Eleven Macs, Which One to Hack?

[CommotoshX86]

Hello fellow Hackers and Modders,

I really need for y’all to get excited for me about this. If this crowd doesn’t, nobody will! This week I hit the case modder’s jackpot and became the owner of 11 vintage macs. One of them needs to become my next Hack victim. My wife is being politely excited but she doesn’t really get it. She says things like, “Wow, honey, I’m really happy that you like that.” And when I showed her the craftsmanship and quality of the G5 and how the internal plastic shroud comes off she said, “look at that, you can put your fingers in there.” Don’t get me wrong, I know she could be saying, “what did you bring those old things home for?” so I am really grateful.

So which one should be my next project? Here is the lineup: One Macintosh Plus, a G4 Cube with pro keyboard, pro mouse, studio display, and eyeball speakers, a 15” G4 iMac with pro keyboard, pro mouse, and eyeball speakers, three G4 Graphite Powermacs, a Mirror Door G4 Powermac, a Quicksilver G4 Powermac, a G5 Powermac, a grape G3 iMac, and a graphite G3 Powermac. (Both G3 iMacs have the original keyboards.) When I got all these, only two of them worked, but so far I have gotten them all working except the G5 and the Mirror Door, which is pretty much stripped of everything but the mobo. A couple of them are LOADED with creative design and publishing software. All of them are in nearly perfect condition, cosmetically.

I would LOVE to Hack the Cube but I would only do it if I could really do it right, keeping the touch power button, handle, etc., and I am not confident enough in my electrical wiring and design abilities to pull that off. The Macintosh Plus would be cool to mod with an iPad for the workings, but I kind of hate to destroy an original working classic. (I’m still carrying around guilt for doing that to my Commodore 64). I already have a cool G4 Powermac ( http://www.tonymacx86.com/case-mods/55635-g4-powermac-mod-candy-apple.html ) so I don’t feel inclined to do any of those. The G5 would be really cool and there are lots of good resources available to use as guides but that lends itself best to a really powerful machine, which is not in my budget and I don’t need that. So what I am leaning towards the most is one of the G3 iMacs. I think it would be super-cool to build inside that translucent case and have some color coordinated LEDs glowing in there. What do y’all think? If I do that, which one? Grape with purple LEDs or graphite with blue LEDs? Any thoughts?

 

[doctorevil30564]

Hello fellow Hackers and Modders,

I really need for y’all to get excited for me about this. If this crowd doesn’t, nobody will! This week I hit the case modder’s jackpot and became the owner of 11 vintage macs. One of them needs to become my next Hack victim. My wife is being politely excited but she doesn’t really get it. She says things like, “Wow, honey, I’m really happy that you like that.” And when I showed her the craftsmanship and quality of the G5 and how the internal plastic shroud comes off she said, “look at that, you can put your fingers in there.” Don’t get me wrong, I know she could be saying, “what did you bring those old things home for?” so I am really grateful.

So which one should be my next project? Here is the lineup: One Macintosh Plus, a G4 Cube with pro keyboard, pro mouse, studio display, and eyeball speakers, a 15” G4 iMac with pro keyboard, pro mouse, and eyeball speakers, three G4 Graphite Powermacs, a Mirror Door G4 Powermac, a Quicksilver G4 Powermac, a G5 Powermac, a grape G3 iMac, and a graphite G3 Powermac. (Both G3 iMacs have the original keyboards.) When I got all these, only two of them worked, but so far I have gotten them all working except the G5 and the Mirror Door, which is pretty much stripped of everything but the mobo. A couple of them are LOADED with creative design and publishing software. All of them are in nearly perfect condition, cosmetically.

I would LOVE to Hack the Cube but I would only do it if I could really do it right, keeping the touch power button, handle, etc., and I am not confident enough in my electrical wiring and design abilities to pull that off. The Macintosh Plus would be cool to mod with an iPad for the workings, but I kind of hate to destroy an original working classic. (I’m still carrying around guilt for doing that to my Commodore 64). I already have a cool G4 Powermac ( http://www.tonymacx86.com/case-mods/55635-g4-powermac-mod-candy-apple.html ) so I don’t feel inclined to do any of those. The G5 would be really cool and there are lots of good resources available to use as guides but that lends itself best to a really powerful machine, which is not in my budget and I don’t need that. So what I am leaning towards the most is one of the G3 iMacs. I think it would be super-cool to build inside that translucent case and have some color coordinated LEDs glowing in there. What do y’all think? If I do that, which one? Grape with purple LEDs or graphite with blue LEDs? Any thoughts?

