The LEGO-lookalike displaying [Paul]'s dashboard

LEGO Space Computer Made Full Size, 47 Years On

There’s just something delightful about scaled items. Big things shrunk down, like LEGO’s teeny tiny terminal brick? Delightful. Taking that terminal brick and scaling it back to a full-sized computer? Even better. That’s what designer [Paul Staal] has done with his M2x2 project.

In spite of the name, it actually has a Mac Mini M4 as its powerful beating heart. An M2 might have been more on-brand, but it’s probably a case of wanting the most horsepower possible in what [Paul] apparently uses as his main workstation these days. The build itself is simple, but has some great design details. As you probably expected, the case is 3D printed. You may not have expected that he can use the left stud as a volume control, thanks to an IKEA Symfonisk remote hidden beneath. The right stud comes off to allow access to a wireless charger.

The minifigs aren’t required to charge those airpods, but they’re never out of place.

The 7″ screen can display anything, but [Paul] mostly uses it either for a custom home assistant dashboard, or to display an equalizer, both loosely styled after ‘screen’ on the original brick. We have to admit, as cool as it looked with the minifigs back in the day, that sharp angle to the screen isn’t exactly ergonomic for humans.

Perhaps the best detail was putting LEGO-compatible studs on top of the 10:1 scaled up studs, so the brick that inspired the project can sit securely atop its scion. [Paul] has provided a detailed build guide and the STLs necessary to print off a brick, should anyone want to put one of these nostalgic machines on their own desk.

We’ve covered the LEGO computer brick before, but going the other way–putting a microcontroller and display in the brick it to run DOOM. We’ve also seen it scaled up before, but that project was a bit more modest in size and computing power.

Two hands working a TekaSketch

TekaSketch: Where Etch A Sketch Meets Graph Theory

The Etch A Sketch was never supposed to meet a Raspberry Pi, a camera, or a mathematical algorithm, but here we are. [Tekavou]’s Teka-Cam and TekaSketch are a two-part hack that transforms real photos into quite stunning, line-drawn Etch A Sketch art. Where turning the knobs only results in wobbly doodles, this machine plots out every curve and contour better than your fingertips ever could.

Essentially, this is a software hack mixed with hardware: an RPi Zero W 2, a camera module, Inkplate 6, and rotary encoders. Snap a picture, and the image is conveyed to a Mac Mini M4 Pro, where Python takes over. It’s stripped to black and white, and the software creates a skeleton of all black areas. It identifies corner bridges, and unleashes a modified Chinese Postman Algorithm to stitch everything into one continuous SVG path. That file then drives the encoders, producing a drawing that looks like a human with infinite patience and zero caffeine jitters. Originally, the RPi did all the work, but it was getting too slow so the Mac was brought in.

It’s graph theory turned to art, playful and serious at the same time, and it delivers quite unique pieces. [Tekavou] is planning on improving with video support. A bit of love for his efforts might accellerate his endeavours. Let us know in the comments below!

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A Portable M4 Mac Mini

The Mac mini is the closest to an Apple-based SBC you can get, so it lends itself to unusual portable computers. [Scott Yu-Jan] is back to tackle a portable build using the latest and greatest M4 mini.

[Yu-Jan] walks us through his thought process of how to maximize the portability of the system without all that tedious mucking about with setting up a separate keyboard, monitor, and the mini while on the go. With the more complicated electronics, the monitor risked tipping the keyboard over when attached, particularly since [Yu-Jan] isn’t a fan of batteries for his portables.

By affixing the Mac mini to the side of the keyboard, it makes the whole thing easier to slip into a bag without being overly thick. We get a peek into his iterative process as well when he evaluates the build and decides that the closing of the lid wasn’t what he was hoping for. By adding some TPU rests for the monitor to rest on in the closed position, he says it’s really brought the whole project up a notch. We certainly have had our own projects where one little detail really moves it from sketchy to polished, and we appreciate when makers clue us in on where that happened for them.

You may recognize [Yu-Jan] from our previous coverage of his older portable all-in-one Mac mini and this luggable version where he explains why he doesn’t like laptops. If you like your computers more stationary, how about some G4 iMacs with the newer internals from an M-series mini?

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Designing A Portable Mac Mini

When Apple first launched the Macintosh, it created a new sort of “Lunchbox” form factor that was relatively portable and very, very cool. Reminiscent of that is this neat portable Macintosh Mini, created by [Scott Yu-Jan].

[Scott] has created something along these lines before—putting an iPad dock on top of a Macintosh Studio to create a look vaguely reminiscent of the very first Macintosh computers. However, that build wasn’t portable—it wasn’t practical to build such a thing around the Macintosh Studio. In contrast, the Mac Mini is a lithe, lightweight thing that barely sups power—it’s much more suitable for a “luggable” computer.

