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They've already got this thing running! .. even has an LCD output screen!

http://www.applefritter.com/compubrick/compubrick1 60/index.html

Apple Powerbooks (the older ones -- Titaniums don't really need painting!): http://www.applefritter.com/hacks/laptops.html

I'd consider doing that to my Powerbook, but it has a history of catching fire, so I leave it well alone!

Ok, enough of the boring stuff. Here are some links to keep you guys semi-entertained. The Cube goes into the Museum of Modern Art. For those without a NYTimes subscription, MacObserver summarizes the article.

Now for the fun stuff. Case mods! Check out the Kleenex Cube and the Blue Smoke Cube. Also, here's an All American Cube.

Ok, enough of the boring stuff. Here are some links to keep you guys semi-entertained. The Cube goes into the Museum of Modern Art. For those without a NYTimes subscription, MacObserver summarizes the article.

Now for the fun stuff. Case mods! Check out the Kleenex Cube and the Blue Smoke Cube. Also, here's an All American Cube.

The Powerbook wasn't the first Mac OS laptop to feature an incredible design. Take a look at this machine

Devin Durham already performed such a mod some years ago. The results are fairly impressive; most notable is the vertically-mounted CD drive behind the tuner dial.

It is unlikely, however, that the boxes in the article were so elaborate. My guess is that the modern wooden cases look more like orange crates than radios.

Rhapsody is not OS X

Close, but not quite. Perhaps it's time for an Apple OS and Code Name refresher.

First off, and totally unrelated, is Apple's first unix OS from the mid 1980s, A/UX. This OS made its way thru several revisions, eventually ending up around 3.1. A/UX was available for certain 680x0 CPU based machines only and was never ported to PowerPC as at that time Apple had been hoping to move completely to Copland.
http://applefritter.com/ui/aux/

(The move from the 68K to PPC is also an interesting story, especially the small side storys of Apple's lab experience with later model 68Ks (68060, etc), the 88K, Alpha, 5x86, and MIPS CPUs.)

Apple's first attempt to upgrade and overhaul the Macintosh System software (Mac OS) was with Blue and Pink. Blue eventualy became System 7.0 and was a significant upgrade over previous versions of the OS, but still lacked many modern architectural features that were even present on the Lisa's OS in 1983 (in the Macintosh's defense, the Lisa had almost 10x as much RAM and cost 5x as much when it originally shipped). Blue was to be followed by Pink, a modern OS to be designed by Apple and a startup known as Taligent. Pink died a horrible political death and never saw the light of day.

Apple's second attempt was Copland, which was to be later followed by Gershwin, a heavily OpenDoc container based platform. Copland came close to being finished, Apple had released an early developer release (DR0) to select developers and had already started a Mac OS 9 marketing campaign. Copland was canned for a number of reasons, application compatibility (or the lack thereof) was a major factor.
http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/19 95/q3/950508.pr.rel.copland.html
http://www.bozosoft.com/copland.html
http://www.macworld.com/1995/04/news/550.html
http://www.macworld.com/2000/09/buzz/windingroad.h tml

Following the demise of Copland, Apple continued development of Mac OS 7.X (at the time at 7.5.X and 7.6.X). A version with some of the Copland features and appearance was developed as 7.7 but released and marketed as 8.0. Today this series is known as "Classic" Mac OS and is currently at 9.2.1. Since 8.0, Classic has undergone several major microkernel changes, driver architecure tweaks, and VM overhauls.

At the same time, Apple began a new OS search. Their options were to revive Copland, license Windows NT, or buy someone such as Be or NeXT. They decided to buy NeXT (which came with Apple and NeXT cofounder Steve Jobs).

Apple's most recent OS attempt, the the one that made it out the door, was Rhapsody. This project began at NeXT porting and updating their "OpenStep For Mach 4.2" (formerly NEXTSTEP 1.x - 3.3) OS to Apple PowerMacintosh hardware. The first devloper release of this was Rhapsody DR1 and came in three flavors... Rhapsody for Mac, Rhapsody for x86, and Rhapsody for NT (essentially a runtime framework to run Rhapsody apps atop Windows). Apps could be crosscompiled into a single fat binary to run on both platforms.