I'd do the grape G3 Imac. that would look bad-ass if it was converted over to a LCD screen (with the appropriate plastic or gasket to fill the holes since you'd be switching from a rounded screen to a flat screen, and I believe that one of the Mini-ITX boards that other great modders on this forum have used to do their G4 cube mods would probably work well in it. Plus imagine how awesome the translucent grape case would look with a black light cathode tube installed.

 

[Flybye]

The mirror door! Reason because the motherboard placement is completely opposite from any other case I've seen, and I'd be curious to see how someone is able to stuff an ATX in it.

 

[minihack]

What do you mean "which one?".

The answer is ALL of them.

 

[CommotoshX86]

What do you mean "which one?".

The answer is ALL of them.

Sounds like an 80s horror flick - "Hack 'em All"

So maybe I should ask which is the NEXt one I should hack.

 

[sonicseamus]

You are one lucky man... I've been scouring ebay and craigslist for a G5 but haven't found one for under $40. (I know, I'm cheap, but ALL I NEED IS THE CASE WHICH NO ONE UNDERSTANDS). Anyway, I would second the iMac idea because I was thinking about how no one had done that the other day. But would you really want that small of a screen, or would you just use it as a case? Still, it would be an awesome mod.

 

[minihack]

You are one lucky man... I've been scouring ebay and craigslist for a G5 but haven't found one for under $40. (I know, I'm cheap, but ALL I NEED IS THE CASE WHICH NO ONE UNDERSTANDS). Anyway, I would second the iMac idea because I was thinking about how no one had done that the other day. But would you really want that small of a screen, or would you just use it as a case? Still, it would be an awesome mod.

Unfortunately people do understand it is the case that costs the money for the G5......

BTW, the iMac mod has definitely been done before.....and yes the problem is that 14/15 inch monitors that are 4:3 format are pretty much rubbish these days. An interesting iMac G3 mod would be to make it a touch screen Mac for kids maybe? Or to use the case to house something else cool (computer controlled drinks cabinet? Cat grooming parlour? Hamster disco?? - pet beds and aquariums have been done before!).

 

[dotheDVDeed]

I'd hack the models that can't run Leopard (<867 Mhz G4). If they can run Leopard they can live out their final years running the current version of iTunes as a server.

TIM

Well it was true when I wrote it... but as of Sept. 12, 2012 the latest version DOESN'T run on PowerPC anymore.

Helpful link (iTunes 10.6.3--Last PowerPC version) http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1575

 

[sonicseamus]

Unfortunately people do understand it is the case that costs the money for the G5......

BTW, the iMac mod has definitely been done before.....and yes the problem is that 14/15 inch monitors that are 4:3 format are pretty much rubbish these days. An interesting iMac G3 mod would be to make it a touch screen Mac for kids maybe? Or to use the case to house something else cool (computer controlled drinks cabinet? Cat grooming parlour? Hamster disco?? - pet beds and aquariums have been done before!).

I guess you're right. How much should I expect to pay for a gutted one?

I totally agree about the iMac monitor problem. Touch screen would be cool, maybe like a ModBook? Does OS X support touchscreens? With a touch screen you could use it as some sort of iTunes kiosk for your stereo - that would be pretty sick. What I was wondering is how you would fit a mobo in there. Horizontally? Vertically? I guess PCI cards are out of the question, but even I/O ports would be hard because the whole chassis is so curved. Also, a CD drive would almost definitely interfere with anywhere you put the mobo.

 

[doctorevil30564]

Unfortunately people do understand it is the case that costs the money for the G5......

BTW, the iMac mod has definitely been done before.....and yes the problem is that 14/15 inch monitors that are 4:3 format are pretty much rubbish these days. An interesting iMac G3 mod would be to make it a touch screen Mac for kids maybe? Or to use the case to house something else cool (computer controlled drinks cabinet? Cat grooming parlour? Hamster disco?? - pet beds and aquariums have been done before!).

I agree that screens that size aren't the best. My suggestion would be to do a multiple monitor display, use an external lcd monitor for the primary display, and use the internal screen as the secondary display which could run apps that would look ok on it such as Itunes for music,etc. and use the primary display for everything else.