, they're worth more than the words, so check it out. Beautiful designs made of sustainable materials. Mouse, keyboard, monitor, case, even the mouse pad, all now available in wood.

Tons of pictures after the jump.

Let's start with some real mastery.

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The most spectacular example of a complete wooden desktop setup we've come across was created by Russian master carpenters in Moscow. The case, monitor, mouse, and keyboard were all hand crafted. And they'll do one for you too but “To be honest we do not have the cheapest masters in Moscow,” so be ready for the a fairly high estimate.

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But a custom build is not the only choice if you want a beautiful wooden setup. Two companies, one in Sweeden and the other in Germany are creating some amazing computer peripherals. So far, they aren't making PC cases, but their mice, keyboards and monitors are spectacular.

The Swedish company, Swedx , is markedly less expensive. And they work to ensure that the wood they use is harvested sustainably. They offer rather bulky mice and have a smaller selection of woods to chose from. But it's nothing that would hold me back from the intro package. There's no problem getting a mouse and a keyboard for less than $100.

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The German company, Holz Kontor , will ask far more, but delivers a more beautiful product using much less sutainable woods. I suggest looking at these, but I wouldn't recommend buying them.

Their monitors, keyboards and mice come in mahogany, amaranth, bubinga, zebrano, ahorn and wenge. I don't know if that's German, or if they're just really obscure (but beautiful) woods. Either way, I'm impressed.

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Holz Kontor's keyboards are made entirely of wood. Every key has been individually crafted from the same tree as the rest of the keyboard making the final product absolutely stunning and extremely expensive (around $800 a piece).

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Their mice come in several designs and all of the stated wood types. The attention to detail is really quite amazing.

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Holz Kontor products also have the advantage that their availablein the US from the people at Wood Contour, which, now that we think of it, is probably what Holz Knotor means.

Bamboo products are also avaiable, and are tremendously EcoGeeky. Not only is bamboo a good-looking and hard wood, it grows faster than any tree and is extremely abundant.

So far, there are no bamboo cases, but we have monitors, keyboards and Mice.

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All of which can be bought here. These, I'm actually interested in buying. Using bamboo as a alternative material for plastic is definitely something that could bring a lot of good to the world. It looks better it isn't made of hydrocarbons and it grows like a freakin' weed.

Finally, and with great pleasure, I must include the Sangaku case mod, created by Nicholas Falzone, and featured quite a while back at ExtremeTech. This mod is absolutely fantastic. Probably the most beautiful computer I have ever seen. I'm just putting into two pictures here, because I don't want to steal too much thunder from ExtremeTech and Nicholas. Go ahead and look at all of the excellent pictures over at ExtremeTech if you want a bit more of this eye candy.

Of course, you can't have your own Sangaku, it's one of a kind. And since "it took approximately 300 hours to construct and contains approximately 130 wood joints, most of which were done entirely by hand with my Japanese chisels and dozuki saw," I doubt you'll be able to get Nicholas to build you one.

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And that's it for our showcase. I hope it was delightful, I am frankly amazed at how many options there are for wooden computing. Posts at TreeHugger, Engadget, Gizmodo, and OhGizmo all helped me in my persuit of wooden computing. So thanks to them. And thanks to all those awesome designers out there putting a bit of nature back into technology.

P.S. I've been informed that I missed one (probably more) but this one is quite awesome, so I thought I'd include it. Here we see an all redwood setup from ZapWizard . It's the most complete setup we've seen. Keyboard, monitor, speakers, mouse, flash media reader, case and iPod. All homemade. Wow.

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