If he’s anything like us [Duncan Hall] was probably equal parts excited and disgusted when he found a 1987 Macintosh SE case at a garage sale. Excited, because not every day do vintage computers show up at these things. Disgusted, because it had been gutted and coated in house paint; the previous owner apparently wanted to make an aquarium. [Duncan] wanted to make a computer, and after 15 years, he finally did, calling it the PhoeNIX SE.
The NIX part of the name might make you suspect he’s running Linux on it, which yes, he absolutely is. The guts of this restomod were donated from a Dell XPS laptop, whose Core i7 CPU and motherboard power the project. A 9.7″ LCD serves in place of the original monochrome CRT, held in place by 3D printed hardware. While a purist might complain, it’s not like anyone makes replacement CRTs anymore, and once that’s gone? You might as well go full modern. (The analog board, on the other hand, is available. So is the logic board, if you were wondering. Lacking a CRT, some might have chosen e-ink instead, but the LCD looks good here.)
Having gone full modern, well, there’s no need for the M5011’s dual floppies, so one of them holds a webcam and monitor for a modern experience. A zoom call from that case would be a bit surreal, but we really appreciate the use of the empty floppy bay to keep the clean lines of the Macintosh SE unaltered. The other floppy bay (this is a dual-floppy unit) appears empty; we might have put an SD-card reader or something in there, but we absolutely agree with [Duncan]’s choice to 3D Print a new back panel and keep all I/O on the rear of the case, as God and Steve Jobs intended.
However you feel about restomodding retrocomputers (and we’re aware it’s a controversial practice), I think we can all agree this is a much better fate for the old Mac than becoming an aquarium. Thanks to [Loddington] for the tip.
If you’re on the side of the aisle that prefers to see restorations than restomods, the tips line is waiting for some quality restorations.
Floppy surprise? C’mon you can’t set people up like that
The 3.5″ disks were hardly “floppy”, but that’s the least issue that I have with this article.
They had a rigid housing, but the recording media was definitely floppy. But, you do have a point. I seem to remember that we avoided using the word “floppy” to distinguish a 5.25″ floppy from a 3.5″ floppy. I just called them disks and in the times when I meant a 5.25″, they were floppy disks.
Some called them “stiffies” instead of”, “micro floppies” right? :)
But joking aside, the floppy part is the wobbly discus thingy inside.
Though that perhaps wasn’t apparend in the 5,25″ or 8″ floppy days.
Or must I say “flappy” disk for the 8″ disk?
A “flippy” was a double sided disk 5,25″ diskette, I think?!
They were not, but outside of children making purile jokes about “stiffies” I cannot recall anyone calling them anything else in the last 30 years.
Some people called Zip disks floppies, and I’m quite certain if magneto-optical disks had caught on we’d be calling our MOdisk or MD Data disks “floppies” too, with even less excuse.
I have one of them still. But im scared to turn it on. It has been turned off for 20 years and im afraid it will release its magic smoke. One day ill clean and restore it and then im going to play icmb on it again like 35ish years ago :D
Relax, kids. Such vintage chassis are being scanned and digitally archived.
It’s possible to 3D print such chassis in case you need replacement parts once.
So making a case mod on a beaten vintage Mac chassis is no big deal.
Otherwise, this chassis might have ended up in a recycler or a landfill.
Like a dozen of Lisa computers did once, because Apple wanted it.
i never really understood the appeal of old proprietary machines. i know people grew up with a specific machine. but i have almost always used a home built rig, and i dont go through such extreme measures to preserve them. i try to keep hardware around as long as its useful (and i have machines that are over 10 years old because they remain useful) but at a point i have to pull the ewaste trigger. if people can find uses for this stuff, good, its better than throwing it all out. there will be enough working specimens for the historical record even if 90% gets gutted, these machines were kind of ubiquitous.
Hm. Not sure how to explain. I’m wrong person, I guess.
I was raised with the idea that items/objects have a soul and a story to tell.
And that “throwing out” is wrong per se, until there’s a good reason.
If possible, we must try to recycle parts of something so it’s not wasted.
Unless it’s unfixable, like a cheap, broken coffee machine, of course.
My grand grand father did repair his radio, for example. Or furniture.
Nothing was “thrown out” in the common sense.
He and his wife also repaired clothes, of course.
People in my family still do (try) to fix old clothes, if the damage isn’t that big. Patches can help, for example.
One of the roots to this general thinking was the book burning here in Germany, maybe. And the poor times after ww2, of course.
After that, people did hesitate a bit to easily throw out books and magazines.
Unless they’re not being important (news papers, TV magazines) and can be recycled.
Meals aren’t wasted, either, of course. The plate has to be emptied, if possible.
Food as such is valuable, no matter the economics behind it.
It’s a cultural principle of right/wrong.
Where I live the kids from local church to collect old papers, for example.
There’s also a dedicated paper trash bin for old paper and cardboard.
Old books are rather sold via Amazon or brought to modified telephone boots. You know, such boots which carry books for free.
Everyone can take/donate a book 24/7. There’s even a light inside for sake of conveniance.
People still own and drive Ford Model T’s, even though they only go about 30 MPH and piss off people who get stuck behind one. “I need a car for transportation” is not why people buy them. This is just the computer version of that.
Most of us here had a computer sitting on the altar at which we sacrificed our youth– our work desks. Is it any wonder then that some of us should come to treat that which sat upon the altar as a sacred object?
idk an aquarium is a clever idea given some of the screen savers that were available for mac. so its like the screensaver is always on but the fish are real. i want to see that hack.
I could not find that we ever covered it here– not flame-proof enough — but the “Macquarium” idea is apparently relevant for wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarium