Summer Project Ideas - Thoughts?

[Scott Baret]

As a teacher, I'll be getting some time off in a few months and need something to do in the summer. I got an idea for a potential compact Mac mod, but need some input first to see what the feasibility of this would be.

As we know, we're fairly limited with what we have in terms of stock compact boards (except for CC mods). Yes, anything can be accelerated, but I'd rather have a better starting point.

What would be the chances of getting a higher powered PowerBook inside a compact case, then rigged up to the CRT? It would have to run faster than an SE/30 but I'd rather keep it 68K. Right now I'm thinking of using a 150 board since I have a good 150 board with a bad display and dead HD, plus I could use IDE. The only downfall is that it doesn't have an ADB port. A 190 would be another option (bonus with its ability to run OS 8) . I have a Classic I case but could get another dead 68K and gut it if I wanted to change that.

Any thoughts? I know there are a lot of Mac Minis going into compact cases anymore but this would keep it 68K.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The 150 ADB hack is fairly well documented, so that's no worry.

How are you going to get Video off the 150, a SCSI Video Adapter? :?:

I think you probably need to start looking for a 9" Grayscale VGA CRT and the adapter. AFAIK it'll still be B&W, but it'll work.

If there were a way to drive that blasted 9" Periscope, the SE/30 crowd woulda' been all over it. :-/

 

[trag]

I think an interesting, but more challenging option would be to figure out/get the documentation for (if any) the LCD panel. The electrical interface to the CRT in the classic Macs is already pretty well understood. Then build circuitry to translate the video signals from the PB150 (or other target) so that it actually drives the analog board video circuitry in the classic Mac.

Once the two interfaces are well understood, it really shouldn't be that hard to translate between them, unless the bits are out of order for some reason (writing one quadrant of LCD at a time perhaps?).

 

[James1095]

IMO a more interesting approach would be a modern accelerator card that plugs into the pds slot, although that's another several steps up in difficulty. Doesn't make much sense to me to go through all the trouble of stuffing the guts of a laptop into a larger clunker box, that's really no different than the microATX mods. A low end (by modern standards) PC running an emulator still makes a faster Mac than any of the stock 68K machines.

 

[MinerAl]

I'm a teacher too! A similar idea of mine led me to discover that the analog board attached to the CRT in the compact cases is a thoroughly unique little beast as far as frequencies and so on. It's not easily compatible with much else that sends a video signal without some serious electronic engineering.

People have successfully hacked in other 9" monochrome monitors, or used the electronic guts of an Apple 12" monochrome monitor attached to the 9" tube.

Personally I'm going the 9" monochrome SVGA guts way.

Look at the first few pages of Hacks forum topics. I found lots of (discouraging) info there.

 

[MacJunky]

Make sure you enter Retrochallenge with whatever you decide to do.

 

[MinerAl]

Naturally, I was looking for one for weeks, and as soon as I pull the trigger on an SVGA 9" monochrome, up comes an Apple 12" Hi-Res Monochrome monitor.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/230919920072

Jump on it!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Cool, if someone grabs it for an SE/30 GS Hack, I could use the plastics. It may save one of my working RGBs from the Ryoba! }

 

[Scott Baret]

I've searched high and low for the ADB hack--anyone have a working link to it?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I have the page saved somewhere, I'll dig it up, maybe we can wayback it afterward.

Back again: That was quick & easy, couldn't find info on the site . . .

. . . but I do have a 1.6MB ClarisWorks WP file with all the .TXT & piccies. }

From the creation date, it looks like this hack has been on the back burner since I planned doing it September 30, 2002!

I finally got a PowerBook 150 to do it just shy of ten years later. PM an email drop to me. [] ]'>