Macintosh Pi
Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 11:52 am
Last year I purchased a broken Macintosh Classic. The logic board was not usable anymore, and the frame inside was rusted. I came to the conclusion that the battery inside the Mac had corroded the metal and traces on the logic board long time ago.
So as I was searching for a fun project, I reused the case of the Mac, to build my self a semi-portable-retro-carrying-to-friends console.
I removed al old parts from the case. The metal frame, which holds the logic board was put in to a big plastic canister to soak in Vinegar. After 2 days, I cleaned the frame, and gave it a good coat of silver-metal paint. I reused the logic board, as I wanted the outside to look original.
The old floppy bay was removed. I made an adapter-plate from some prototype board to provide 2 usb connectors at the front of the mac.
Since the original CRT was not usable. I used it to make myself a frontplate for the 10.1 inch lcd screen.
I used transparent acrylic and a heat gun. By putting the old CRT face-up in a ceramic pot, I could lay a piece of acrylic on top of it, heat it up and have it take the shape of the old CRT. After it cooled down, I cut it up to fit in the Mac.
I reused the memoryboard to provide 4 power connections for the poweradapters. The old apple blower/cooler is used to cool the Pi 2. It uses 12V. I used an old 12V 1A power adapter to power it. The Pi 2 uses its own 5V 2.4A power adapter, and the screen controller also uses a 12V 1A power adapter. I used a cheap 5v stereo USB powered boombox for audio.
I reused the power connector and switch of the Mac.
Instead of retropie, I used recalbox, since this is simpler to config, and easier for non tekkies to use. All of the emulators are configured to use 4:3 resolution, instead of 16:9. It fits the screen of the Mac better.
The pictures:
So as I was searching for a fun project, I reused the case of the Mac, to build my self a semi-portable-retro-carrying-to-friends console.
I removed al old parts from the case. The metal frame, which holds the logic board was put in to a big plastic canister to soak in Vinegar. After 2 days, I cleaned the frame, and gave it a good coat of silver-metal paint. I reused the logic board, as I wanted the outside to look original.
The old floppy bay was removed. I made an adapter-plate from some prototype board to provide 2 usb connectors at the front of the mac.
Since the original CRT was not usable. I used it to make myself a frontplate for the 10.1 inch lcd screen.
I used transparent acrylic and a heat gun. By putting the old CRT face-up in a ceramic pot, I could lay a piece of acrylic on top of it, heat it up and have it take the shape of the old CRT. After it cooled down, I cut it up to fit in the Mac.
I reused the memoryboard to provide 4 power connections for the poweradapters. The old apple blower/cooler is used to cool the Pi 2. It uses 12V. I used an old 12V 1A power adapter to power it. The Pi 2 uses its own 5V 2.4A power adapter, and the screen controller also uses a 12V 1A power adapter. I used a cheap 5v stereo USB powered boombox for audio.
I reused the power connector and switch of the Mac.
Instead of retropie, I used recalbox, since this is simpler to config, and easier for non tekkies to use. All of the emulators are configured to use 4:3 resolution, instead of 16:9. It fits the screen of the Mac better.
The pictures:
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