Rhapsody went thru several developer releases and was first publically shipped as Mac OS X Server 1.0, which had a GUI that resembled both Mac OS 8 and OpenStep. OS X server eventually reached version 1.2. 1.2 was codenamed Rhapsody 5.5. This can also be seen by doing a uname -a.

Later Rhapsody developer releases were known as Mac OS X Developer Previews, eventually gaining the Aqua look and perhaps most importantly, Carbon support. Previously, Rhapsody supported only two types of binaries -- Classic (non-ported Classic Mac OS apps running within a virtual machine, originally called Blue Box, later simply called Classic) and Yellow Box (applications specifically written for Rhapsody, based on the NS framework from the NEXTSTEP/OpenStep era. Yellow box is now known as Cocoa). Carbon was created to allow something no previous Apple Macintosh OS attempt had - an easy upgrade/porting path. Apple cleaned up the Mac APIs and supported them on both Classic Mac OS versions (starting with Mac OS 8.6) and on Mac OS X. The average developer now only had to modify 1% - 5% of his code to make it run on both Mac OS X and Classic Mac OS.

When Apple decided to release the source to the OS's internals, they replaced the Rhapsody name with Darwin. Today the current version of Mac OS X is 10.1, aka Darwin 1.3.1.

You mean like a Tupperware Mac?

And Tupperware bowels? That's quite an icky hack. :)

Anbody who questions the role of the Lisa in advancing the GUI can find more than ample evidence in the 5000 pages of texts linked to from the above page.

The differences between the Lisa and Xerox Alto and Star are very significant.

Sorry guys, but you're many moons too late for this to be new - Apple beat you to it in 1996, in the form of the ill-fated eMate 300 (incidentally, the first translucent Apple product) coupled to a Freeplay generator, for the useful purpose of education and as written in this 1997 press release. Furthermore, although the eMate (and it's parent the Newton) are long dead, the idea is still pretty much on the table with Apple, as this 1999 WIRED article points out. Who knows, with Apple seemingly interested in getting into the PDA market again, we may yet see this idea resurrected in commercial form.

Long and short of it - screw webservers. Think of powering keyboard-equipped highly functional PDAs with these things.

here is a sample: http://applefritter.com/hacks/index.html

I Rather like the machine in the Zenith radio case (wood), the popsicle stick case (also wood) the ShopMac, and the 33.6 in the antique toaster.

go up one level and look at the computers built out of building blocks.

______

*Yawn* A wood case sounds like filler, I've seen far better wood cases on /. before

Don't forget all the mods at www.applefritter.com

"I am a man, and men are
animals who tell stories."

--

The PowerMac built into a Smith Corona typewriter case.

The toaster modem (quite an antique).

A PowerMac 7600 built into a 1940s Zenith radio case (check out the CD-ROM drive!).

Not to mention this industrial monster...

ASA

------------------------------------------------ -- -----------------

The PowerMac built into a Smith Corona typewriter case.

The toaster modem (quite an antique).

A PowerMac 7600 built into a 1940s Zenith radio case (check out the CD-ROM drive!).

Not to mention this industrial monster...

ASA

------------------------------------------------ -- -----------------

The PowerMac built into a Smith Corona typewriter case.

The toaster modem (quite an antique).

A PowerMac 7600 built into a 1940s Zenith radio case (check out the CD-ROM drive!).

Not to mention this industrial monster...

ASA

------------------------------------------------ -- -----------------

The PowerMac built into a Smith Corona typewriter case.

The toaster modem (quite an antique).

A PowerMac 7600 built into a 1940s Zenith radio case (check out the CD-ROM drive!).

Not to mention this industrial monster...

ASA

------------------------------------------------ -- -----------------

The PowerMac built into a Smith Corona typewriter case.

The toaster modem (quite an antique).

A PowerMac 7600 built into a 1940s Zenith radio case (check out the CD-ROM drive!).

Not to mention this industrial monster...

