Replica boxing for Macintosh SE

[quorten]

Oh yeah, another thing.  What font has Apple used for Japanese text on their boxes, marketing material, and the like?  Right now the strokes are just individually drawn as vector graphics lines, but from the photos the font definitely looks mundane in terms of decoration.

English: Keyboard not included Mouse included

Japanese: キーボードは含まれていません マウス付

 

[quorten]

Okay, so now I wanted to simply post my progress on the foam blocks.  Just a screenshot from what I've been doing in Blender, to show that I'm almost ready to 3D print some foam blocks for a (miniature plastic) prototype.

So I've been thinking this through, and maybe one thing I might end up doing is making a new cardboard box but reusing the foam blocks, at least for the first few instances.  In any case, @erichelgeson, I'll probably be ready to pick up the box for you in a few weeks, in case you've been wondering when you can get the space back.

 

[quorten]

Any updates @ScutBoy on photographing the boxes?  Asking because Eric mentioned he'd be interested in seeing more for a Mac Plus box replica.

 

[olePigeon]

Mac Plus originally shipped in a nice, glossy, full color box.

 

[ArmorAlley]

View attachment 36964

It just occurred to me what this box would be perfect for: the Macs made out of Lego. It was designed by Chris McVeigh.

They are called, 'My First Computer' and the assembly instructions are here: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1326515/Lego-My-First-Computer-Byte-Edition.html

 

[quorten]

Nice, more than skin-deep, that Lego design even accurately models the major interior components!  The actual Lego model looks to be bigger than the corresponding size of my miniature box printout, though, it would require printing the box design on paper larger than US letter or A4.  But yeah, that would be pretty nice to make a box and "foam blocks" made of Lego to complement the Lego design.

 

[quorten]

Okay, so now I saw the original Macintosh's box art design and got all excited because it's nothing but cheap vector graphics, devoid of photos.  It should be a piece of cake, even reconstructing from low-resolution Ebay photos.

 

[quorten]

Okay, posting the updated Macintosh SE box design, changed brown to the proper white.  Also, I created as much of the Macintosh SE/30 box design as I could realistically infer from the few photos I've found, the legal notice on the last panel in particular probably isn't accurate to the original boxing since I couldn't find any photos of that side.  Macintosh Plus color box is probably coming next.





N.B.: The attachment files came from different directories in my Git workspace (generated from SVG files) but I didn't rename them on upload to this forum.

View attachment box-layout.pdf

View attachment box-layout.pdf

 

[quorten]

@joshc Take a look at the Macintosh SE ^ cardboard box design thus far.

 

[maceffects]

@quorten Sorry it has been a while since I've been on this thread.  You've done great work so far.  If you have a drawing you can scale up (doesn't need all the fine details), I can send it to my contacts in China to at least get us a estimate of costs.  And since you are in Minneapolis, I could even have a batch along with boxes sent in from China on my next shipment so you could pick them up.  Shipping is really the biggest obstacle. 

 

[quorten]

@maceffects Actually, I think you've come back to this thread around just the right time.  Wow, that's very nice to have those options available.  Regarding the foam, another update relevant update...

After perusing several Ebay listing photos, looks like Eric's box is missing some foam, and I blew the scale assumptions for the particular use of the foam.  The good news is that it looks like the box dimensions for Macintosh 128k through Macintosh SE/30 are all the same from what I can infer, and some of the foam blocks on the inside can be designed to share a lot in common across the different compact Macintosh models, thereby maximizing reuse.

 

[maceffects]

I have a mint box and packaging from an SE if we are needing to confirm overall size and such but I think they were the same or similar size from 128k->SE/30.  Some of the foam designs are different but at least for a quote they are similar enough.  

 

[quorten]

Oh wow... now I found that there are even two revisions of the Macintosh SE boxing!  The older revision has "™"  trademark marking around the Macintosh name, the newer revision has "®" registered trademark for the Macintosh name, and it has carrying handle holes.

 

[quorten]

Okay, so I was downplaying myself about totally blowing the foam dimensions.  It turns out that even though my starting assumption was the wrong in-box orientation, rescaling for the correct orientation barely changed the dimensions of my foam block!  So, here you go @maceffects, out of one of the two pieces of foam I've been modeling, the "Macintosh top cap" one is good enough to use for cost estimations, attaching as an STL file here, 1 STL unit = 1 mm.  The foam block bounding box should be approximately 19.3 x 15.3 x 8.5 inches.

For Macintosh Plus (black and white boxing), Macintosh SE, and Macintosh SE/30.  Cardboard box outer dimensions: 19.5 x 15.5 x 20 (vertical) inches.  Bursting test: 275 pounds per square inch.  Regular slotted contaner, bleach white exterior, kraft brown interior, two-color printing (red and black).  The color boxing would of course be laminate printing.

Let me know what you find out!

View attachment foam-test.stl

 

[CC_333]

It's a shame, I used to have an SE/30 box, but it got destroyed when the floor of the storage shed it was in flooded.  If I still had it, I'd offer it as a subject for modeling.

I *might* have saved the foam blocks, though, if that'd help?

c

 

[quorten]

@CC_333 Yeah, if you still have the foam blocks, photos of them would definitely be a help!  I believe the Macintosh SE/30 used redesigned foam that was meant to be nearly universal across all models of compact Macintosh, at least for some of the pieces.  Later model Macintosh Plus and Macintosh SE boxing use this design as well, though I could never get a clear view of the pieces in 360 degrees, only vague appearances in the corners of Ebay photos.

 

[quorten]

Exterior cardboard design of the Macintosh 128k was quite easy, all vector graphics.  Interior box designs are mostly copied from exterior ones, except for the power cord, so that will be pretty easy to finish off too.

 

[jessenator]

oh no, you're going to devalue that poor eBayer's original unfolded box   Nice work