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Build a Macintosh From Scratch
An anonymous reader writes "MacOpz has posted a great step-by-step tutorial on building your own G4-based Macintosh from scratch. This article includes where to get parts, what modifications must be performed, and tons of photographs. A must-read for anyone that wants a Mac but doesn't want to pay Apple prices."
The problem is that when you sum up everything, you end up with something _more expensive_ than just buying it from Apple.
Oh and of course you also have to purchase MacOS.
{{.sig}}
If you add up the costs listed, it ends up cheaper than pre-built boxes from apple...
Really.. I swear..
I live in a giant bucket.
You can follow other people's progress here:
p c&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=4820959925
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=t
--- I do not moderate.
Plant apple seed in ground.
Add water and fertilizer at regular intervals.
Remove weeds at regular intervals.
Eventually, you'll have an Apple.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
It is a violation of the EULA for Mac OS to run it on any non-Apple-branded hardware. This goes for things like MOL too.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Paying to build a Mac from scratch? That's like buying parts and building a Fiat.
How does one build a Windows computer, and do you need to pay Microsoft even if you install Linux on it?
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
As a professional who relies on my Macintosh to generate income, the supposed "price premium" of Apple hardware over a build-it-yourself amounts to a half day's billing.
Add the time to build eating into billable hours, and it would come out as an expensive proposition.
There are lots of reasons to build a machine yourself- better control over the parts, getting a custom config that you can't easily buy, and saving money. I wager that most people's reason to buy a Mac- it works, out of the box, to make us money- is not really compatible with those ideals.
I do agree with one sentiment addressed in the story, and that's avoiding the outlandish prices Apple charges for standard parts such as RAM and hard disks. Most savvy Mac users buy base configs and then load up the RAM and HD's via cheaper, third party suppliers.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
Sure. I'd bet Steve Jobs would love to see this in the marketplace, being the calm rational guy that he is. He wouldn't do anything like publicly yell at a small company selling watches with the Mac logo on them or anything for no good reason.
Glad to see someone is extending this brilliant principle to the Mac world.
Pay the fuck up!
Isn't the whole point of a mac the shinny case?
OS X is a chance for the clones to come back: This German vendor is selling OS X compatible Umax clones with G4 CPUs for EUR 729+.
actually they used freedos, not a linux variant
The PC Case is just ugly. I'm considering to buy an iMac, partly because of it look, seriously. I'm a hardcore programmer. But Mac's look is just irresistible. I think the Unix core make it a partical machine for coding (besides web browsing, etc).
uh.. read the article. it's not 'building a g4 from scratch' so much as 'getting an apple mobo & other random g4 parts off ebay and mounting them in a pc case with some noisy fans', primarily because "it's impossible to use a Zip drive, CD-ROM, and DVD-ROM together in the same machine with any G4 that Apple has ever shipped".
this is a glorified case-mod project for a specific end use, not 'building a g4 from scratch'.
apple frequently dumps older systems at the education stores. about 5 monthes ago, stanford had G4/533/CD-RW/40GB + 17 inch LCD for 1249 (that is 350 added to the screen). other examples are 899 (same time) for iBook 600/DVD. all new machines.
Does anyone have any information on building a PC from scratch?
TomsHardware.com recently ran an article (with pictures) on how to build a PC yourself. It's really quite simple though. I have an abnormal fear of tools yet I've been building my own computers for 10 years. If you can install your own video card, you can build a computer.
The reason why it's making so many headlines is because a "mainstream" Unix-based OS is finally emerging, vindicating all of us Linux/BSD geeks who loved Unix for all this time. MacOS X makes an okay Unix, but has a great GUI. Something the free desktop projects should think about emulating... oh, wait, they already are.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Ouch, given that an Athlon XP 2000+ can be had for under $100, it sounds like you're still paying Apple prices.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
StrongARMs are highly integrated chips. One piece gets you all sorts of stuff up to things like LCD controllers. They're not exactly upgradable and usually not a do-it-yourself project to build one from scratch.
However if you do still feel like building a StrongARM based machine from scratch (very difficult, I hope you're into board fabbing and have the gear to solder lots of exotic surface mount components), you might want to check out the LART.
If starting from something premade is OK with you, there's an excellent developer community for Linux on iPAQs at handhelds.org. The iPAQ has a huge expansion bus that you could probably use to do neat things with. Of course some hardware hacking would still be required. You can probably get one with a broken batt and/or screen off eBay pretty cheap.
Another option for a premade unit is the Lucent/Phillips IS2630 screenphone (Shannon). There's a project to run Linux on them called TuxScreen. Unfortunately they don't have any more of them for sale, but you might be able to find someone who bought more than one or who is done with theirs that's willing to sell you one. This is a pretty sweet phone, and there's lots of docs on modding it, but it's sure not a PC.
