PC in a Macintosh Classic Case

This instructible is about building a working and usable PC in a 20y/o Mac Classic Case...

The original mac of 84 was such a joy, it was so nice, small, cute and easy to use. It was an instant hit for me that I fell in love in first sight.

Then later I continued growing up and went to a technical Lycee's computer department. The school was tough but working on computers, learning about them was worth it.

I was lucky enough to be among the few who unpacked the very first mac classic imported to my country during my student apprenticeship in high school around 90 - 92. The first difference from the original mac was the machine coming to life with the sound of a fan. I worked on the machine for some weeks during the apprenticeship. I liked it so much that it visited my youth dreams of all my teenage years several times.

Then years passed. Now I'm an assistant professor in a fine arts university in Istanbul / Turkey and my lectures are all around technical stuff, electromechanics etc. trying to give some engineering understanding to industrial design students. I have also got some free time to make stuff, so i visit instructables frequently.

In one of that visits, I've searched for mac projects and saw gmjhowe's project about upgrading a 84 macintosh to run OS X Snow Leopard and liked it a lot. The same thing was in my mind for maybe 10 years but I hadn't seen anyone doing a similar thing. The project inspired me enough to start my own Mac. Though I liked mac classic more than the 84 Mac, I've planned to use a classic case.

 After a search that lasted 3 months, I've found my classic in a local ebay :D for 30$ and converted it into Mawi, the MAcintosh that runs WIndows XP. If you want to build something similar, than this instructables might be helpful for you. And dont forget to visit gmjhowe's inspiring project. Type macintosh into the instructables search and you'll find everything related to mac, including gmjhowe's Snow Leopard.

Apart from this instructable, I've got a site full of free robotic projects, if you like robotics, I recommend you to take a look at them after reading this one. Its link is http://www.endtas.com

So, Lets begin....and  Would you please RATE after reading? Thanks..

Materials
•An original dead 1990 Macintosh Classic
•Several A3 sheets of modelling carton.
•A bit coloured plexyglass 4mm thick
•A netbook with a broken keyboard
•A pair of speakers salvaged from a dead toshiba notebook
•USB extension cable
•USB Hub
•A Bluetooth dongle
•Some SUGRU for making the internal construction
•Gorilla Glue for making the internal construction
Tools
•Drill
•Hot air gun
•Hot silicone glue gun
•Box cutter
•Metal or plastic rule for measuring and cutting
•Pliers , cable cutter, scissor etc hand tools.
•Soldering iron
•A multimeter

My main objectives were.
 1.Do not alter, cut, deform, change, or break the original Mac's case.. I felt free to change or dump the circuit boards of the mac. They are not working anyway.
 2.Though I want mawi (MAc WIndows) to be useful for some of for my computing needs,  it should be able to run windows XP.
 3. The machine shouldn't be expensive, so I planned to construct it by using second hand, cheap but problem free parts.

I started with disassembling the case, took nearly all the parts off. Only left the on off switch, the power inlet and the cooling fan. Though my mac had sat on a depot shelf for years, the high voltaged charge left in the CR tube wasn't a problem but to be sure, I've applied a safe discharging procedure with a electrically insulated screw driver with its tip shorted to the chassis by a crocodile wire. 

 After the disassembly, I've cleaned the plastic parts of the case thoroughly by washing and rubbing. I didn't  apply any chemical cleaning methods like the retro bright etc, I wanted my mac to look a bit normal, old I mean :D. Well like 20 years or so.

First I was thinking of using mini atx boards, separate hard disks etc all new but after a quick search of the market I've discovered that the prices of those were out of my project aims and more importantly, budget!. So I rethinked and decided to use a simple netbook as a donor PC and use most of the parts of it inside Mawi.

I've checked my Asus EEEPC netbook's 8.9 inch screen and saw that it is too wide for the mac screen. Though there is no netbook with 8 inch screen, I decided to go on with a 7 inch one. After researching the models on the second hand market I've seen that the most suitable one is the Datron Mobee 7.

With a 1Ghz Via CPU, it was able to run XP and has more HD capacity (40GB) than the ASUS EEEPC 700 models (4gb SSD).  After a search, ask and wait  period of 15 days I've found one with a malfunctioning keyboard at the local sales site for 120$. Well its not so cheap but has everything I need.  I bought it.

I've removed (nearly) all the components off the monitor and power supply board at the side of the case. Just left a single IC for memorial :D. I planned to use the board as a mounting base.

I've screwed a cable terminal on it for the mains connections and did the necessary connections to the power inlet and the power switch. I carefully soldered all of them.

I've used an old cell phone charge adapter to power the cooling fan. The adapter generates around 7V and this is less than the fan's normal running voltage of 12V. So the fan will turn slower and quieter. Though there is no CRT and high power things inside, that cooling would most probably be more than necessary.

