The Macintosh Portable was Apple’s first foray into mobile computing. This early laptop, err, luggable, weighed in at 16 lbs due to the 6V sealed lead-acid battery and desktop floppy and hard drives. But because of this, the Snow White designed case is roomy inside and a prime candidate for a overhaul. My particular Macintosh […]
Category Archives: Apple
ImageWriter II Color Ribbon Fix
If you’ve attempted to use an original color ribbon in your ImageWriter II recently, you’ve quickly found out that the pinch rollers inside the cartridge have disintegrated over time. More specifically, the foam that goes around the rollers that pull the ribbon through the cartridge have fallen apart and turned to sticky dust. I recently […]
iPod 3rd Gen: SD Card Upgrade, New Battery, and Flex Cable Repair
My first iPod was the iPod 3G so I was a little late to the game. I’ve own several iPods after that but the iPod 3G I felt was a perfect distillation of the original iPod experience. Four separate buttons in a row and a touch wheel (nothing moves) seemed like peak iPod design to […]
Using AppleTalk with QEMU 9 on Raspberry Pi 5
I recently built QEMU from scratch on the Raspberry Pi 5 and wanted to document my steps. My goal was to run two different Mac emulations: a 68k and PPC Mac, specifically with AppleTalk networking functioning over Ethernet.
Building a Classic Mac Support Server
If you’re a classic Mac enthusiast, you know that it’s sometimes difficult to enjoy if you don’t have the right tools. Things like the choosing the right system software, the right version(s) of Stuffit Expander, and so forth. Then, getting that software to the machine can be a challenge. Floppy disks are problematic for a […]
Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30.
(The following was a Twitter thread on March 10, 2021 for #MARCHintosh.) But there’s only one slot, you say? It’s all a matter of using a clever part to adapt a pass-through.
Another Visit to The Computer Museum at System Source in Baltimore MD.
On July 10, 2021, I visited the Computer Museum at System Source in Baltimore MD as part of the Vintage Computer Federation (VCF) Repair Workshop. I also visited the museum in 2020. Warning: Image heavy page ahead!
A Visit to The Computer Museum at System Source, Baltimore, MD
On Feb 15, 2020, I visited the Computer Museum at System Source in Baltimore, MD as part of a VCF Federation Repair Workshop weekend. The museum there is mind blowing. Want to see some pictures? Warning: Image heavy page ahead!
Recapping the Apple PowerBook 160 LCD Display
(This was originally a Twitter thread from May 26, 2022) May 26, 2022 Today I’m going to recap the LCD display on this PowerBook 160. It has a passive matrix LCD display capable of displaying 4-bit grayscale (16 shades of gray). The display was dim before with some severe artifacts (after adjusting the contrast slider) […]
Recap and repair of a Mac Classic II
(This was originally a thread posted on Twitter on June 30, 2022) June 30, 2022 On the bench for recapping today is a Mac Classic II, the last of the b&w compact Macs (1991). I forgot how small the motherboard was.