I was looking at this picture of the backside of the logic board with some interest, having never seen the insides of a modern Mac before. I couldn't help but notice that one of the chips on this board, the middle of the three largish square ICs, appears to be made by Intel (there is a very distinctive large, lowercase i to the left of some other illegible text, which is one of Intel's trademarks). Its impossible to tell what it is from the picture. Is it a PCI bridge? The ethernet controller? You would think Apple would not be keen on using Intel components whenever possible, but then I guess any corporation is going to put profit first. Does anyone know what it is?
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Now if he'd started from some non-Apple PPC motherboard, that would be more impressive.
5) Install appropriate pirated version of window
6) Install *NIX after realizing what shit windows is
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Now, if they had used some generic PowerPC motherboard and got it to boot OS X, that would be news. This isn't.
So couldn't a computer manufacturing company, who has these parts for ultracheap, start making Macs and selling them?
Like the clones that threatened to put Apple out of the business, hence Steve giving them the axe? If you thouhgt the Apple reation to the eMachine rip off was violent, the reaction to unlicenced clones would be horrific.
Or possibly making Macs that run Linux, Windows, BeOS, whatever... For all the systems you listed, macs do that all ready. The only catch is that to do windows, you need VPC, everything else has a native version though. And if it had native windows support, what would be the point of owning a mac?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Seems pretty tinkerable to me, what's missing?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
From what I see of it, apparently he drilled his board in order to mount it. BAD IDEA!!! I'm willing to bet that there are solder traces that are under the board that you can't see. Cut one, and you can kiss the board goodbye - and if you're unlucky, you might've even killed other components in your system.
And uh - not to troll, but where does the "cool" part come in? From what I see, he eBayed for parts, spent more than you would've direct from Apple, and loaded it in an ATX case. Uh, yay?
--pi
The last thing Apple wants to do is encourage and enable people to "experiment" with OSX on non-Apple hardware. You've noticed, I suspect, that Apple has never marketed an x86 version of any of its operating systems That's because Apple is hardware company, not a software vendor. Sure, they write their own OS, but it is precisely the tight integration of that proprietary OS with proprietary hardware that maintains the "uniquesness" of the Mac. Whether or not that uniqueness is worth the price is a matter of opinion, but the approach does ensure that only company that builds Macs is Apple.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
How, exactly, might "Mac lovers" have prevented Apple from defeating the clone manufacturers in court? Sales figures and market share are irrelevant if you been caught infringing trademark and copyright and violating license agreements.
Interesting use of the word "beta", too.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
All that modularity is there because it reduces manufacturing costs, not because someone wants to sell to the homebrew crowd. It enables the Dells of the world to build more boxes faster and cheaper. It also allows them to cut costs by purchasing generic components. I doubt there's enough money in selling parts into the home-built market to sustain any but the most specialized vendors.
That this is at all possible is due to the open architecture designed into the original PC by the IBM team in Boca Raton.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Indeed, every thing there's just no source code anywhere
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Wow, this is so exciting... first a PC board in a Mac case, now a Mac board in a PC case.
How long before someone takes a G4 Mac, removes the logic board from it, puts it back, and put up detailed step-by-step photos on a Web site showing what he or she has accomplished?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If you really want to try out OSX, you could just go to ebay and buy a Mac 8500, or something like that, then buy some extra ram and a faster processor card. I managed to get all of this for less than $100.
Then just buy OSX and use XPostFacto, which allows you to run OSX on unsupported macs. Now you have a Mac that allows you to fiddle with OSX for under $150.
>> Beta refers to the VCR, not the "testing"...
Oh, that. Oops.
No one has ever successfully marketed a Mac clone that would run an Apple OS and successfully defended itself against the inevitable Apple lawsuit. If you want to build a homebrew Mac in your basement, they don't care. If you put it in a pretty box and start selling it by the thousands, they'll roll all over you.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I don't understand why a bunch of people want to run OS X anyway. It's proprietary and completely closed source. If you're a serious graphics designer, sure, I can see your reason for wanting OS X.
But, slashdot geeks... I can't understand why they'd want something that removes all kinds of ability to tinker and has a shitty EULA. The OS may be a step up from Windows, but the EULA is almost as shitty.
I'm a /. geek. I'm here running Moz 1.1 on my OSX 10.2 dual G4 500. I love this machine. I ran OS/2 and NT for years. When I didn't have the hardware for a decent machine, I put Linux on it and got a few extra miles. Last year, I was the recipient of a used Mac, the mecca of my class of geek. What did I want? I wanted UNIX class stability and speed (and that familiar command line from 7 years of *nix use). I wanted main stream apps, natively.