I hot glued the adapter into a hidden space near the fan.

First I've disassembled the screen part of the netbook.

seeing it has so weak and easy to rip off cables and connections inside, gave up the idea of disassembling the main case of it and decided to use as a whole inside the Mac case.

After preparing a frame to hold the plexyglass part that would repplace the CRT's front glass, I started to design and build the supporting structure that would firmly carry everything in one piece inside the case.

Though the netbook's case is a bit big and the mac case is small, the need for placing the netbook diagonally arised. So I designed the structure according to this. I've tried to take into account of the cooling of netbook in an enclosed space. Special care is given to the ventilation in-outlets of the netbook and the cable routing inside.

 After roughly completing the main carrier body, I've put on everything in to see if they work okay and fit nicely into the case, while closed. Discovered some problems and did some layout changes. 

I've arranged the cables of the speakers and on off switch of the netbook, lengthened them by using extra cable and simple connectors made from DIP pcb connectors.

I'm planning to use the 68000 mainboard of the mac as a carrier board too.
The two switches (reset and int) at the side of the mainboard are easily accessible from the outside of the mac case so I've planned to use them as the netbook on off switch. I've paralelled them so any one of them being pressed will turn the netbook on and off.

I've used a black keyboard lying around my workshop for first tests but later I've bought a white, mac keyboard lookalike thing which has got 2 usb ports at the rear and multimedia keys as well.

Though the keyboard has got usb ports on it, frontal usb ports on the mac case is not necessary anymore. I simply covered the front 3.5inch disk drive port with white cardboard.

Also bought a Targus mini usb hub. Tested them all, they work okay.

I've hot glued the Toshiba notebook speaker to the front of the case facing to a cooling grill at the front to enable sound to reach out with minimal loss.

 The netbook has only 2 usb ports. I've given one directly to outside the mac case with the idea of  enabling the use of USB hard drives which need more current. And used the other usb port for mounting a USB hub.

 The Targus usb hub has 3 ports at one side which are all very close to each other and one at the back. I've used the one at the back for a permanent bluetooth dongle. The hub's body is also very small so its all three ports fitted well to mac case's printer port. I only widened the corners of that port on the case. Thats the only modification done at the case.

 That was a perfect fit, now three usb plugs can be used at the rear of the case without problems. Adding the direct usb port, Mawi can support 4 external usb devices .

 I've shortened the mains cord of the adapter and assembled it to the side board of the Mawi. 

For reinforcing the structure, I've glued additional cardboard parts around.
 Built the webcam supporting part. The webcam is supposed to work behind the colored 4mm thick plexyglass, so I was anxious a bit if the light passing thru the plexy would be enough for the cam or not. Results were fine. The cam worked very well behind the plexy.

I assembled everything once more and saw them work. Then took apart things and started painting the white parts that can be seen from the outside at the sides of the LCD.

 Then disaster struck, while trying to straighten the position of the LCD, I've ripped of a small flat cord on it. A real disaster. it is ripped of at such a bad place, seems impossible to fix.

I need a replacement LCD.

I've found a replacement second hand LCD within a day by great chance. I've bought it for 60$ which is  a bit expensive, but i didn't have any other choice.

 While the screen frame and the plexy is disassembled, I worked on the curve of the plexy a bit more. Now it matches the curve of the CRT perfectly. So it will look more like a CRT on Mawi.

I autographed the plywood frame for memory :D

There used to be many signatures at the inside of the back cover on classic  macs of the 1980's. But there is none in my mac classic of 1990. So now, there is one again.

Later I've added some more supports to the LCD carrier part of the structure.

I've burned my mouse-click-finger with hot silicone glue. It hurts.

Later I discovered a small alignment problem at the webcam support and rebuilt that part.

Added some more support to the cables, taped them to hard places and also installed bent cardboard pieces which would press against the wall of the rear cover to avoid the structure freeplay inside the case.

Will it work?

I pressed the power button. It booted, came to life as the completed Mawi, for the first time.

Though the netbook's battery is also inside, it doesn't need the power cord to be connected all the time.

In my tests The Datron Mobee worked nearly 5 hours on battery power. Thats great.

Mawi poses to my Nikon D5000 on a tripod.

Doesn't it look nice?

Mawi moved from workshop table to my computer table.

I love it :D



A pc in a mac case is a bit complicated project and I admit it is not for everyone. Especially working on many tiny cables that can snap off any time is a tough and stressfull thing to do. 

A case with an intact (not disassembled) digital picture frame which has also divx playing capability inside might be a simpler mac resurrection project. And much better than using a graceful mac for dispersing toilet paper etc.