My retrofitting project - yduf / r/VintageApple / wikipedia

Classic

Repair & Restoration

• 1991 Apple Macintosh Classic I Repair & Restoration

• Macintosh Classic Restoration
  • cleaning case - with hydrogen peroxyde bath + uv light
  • plastic wrap created marks ?
• Macintosh SE Restoration
  • CRT handling
• Macintosh SE - recovery of a Macintosh SE motherboard severely damaged due to a battery leak. I didn’t think this could be possible and choose the destructive path below.

Note: this is the inside of a SE:

Macintosh Classic disassembly

• How (not) to discharge a CRT! ⚡
• Removing the motherboard - The motherboard has no screws, so it can be removed by pulling upwards.
  • Make sure to disconnect all cables.
• Remove The Floppy Drive - 4 screws to remove - all hidden below, accessible only after removing the mother board, 2 behind the plastic fan

Cleaning case

• with 3% hydrogen peroxyde and plastic wrap + 4sun hours
  • hydrogen peroxide cream - 12% + plastic wrap
• nouvelles techniques pour restaurer des plastiques jaunis ! - chauffée a 71°
• Retr0bright - de-yellowing do’s, dont’s, and playing devil’s advocate - test different light condition
  • sun is more evenly distributed (5h/1 day).
  • fluerescent light work well (24h).

Reusing CRT Video

• Generate a VGA signal for inboard CRT from a raspberry pi GPIO, see instructables
  • full article here
• guide on RGBTOHDMI
  • video board - exporting analog to hdmi
• Apple never built a Mac like this - unmounting & discharging the CRT.

see also

• 1993 Apple Macintosh Classic II Repair & Restoration - changing capacitor
• J’ai construit un Mac IMPOSSIBLE
• I Built a “Mac Minus” With a Real CRT
  • old a B&W CRT from old small TV

Electronic

• Macintosh Classic Schematic (bomarc).pdf (bomarc)

Floppy Drive

• Sony MP-F75W Teardown / youtube
  • Interchangeabilty and Compatibility of Apple 1.4 MB Floppy SuperDrives / copy

Project - rehousing

• Case
  • - retrobright case - didn’t go as planned
  • - remove rust by electrolysis on chassis corrosion (caused by component leak)
• Preps
  • - screen is working
  • - assemble motherboard
    • - check motherboard
    • - install OS - from reused from lab
• Screen fitting
  • - redesigned bezel
    • - paint bezel - using light grey
    • - glue bezel with B7000 - 30min Liquid / 2h can be handled / 6h finished
  • - cut 2mm acrylic glass to fill remaining gap / have a proper plane - glue acrylic screen - to reinforce bezel base.
  • - fix screen on acrylic
  • - attach main electronic - screwed on bottom bezel / taped on mid board
  • - power screen using 12V Molex source
  • - attach screen control
• Motherboard Fit
  • - cut backplate - used this kind of tool
    • - remove metal backplate - drill / cut / melt attach
  • - cut chassis - [x] remove bur
  • - design foot / hook mechanism
    • - glue a corniere on each side for supporting motherboard
  • - reset / power on button fit
    • - reuse original one - the easiest path
• ATX Power fit
  • - design support & fan duct
  • - fit cable
    • - direct connection to internal ATX
  • - unsolder power socket & switch from power board
    • iron with 400-450°C + manual solder pump - need to go smoothly
    • power socket is also soldered to main board
  • - use original power switch
• Missing / to Finish
  • - power socket fit & power switch
  • - cut plate to secure socket bracket
  • - serial number sticker to glue back (didn’t like the retrobright cleaning process).
• Optional
  • - fit HP
  • - hdd led - braket to hold led that could be usefull
  • - design a prettier backpanel cover
• Closing
  • archive motherboard doc
  • adds my own pics to project

Fiting a Full PC

• Mac Classic Retrofit - Breathe new life into a classic!
  • cutting back panel
  • or build a backpanel to avoid it
• Vintage Mac Classic NAS - lot of pics
• Not Bad: Remodelling the Mac Classic II into a PC

• Bad: Fitting a fulll PC (with too much cut)

• Mac Classic HS - 50€ (leboncoin)
• clavier sans fil
  • retro mouse - 3D Printed - Apple Macintosh Mouse
• picotron onboard
  • requiert un amd64.

see also

• retrofitted Macintosh Classic - has link to rebuild a mac mouse
• Macintosh Classic II Color Hackintosh
• New life on a 30-year-old Macintosh Classic II - glue screen + mac mini. - screen bigger than aperture.
• Macintosh Plus mini Retrofit - Build Video!
  • use an avrylic fake CRT screen for filling the gap