To me, a non-programmer sort, Linux adds little value. There's some geek value I can pretend to have when I apt-get the Debian box under my control, or wget/make config/make install my Slackware server, but there's something great to running Office, Starcraft/Warcraft, Bloatus Notes and then drop to a shell that uses sane commands (ipconfig, ls, etc.). And if there's an update, Software Update takes care of that for me.
Oh, and I don't care about an EULA. Like the rest of America, I just click through and never read them.
It is worth remembering that a lot of folks don't have much interest in all the open source/free software wrangling and use Linux because it is essentially Unix. For them, t's just a good Unix clone that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Step One: Buy 3 Used Buicks ....
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Amazingly, the lowest end Gateway Profile 4 comes with an integrated ethernet port (with a modem optional) and the other two base models have both standard. Perhaps you should have checked it out yourself.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
From the article:
Furthermore, water cooling projects for the overclockers become more of a reality.
Aren't PowerPC chips basically un-overclockable? From what I understand, something about the chip design makes it either impossible to overclock it, or makes the speed gained from overclocking it negligble.
c-hack.com |
I did not know that. Although as a nifty bit of trivia, that would mean my C64 keyboard was a UK keyboard. Spiffy.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
It is a violation of the EULA for Mac OS to run it on any non-Apple-branded hardware.
I really don't care. I simply ignore EULAs. In fact, I make it a point to not even read them (and I note that Microsoft does not even require that you scroll to the end of the EULA before clicking "I Agree.") I don't violate copyright law by pirating software, but the EULAs are filled with unreasonable crap that just gets my blood boiling.
So, if Apple, Microsoft, or any other vendor wishes to sue me for violating their EULA, bring it on. I'm tired of the bullshit. You make a product and I buy it. It's not a "license to use" and I'm not playing that game any more.
Not only is it only about upgrading old Mac motherboards, but even the linked page says it's about building your own G4 from scratch. The only part of this that's not a simple "upgrade your old Mac to run OS X" is that it mentions using regular ATX cases. I can't see why you would want to do that unless you were doing a cool case mod.
Pardon me for yawning, but been there done that about to replace a Linux box with one. And the only reason I did it is I already had an old Power Computing Mac that was already sufficiently upgraded. I'm now debating whether it's worth upgrading my $60 thrift store Power Wave.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I have had overheating issues, though I believe that may have had something to do with my lack of AC and a shitty heatsink.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Just to check, we all noticed that they're still using a fair number of apple aprts, right? Its not like its parts made by somebody else, he's just scavangeing parts from other sources than apple for apple stuff.
Mod point free since 2001
I couldn't afford an Apple II, so I bought the
little spiral bound manual. It thoughtfully
included a full schematic (with part numbers),
and the full Boot and Bios Rom listings! I think
it was the Rom code that tipped me over the edge
into the project of building my own.
I wire wrapped the circuits, and hand programmed
byte by byte the 5 Roms (2705s, if I recall). One
for Bios, and 4 for Apple Basic. Memory chips
were the most expensive components at the time.
And it worked! Noisy circuitry, I almost had to
position my hands like I was playing a therimin
to get it to have a clean display.
Super of Apple to do 'open source' before it was cool!
Cupertino, CA
15 September 2002
Dear Slashdot Editors:
Your article on building Macintoshes is a threat to the valuable intellectual property rights of our client, Apple Computer. You are hereby ordered to cease and desist publication of this article, or face legal action.
All your Mac are belong to us.
Sincerely,
I. Will Cheatham, Esq.
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, P.A.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Can I use electromechanical relays?
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
And it costs nearly zero. It's called software emulation. I have an old PDP 11 and a Vax 1180 as well as a Univac 1180/82E running Octal around here somewhere. Oh and again it's in software.
Honestly if you build something out of used/junk parts it's because you need a cheap limited purpose server to do some mindless task quietly in the corner. Not that this is bad thing. I have a house full of Frankenclones for routers, firewalls, mail servers and so on.
I've had both Debian and NetBSD running on my Quadra 610. They work in command-line mode, but they're sluggish as hell. I don't remember Linux being that slow on 486 systems...then again, the bus speed on a 68040 is half of the processor speed (vs. full speed for a 486DX).
(No, neither memory nor disk should be a bottleneck...I've maxed out the RAM at 68 megs and have a 1GB 5400-rpm hard drive installed. There is no L2 cache installed...nothing used has shown up and new cache modules cost >2x what I paid for the machine. I suspect L2 cache would speed it up considerably, but I can't justify the expense.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Even swapping out the CD-ROM drive is a massive chore IMHO.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I simply ignore EULAs. In fact, I make it a point to not even read them
n g-an-amateur-pr0n-site-ware, etc.
