spy cam - ordinary webcam, just in an unsuspected location
SDR
Flashlight, with uv as well as white leds
Hidden flash drive. Flash drive packed into the enclosure with a usb port, and the usb port is functional as a normal usb port. The flash drive is hidden unless enabled somehow, maybe by holding a magnet in proximity, or by inserting a special usb dongle, or by pressing a sequence of buttons on your car’s normal key fob, or ??? all kinds of ways, physically tap a pattern anywhere on the laptop or the table near it, etc…
Emergency single breath mint and few drops of cologne. Or you know, the other thing.
Multicolor pen and mechanical pencil. The stupidder the arrangement the better.
Just thought, as I have not seen this mentioned yet, a GPS expansion card? I have seen some pretty small gps receivers, and obviously they can fit them into smartphones…
Camera. I doubt it would get much interest, but I just had the idea of a camera module, so the camera is facing down towards the table. When you want to take a picture, you’d prop the laptop partially opened like a tent as a tripod.
Wackiest thing I could think of that hasn’t been mentioned would be a pull-out phone stand with wireless charging, or better yet a USB-C male. Have phone easily in view and charging while working. Bonus if the expansion took USB-C DP alt mode in to make the frame.work become a secondary display for the phone, either automatically in full screen or use the phone’s display output in a user interactive window. Think a phone generated “Dex” desktop as a virtualbox like window inside your main Linux or Winblows OS. Could be scrcpy, but true dp alt mode is needed to trigger desktop mode on some phones. Handle word processing on main OS and switch to typing out a quick text on the phone without hands coming off the keyboard, that’s the end goal…
This may sound very odd but, I would be interested in seeing a 34pin floppy interface that would be compatible with things like omnidisk, spinrite, and 5.25 disks (not available in usb floppies)
Mini SD card slot (mini, not micro)(yes it’s basically a retired format)
I would say ports for specific kinds of video game controllers, but I can’t think of any that are small enough… EDIT: Maybe the Sega Saturn? Basically resembles an HDMI port.
It could use some kind of more compact interface with an adapter cable that turns it into 34 pin. Considering 7 of the 34 pin floppy port’s pins are ground and 3 are no used, it may be possible to reduce the pin count on laptop side by 3-9 pins. I think the hardest part would be implementing the hardware itself, since floppy controls are only designed for the ISA and LPC bus.
Hmm.
the cards slots do provide some openings so you can run a pad and some tubes to watercool the laptop.
I do not think it’s technically a mod as a 3D printed case for a housing is all what’s really needed. The “water cooling” can be as simple as a small copper pipe soldered onto the existing heatsink.