ASA

------------------------------------------------ -- -----------------

it's not running on a Mac

As a matter of fact, or at least claimed by the site, it is--although an obscure and obsolete variant of one. The top-level page claims that the site is run on an "Apple Network Server", nicknamed a "Deep Dish."

Needless to say, you don't see a whole lot of these. I'm not suprised that: 1) It was slashdotted; they only have a 180Mhz PPC chip, slow even by PPC standards, and 2) Netcraft didn't know what the fuck it was.

it's not running on a Mac

As a matter of fact, or at least claimed by the site, it is--although an obscure and obsolete variant of one. The top-level page claims that the site is run on an "Apple Network Server", nicknamed a "Deep Dish."

Needless to say, you don't see a whole lot of these. I'm not suprised that: 1) It was slashdotted; they only have a 180Mhz PPC chip, slow even by PPC standards, and 2) Netcraft didn't know what the fuck it was.

Personally, I think this mod is way cooler. Check it out.

oak
pine (?)
more wood
legos
more crazy ones

I've seen more. There's that article about the gameboy in pine that was on /. not too long ago...
-------------------

Having a case made out of LEGO would be great... need a new piece of hardware? Out of drive bays? No problem! Just build another one!

Also, a LEGO computer case would go great with the LEGO desk I plan to get when I become obscenely wealthy.

(I should probably mention that LEGO and related marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of the LEGO Company , which does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse this post. You have been duly warned.)

--Psi

Max, in America, it's customary to drive on the right.

As for myself, I have an Inwin full-tower that was decorated by a guy who was a layout artist on the "Dilbert" animated series. One side is "Dilbert At Home" the other side is "Dilbert at work." Here's the link to see those side panels.

Genndy Tartakovsky drew Dexter on one of my other PC cases. I would also love to do a full hot-rod paint job on an LC-class Mac case and put an LC475 logic board into it with a full 68040 inside. Flames and everything. That would rock.

---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!

How 'bout this? Thats the only new world desktop there, but Applefritter has many a cool modified Mac.

If'n Apple still supported Be, I'd have a dual proccesor joby on the way. As it is, I'm still waiting for the dual Athlons (I think I will name them Penny and Maggie).

How 'bout this? Thats the only new world desktop there, but Applefritter has many a cool modified Mac.

If'n Apple still supported Be, I'd have a dual proccesor joby on the way. As it is, I'm still waiting for the dual Athlons (I think I will name them Penny and Maggie).

Been done.

Repeatedly.

Personaly, I'd use all those space lego sets for a case.... hmmm, I got an old Powerbook Duo laying around...

man, is this old news (look at the dates on the site). but, if you're still interested in 68k, apple hardware, or if you're looking for cool cases and some other really interesting hardware hacks - including links to the power colo(u)r classic among others - take a gander at AppleFritter.com - a site dedicated to apple hacks, prototypes and rarities.

and as for all the rest of you, why do so many of you spell "Mac" "MAC"? what do you think it stands for? Mac is short for Macintosh. not McIntosh or even MacIntosh, and certainly isn't an acronym. those of you in the northern US, where an A.T.M. is sometimes called a M.A.C. i can understand, but these are not cash machines!

Look for an older Mac from a used hardware resller or an auction house (i.e. eBay). If you decide to pick up a Mac make sure it's a PPC box with a PCI bus.. The 6100's, and a couple other models, use nubus rather than PCI which will force you to use MkLinux.

There are other PowerPC machines either available or under development. Check out this link for a few of the POP efforts out there...

Personally, I've been looking at the quad 604e/G3/G4 PCI cards from Total Impact for a while now. They're expensive! However, they aren't single board computers. They sit in a PCI slot in your Mac/PC and act as additional processors. Total Impact announced a LinuxPPC based server box (they don't have much info on their site about it) using up to 13 internal G4 processors and scalable using an additional backplane...

Thanks to the folks at Terra Soft: Yellow Dog Linux!

See it in action on a prototype.... Applefritter

Check out Compubrick for some lego keyboards, among other things :-).

----

Lego Keyboards? They're Mac, but, I'm sure you could adapt:
http://www.applefritter.com/compubrick/accessories /index.html

[Wow, /.'s SLLLOOOOWWWW today.]