That's where, most of the time, the publisher divulges if a product contains adware, spyware, i'm-taking-all-your-honeymoon-pictures-and-starti
As this may be the only place you can read about those things (before Ad-Aware catches up), if they're not obviously listed as installation options, you'd be better off going through it.
Get off my launchpad!
More to the point -- seriously, how long before Apple tries to shut them down for recreating (reverse-engineering?) the Mac without a license??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
...DO NOT follow this guy's instructions! He ended up making a total mess, and risked frying his CPU.
While it's improbable, it is possible that spreading thermal paste on anything other than the CPU core could cause the system to short circuit. The author at macopz got the adhesive all over the freaking CPU, which could lead to problems down the road. Please read Arctic Silver's instructions if you've never applied thermal paste before. This guy DOES NOT know what he's doing, at least when it comes to installing processors.
Every machine has a certain feel to it. The way it runs, handles and responds to your commands. It's uptime, it's part reliability. All of this makes up a general feel too a machine. We expect our machines to react a certain way to certain situations, and we customize outr machines to a certain feel. This is why we generaly feel more comfortable on our own computer than on someone elses despite the fact that the two may be identical in terms of configuration.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
A few times when I've built my own PC's from scratch I did so because I wasn't quite satisfied with the quality of all parts offered in any given pre-built system.
One of the reasons to buy a Mac though is the build quality and cohesive selection of parts. (More true of the laptops than the desktops, but still).
I have no desire to build my own mac because I'm happy enough with how they've already built them!
And like others have said if you're just after a cheap system to play with buying used will probably be about as cheap as scrounging components, plus it will probably look a lot better...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Looks like you may be right, though a handful of people are trying here and there.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Well for starters there's this
and this
or these
these too
this too along with this
and this
Had enough yet?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Damn, shoulda hit preview. Maybe it should be a requirement, no more post button, you have to hit preview
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
You go to the "fastestest" option, and strip it down.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Be claims that Apple never gave them the info for the motherboards, not the processors.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
you mean entirely out of money!
| - | - |
Good lord, haven't these people ever heard of FireWire? All of those devices have FireWire versions - hell, you could probably put all three of them on one port, run them all simultaneously, and see no performance hit over having them in the case.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
No, I am thinking of the "pill shaped" mice (for lack of a better term) where the button is the mouse.
They are approximately the right shape, though they don't feel particularly comfortable to me, but the fact that I can't rest my hand on it without clicking sucks.
I suppose many people probably wouldn't have a problem with them, but I am particulary picky about input devices, if I had a choice I wouldn't use anything other than the Logitech optical MouseMan wheel. Unfortunately, they don't make it any more, and I don't particularly care for the new model.
Actually, with all of the new Macs the developer tools are on the harddrive in a package. It only takes a double click.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
I bought an 8500 off ebay for around $75.
First, the 8500 was designed by a drunk. This is not an easy machine to rip apart.
Second, after downloading Stuffit and trying to run it, I get an application error message. I have been unable to run XPostFacto because I can't even get Stuffit working.
Third, after moving some of the DIMMs around (thinking Stuffit's problem is RAM-related), the system won't boot at all.
Fourth, even if I did get Stuffit working, XPostFacto requires the existence of a MacOS 9 partition; you cannot natively install OSX only (it plays a trick and moves the root directory from the CD to disk filesystem). I bought a 9gig Micropolis SCSI drive to solve this problem, not that it's been much use.
This pile of junk is sitting on my kitchen floor until I have time to deal with it, which may be never.
Well, I'll be a monkey's distant cousin. You're right. :-) (For my fellow clueless: check in
"/Applications/Installers/Developer Tools".) And here I was, wondering when I'd remember to haul my Developer's tools disk into work (or wait for all bazillion megs of software to download from Apple) to get those up and running on my new G4. Now, you'd think that would get more prominently mentioned somewhere...
Of course, the Developer Tools get even more interesting when you realize that you can use Interface Builder with Perl (using CamelBones and with Ruby using the RubyCocoa stuff, and probably with Python using a tool taht I haven't tried to look up yet.
Life is just grand.
Babar
Humm I thought my quote came from a reliable source. Guess i was wrong
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
None of these are 486 or other "modern" CPU systems. But they are good starting places for learning basic system and board design. Once you understand timing, busses, signaling, etc you can just start reading chip specs and work out how to connect them together via buffers and controllers.
h tm 1 01 .html6 5tools/ diy6502/diy6502.html 98/electronics/zargar i/zargari.html
These pages don't necesarily have a lot of design stuff on them, but have many references to places the people pulled info from.
http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie95/2a2/2a23/2a23.
http://www.home-micros.freeserve.co.uk/uk101/uk
http://www2.whidbey.com/~beattidp/comput/x
http://et.nmsu.edu/~etti/fal
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people