My laptop wasn't all that recognizable. It was a run of the mill Dell and easy to lose between other similar laptops. I would prefer something that stands out a bit more. So let's pick up some tools and start modding.
I realized backlight would probably leak out the back of the display panel, so if you were to poke a hole in the lid cover, light would shine through. This was easy enough to test and indeed when you take the cover off, indeed light comes out the back of the display panel.
I decided to drill a '#' as it's a relatively simple shape, symmetric and symbolizes a root shell. The shape works upside down as well, which solves the problem of which way round it should go. When I choose this symbol, hashtags were unknown and nobody knew how to pronounce it. The hash was just one of those weird symbols on your keyboard that only hand full of programers would ever use. Which is exactly the audiency I would like to understand this joke.
Drilling and sanding 136 holes later, the pattern was there to stay. There were some plastic supports on the back of the display panel that blocked light shining through some of the holes, so I simply cut those bits off. However, you can still see the flex cable running up the back of the display panel.
The trick worked perfectly. Whenever the screen of the laptop was on, a beautiful backlighted hash-sigh would be visible on the lid. I was planning to add a greenish colour filter, for the genuine terminal feeling, and to keep the dust out, but I never got around to actually implement that.
I haven't taken many photo's of the laptop at the time and the laptop has long been retired and lost. The mod worked a treat though and it's neither the first of the last creative lighting project I've done.