The build relies on a 3D printed enclosure that wraps around the Mac Mini like a glove. Inside, there’s a chunky 20,800 mAh power bank with enough juice to run the computer for over three hours. Just like the original Mac, there’s a handle on top, too. The build’s main screen is actually an iPad Mini, hooked up to the Mac Mini. If you want to use it separately, it can be popped out just by pushing it via a cutout in the bottom of the enclosure.

[Scott] notes that it’s cool, but not exactly practical—it weighs seven pounds, mostly due to the weight of the heavy power bank. We’ve featured [Scott’s] stylish builds before, too, like this nice iPhone dock.

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A hand holds a small PCB with an edge connector over the exposed, mostly black components of an M4 Mac mini. The bottom cover is hanging by an FFC cable off to the left of the

Upgrading The M4 Mac Mini With More Storage

Apple’s in-house chips have some impressive specs, but user serviceability is something Apple left behind for consumer machines around a decade ago. Repair legend [dosdude1] shows us how the new M4 Mac mini can get a sizeable storage upgrade without paying the Apple tax.

The Mac mini is Apple’s least expensive machine, and in the old days you could swap a SATA drive for more storage and not pay the exorbitant prices that OEMs demand. Never one to turn down a walled garden, later Intel machines and now the ARM-based M-series chips soldered storage into the machine leaving an upgrade out of the hands of anyone without a hot air station.

Both the Mac Studio and Mac mini now have proprietary storage cards, and after some tinkering, [dosdude1] has successfully upgraded the storage on the base model M4 mini. While most people don’t casually reball NAND chips while chatting on a video, his previous work with others in the space to make a Mac Studio upgrade kit give us hope we’ll soon see economical storage upgrades that keep the Mac mini affordable.

We’ve previously covered the first time Apple tried to make its own processors, and some of their more recent attempts at repairability.

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A beige computer monitor with a green glow sits atop a flat, beige Apple IIc with a mouse next to it on a dark wooden table. A vase full of bright pink flowers is in the background.

G4 Mac Mini Is A Wolf In Apple IIc Clothing

Restomods let us relive some of the glory days of industrial design with internals that would blow the socks off the original device. [Mental Hygiene] decided to update an Apple IIc with a G4 brain.

Starting with a broken IIc, they pulled the internals, including the venerable 6502, and transplanted the parts from a G4 Mac mini into the case. There was plenty of room for the small desktop and its power supply. We love how they were able to repurpose the 5 1/4″ floppy access on the side of the IIc as a DVD drive.

A Mac OSX install DVD peeks out from the disc slot on a beige Apple IIc. You'd never guess this was originally a floppy drive.The original keyboard was adapted with an Arduino Teensy into a USB unit for the mini, but the internals of the mouse were replaced with a modern USB laser mouse running the signals over the original connector. What really sells this particular restomod is the “VGA adapter that outputs monochrome NTSC via RCA” allowing a vintage Apple CRT to make this look like a device that somehow upgraded all the way to OSX.

This mod looks to be from 2012, so we’re wondering if it’s time someone did this with an Apple Silicon mini? We’ve previously covered a few different minis inside G4 iMacs. We’ve even seen someone tackle the Compact Macintosh with an iPad mini.

M1 Development Board From Scraps

Apple is fairly notorious for building devices that are difficult to repair, but with the right tools it’s often not completely impossible to circumvent some of their barriers. As they say, every lock has a key. [dosdude1] has wanted a specific M1 development board for a while now and has been slowly piecing together everything he needs to cobble one together, and finally got this unit running despite many roadblocks put in his way by Apple.

The development kit is a Developer Transition Kit  or “DTK” meant for developers during Apple’s transition from Intel chips to their own in-house ARM-based M1 platform. This particular version is in a Mac Mini form factor but it has a few hurdles to clear before it powers on. First, the board was cut in a critical location that shorted out many of the PCB layers, so this had to be carefully filed down to remove the shorts. It was also missing a few tiny surface mount components and a NAND chip, but these were scavenged from other scrapped parts and assembled into a fully working machine.

There are a number of other non-physical problems to solve here as well, too. Apple coded their NAND chips to work with specific WiFi modules so if these aren’t programmed to work together the computer will get stuck in a boot loop. But with that and a few other details out of the way [dosdude1] finally has his DTK up and running in a 2018 Mac Mini chassis, right down to the working power LEDs. We’ve seen all kinds of PCB damage before (although not often quite this intricate) and even PCBs repaired that were snapped in half.

Thanks to [CodeAsm] for the tip!

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