For $99, Apple will happily sell you a slick USB superdrive (aka DVD burner) that only works with the MacBook Air. [tnkgrl] swapped out the USB-IDE interface with a generic $9 unit to make it work with everything else. The generic board required a few mods: relocating the crystal oscillator along with the amputation of its daughter-board that carried an external power connector, usb connector and some caps.
10 thoughts on “Make A Universal Macbook Air Superdrive”
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i approve of this post
oi, troll, GTFO
this will be my first upgrade to the eee pc 901
That’s great. I like most of what Apple makes, but their unnecessary hardware lock ins are something that will always keep me from fully liking or supporting them. What is it about them that they feel it’s beneficial to them to lock their hardware down to being compatible only with their stuff in this way. I understand the logic behind not allowing OSX running on other hardware, but there’s absolutely no reason that this DVD drive should be compatible with only one machine. They seem to spend as much time making things sleek and functional as they do breaking cross-compatibility and the ability to use YOUR hardware as YOU see fit.
Great hack! question is could it be simplified by re-flashing the firmware mentioned, or even debugging the usb and creating a new driver for the device?
wooow
i realy start to fall in love with mac ;)
wooow
i realy love mac
oi miked keep up the good work.
on toppic i might pick me up a MBA super drive tomorrow would go great with my EEE 900 !!
adding to twitter this is great info.
Cheers for the great info m8