Right here’s a enjoyable one for Mac nostalgia followers: a brand new mission by hobbyist Nick Gillard has taken the concept of mini retro builds to a complete micro degree.
Referred to as the pico-mac-nano, it is a working reproduction of the unique Macintosh that stands simply 62 millimeters tall (that’s 2.4 inches for you, Casey Liss). And what’s extra, you may truly run MacPaint and MacWrite on it.
How superior is that?
The mission (through BoingBoing) builds on an earlier open-source emulator by Matt Evans, who had already managed to get a Raspberry Pi Pico operating System 1. Gillard took that concept and ran with it, packing it into an incredibly devoted 3D-printed case, full with a tiny rainbow Apple emblem and even a scale reproduction of the unique Picasso-style transport field.
“I simply couldn’t resist creating an identical, tiny model of the long-lasting ‘Picasso’ field that the unique 128K Macintosh shipped in. After lastly discovering a producer (in India!) and having the primary batch again, I’m super-happy with the consequence; a white, full color printed, corrugated cardboard field.”
The center of the machine are fabricated from a Pi Pico microcontroller, a 2-inch 480×640 TFT display configured to match the unique Mac’s 512×342 decision, and a speaker able to these signature startup chimes. Every little thing runs off a customized firmware that emulates a 68000 CPU, all open-sourced and shared on GitHub.
The consequence is an ideal desktop curiosity you may reward your self on a special day or, for those who’re certainly one of these DIY creatures, construct by yourself. Gillard says he’ll be promoting just a few pre-assembled kits quickly, however for those who’re the DIY sort, you can too seize the STL recordsdata, firmware, and a full components record to your subsequent weekend mission over at 1BitRainbow.com.
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