ejm@sppy00.UUCP (Eric Miller) (03/15/91)
I noticed in the book store the other day a line of "Build Your Own MAC and Save Lots of Money" books. I was curious if anybody has had any luck with building your own Mac (anything from a plus to a ci). Any personal stats on references, difficulty, savings, and compatability? Thanks in advance. -- Eric J. Miller The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design miller-e@cis.ohio-state.edu but what's missing is the eyebrows... ejm@sppy00.UUCP -Frank Zappa
feuer@labmed.ucsf.edu (Burt Feuerstein) (03/16/91)
In article <1153@sppy00.UUCP> ejm@sppy00.UUCP (Eric Miller) writes: >I noticed in the book store the other day a line of "Build Your Own MAC and >Save Lots of Money" books. I was curious if anybody has had any luck with >building your own Mac (anything from a plus to a ci). >Any personal stats on references, difficulty, savings, and compatability? ditto. -- Burt : UC San Francisco :...!{ucbvax,uunet}!cope.ucsf.edu!feuer Feuerstein : Dept. of Lab. Medicine : feuer@cope.ucsf.edu : PH. 415-476-3996 : FEUER@COPE.UCSF.EDU.BITNET
leburg@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Brian Pierson) (03/16/91)
>>I noticed in the book store the other day a line of "Build Your Own MAC and >>Save Lots of Money" books. What line is this? Could someone furnish more info on this line please. I would be highly interseted in taking a look at it. ISBN, Author, Title would be enough. Brian Pierson
whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore) (03/16/91)
In article <1153@sppy00.UUCP> ejm@sppy00.UUCP (Eric Miller) writes: >I noticed in the book store the other day a line of "Build Your Own MAC and >Save Lots of Money" books. I was curious if anybody has had any luck with >building your own Mac (anything from a plus to a ci). I built a Frankentosh (of the 512k variety) from a spare 128k motherboard and some scrap (power supplies, monitors, a game trackball, and one chip to convert the video). It took a half dozen weekends and about $500 (the disk drive was $250, and the motherboard about $200). Of course, I bought the 256k DRAMs at the then-market value, $200, to get it up to 512k. If you can find a Mac+ motherboard, it can be built up for a lot less than I paid (my project was in 1986), and there are books explaining what to do. I spent a couple of weekends examining signals with an o-scope and taking notes on conversion techniques; the one-chip video converter had to invert the video, delay the HSYNC, limit the VSYNC and HSYNC pulse widths, and deliver either separate sync/video or composite RS-170 video. Hint: the chip I used was a 74HC14. The last article on how-to-do-it I saw was rather awkward in its treatment of the video conversion, but there's really NOTHING else that requires more than simple wire-the-connector skills. A friend with simple wire-the-connector skills actually completed a similar project after I'd finished mine (by looking over my shoulder and asking a lot of questions...), and his main problem was in getting the wooden case components to fit. His approach to woodworking was... tedious. He'd cut the parts too big, and sandpaper 'em until they fit. The office was floating in dust for weeks. In addition to books, there have been articles in Byte and Computer Shopper (a series in Sept/Oct/Nov of (?'88)). Power supplies are trivial (the old 63.5W things that used to power PC's before hard disks are MORE than enough for a Mac with all the bells and whistles-and a modern hard disk). Monitors are nearly trivial; old terminals are going for $20 or so at Salvation Army, and the monitors in 'em are separable modules more often than not. The Mac+ (and 128 and 512) mouse interface was trivial; any trackball or mouse could easily be converted for use (ADB is not trivial, however). 800k Fujitsu Mac-compatible floppies are available new at under $100. Buy a keyboard or find an old narrow one that was discarded when the wider Mac+ keyboard was purchased (or buy a DataDesk ADB-style unit). The box is not quite trivial; probably a PC-clone case will be the best option here. It takes a while to get all the wierd holes in the back of the case to come out right. John Whitmore
stanfiel@testeng1.misemi (Chris Stanfield) (03/19/91)
In article <1153@sppy00.UUCP> ejm@sppy00.UUCP (Eric Miller) writes: >I noticed in the book store the other day a line of "Build Your Own MAC and >Save Lots of Money" books. I was curious if anybody has had any luck with >building your own Mac (anything from a plus to a ci). >Any personal stats on references, difficulty, savings, and compatability? >Thanks in advance. My home machine is just such a beast and it works. It is pretty easy to do. You need a Mac logic board, a power supply and a TTL monitor. You need to build a little intreface circuit to convert the Mac video to standard TTL. To get any real functionality, you will need the 128k ROM set, which I understand can be difficult to get now (comments anyone?) and some drives. I use one 800k floppy and a 40M hard drive. Depending on what logic board you use, you may need to do some enhancements to add memory and a SCSI port. If you can get a Plus board, for example, you won't have to bother. Some of the details were published in Computer Shopper a couple of years ago, although the upgrade info is now a little out of date. I used a 512k logic board with a NewLife 1 upgrade, so I have a SCSI port and 2.5M of memory. The same upgrade can be used on a 128k logic board. Max. memory with this upgrade is the full 4M. If you want to give me a call, I am at the number below from 8.30 to 4.00 EST, most days, or Email. Chris Stanfield, Mitel Corporation: E-mail to:- uunet!mitel!testeng1!stanfiel (613) 592 2122 Ext.4960 We do not inherit the world from our parents - we borrow it from our children.