Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!cs.uoregon.edu!ns.uoregon.edu!milton!whit
From: whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Build your own Mac
Message-ID: <18500@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 16 Mar 91 00:19:31 GMT
References: <1153@sppy00.UUCP>
Distribution: comp.sys.mac.hardware, comp.sys.mac.misc
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 52

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