New Hardware

Hardware Total: 535€

• motherboard/Cpu/ram: 388€
  • ryzen 7 5700G 165€ - garantie 3Y
  • 64Go 107€
  • miniITX 116€ - Gigabyte A520I AC ITX
• better ventirad: 40€ - not yet
  • Thermalright AXP90-X47 Full copper - comparison - best is a liquid cooler 67° - the second best is this one with 76°
• mac screen replacement 79€ - VSDISPLAY Écran LCD 9,7 - spec écran IPS eDP 440nit ref VS-RTD09703-V1
  • Note I found latter a much cheaper screen that seems to be equivalent - aliexpress / from thingiverse fitting controls in floppy drive - around 56 € (boards+screen) / screen alone (36€)
• power: 68€ - Corsair CX450M - semi cablé

Minit ITX	motherboard	price	constraint	cpu	gpu	ram	ventirad	Total
carte N305 / ou switch avec le NAS ?	HKUXZR N305	260	max 16Go	i3 octocore		16Go DDR5	not	327
AM4	Gigabyte A520I AC ITX	118	ryzen 5000 doc	Ryzen 7 5700G	radeon	64Go DDR4	inclus	469	292
	GIGABYTE B550I AORUS Pro	165						402

Screen

• my own 3dprinted Bezel - good fit / not easy to glue
• acrylic filler, fill the remaining gap between the original display screws. Protect display.
• colle B7000 - decollage en chauffant a 80°C
• control button in floppy disk drive

My Choice Ecran IPS 4/3

• VSDISPLAY Écran LCD 9,7 - spec écran IPS eDP 440nit ref VS-RTD09703-V1
  • the light is not homogenous (top is dimmer than bottom)
  • Sufficient brightness is only possible when powered in 12V.
    • the power connector is advised as 3.5Mm X 1.35Mm but doesn’t fit such cable (inside too thin for contact). Resolved with soldering on the cable plug to shorten the end and make contact.

see also

• alternative screen fixation

Display Notes 🚧

As the screen is too large, a solution need to be found for reducing the part shown on the screen. For linux there are some options to put shader on desktop, see ChatGPT:

• Picom - There also a possibility to simulate CRT.
• see also xrandr
• Wayland?
• changing resolution on this screen make display scale down (this could be used at first), internal control may allow to reposition screen on lower resolution
  • not tested since I need to get back access to screen control for that operation.

Options are:

• Mac Classic with LCD inside the CRT part 1 / part3- glass cut / smaller lcd 8in screen fit.
  • cutting the tube - just don’t breathe the phosphors.
• fitting a pi / using it - simple black fillout
  • 3dprinted fillout / thingiverse
• Macintosh Plus mini Retrofit - acrylic sheet + custom bezel
  • shop

ATX power fitting

• use ATX fan as exhaust fan
  • put ATX on left side in front and close to back window
  • use a fanduct
• reuse legacy socket
  • deport/reduce ATX input socket / as its a C14 standard using this kind of Rallonge IEC320 C14 à C13, C14 avec trous de vis et coudé C13 de 30 cm dedicated to this kind of operation. - 3G 0.75mm² -> 10A (2300W)/ 16A (3680W) Max

• need to ground back plate ? previous connector was grouding the metallic parts.
  • this can be done by grouding one of the ATX screw

Motherboard Fit

• 3dprint somelegs to support the mother board
• cut the back of the frame
  • removing back
• reuse power/reset button on the side

Purpose ?

• could be a 2.5Gb switch
• could host nginx
• could be tied to the second available monitor
• could be used to offload computation / memory hog
  • Xpra - to remote connect to application
  • Share home - for seamless data access and navigation
  • remote vscode - for cli access

3d Printed Alternatives

Tiny Mac III (Pi 4) - instructable / HN

• 3D Printed Full-Size Macintosh - The Brewintosh / arstechnica - full reconstruction of a Macintosh from scratch.
  • STL & part info - 3,5” drive
• Making a Tiny Mac From a Raspberry Pi Zero
  • thingiverse
  • thingiverse
• Making a Small Mac From a Raspberry Pi 3 - uses a 3.5 inch display
• 3dprinted full size

Free models

• macintosh classic housing (life size)
• thingiverse
  • Macintosh Classic Mini - Polymaker Muted White Filament
    • Platinum PLA Filament (hex code: #BFBCB1) for newer Macs

see also

• Macintosh Classic
• The Macintosh Garden