My boss's first computer is a MacSE that he's saved for sentimental reasons.
My coworkers and I are looking for someone who can put a Mac Mini inside
the MacSE case in order to make it a useful home server (for iTunes, etc.).
Ideally we'd like to keep the monitor and keyboard of the SE.
anyone have any experience with this kind of hack ?
thanks
You would have to make a connector for the monitor to work with VGA, and even then it probably wouldn't work due to resolution issues. The keyboard isn't that hard, though. All you would need is a USB>ADB converter. Many SE monitors are burned in now as well, so I think the best option is to find a smallish colour CRT that will fit in the case.
My understanding is that it's not possible to get a black and white compact mac's video to work as an external monitor. I think your options are:
1) small LCD screen, like what they sell for car-puters.
2) something like this hack.
3) find an old monochrome monitor that's the same size and will fit. However, I don't actually know that such things exist.
Color monitors are too big, even small ones. That's why the Color Classic is slightly larger than the black and white compact Macs.
http://www.byodkm.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/29/sort/1/size/medium/cat/502/page/
Looks like they used a flatscreen... amazing, from time to time someone asks about how to connect some display from a laptop to a desktop, and they are told its basically more expensive and more of a pain than its worth, and then someone just goes and does this...
(I wish I was an electrical engineer or whatever)
if you look around the link at the top, the cool part is... I think its running OS 8!!?? (Please tell me what I am seeing here...)
The other very cool thing is the Mini is the first Mac you don't have to destroy to hack.
Lots of room for fw HDs when you have a flatscreen in an SE (or a Mini Cluster!!)
oh, that's pretty
but that's not
boots OS 8?
Looks like we've Applefrittered the site! (/. eat your heart out)
Nope, that's just regular 10.3. The HD icon and the size is different in 8.
If i'm not mistaken its just an ordinary car lcd display (made obvious by the stand)
For weeks I have been dreaming about making a SE/Mac mini, but I wanted to run the ports out the original port holes. That monitor (LCD) is just what I have been looking for...
Of course, in my mind, I would not have such a bad looking back end. I was thinking of providing some of the existing ports through the horizontal panel (where the network card would go) and (thanks to internal adapters) some legacy ports (ADB, Serial, SCSI) too help keep a 'natural look'.
Let's assume that you are interested in something like what catmistake reffered to in his link.
The Mac mini will set you back at least $500 (more if you upgrade some things)
The LCD panel will set you back at least $480-$550 (depending on things like touch screen, manufacturer, etc)
PLUS the cost of any adapters required to transfer plugs to the back of the case (which could be as simple as a direct one-for-one or fancy, providing all the mini has to offer plus ADB, serial, a direct VGA port, and SCSI - if you really wanted to go all out)
This puts you up to a fair $1200, assuming good deals on parts alone. Add in extra internal firewire and USB drives (and with the space, why not?), and you can add to the price. Not to mention the time it would take for someone to work on this.
Do you have a price range you are looking to stay within? Because there are a number of folks on this forum who could pull this off. I just wanted to know how serious this request was. I would be willing to go for it if the price was right.
Come up with a list of specs you would like to see in such a machine, a time frame on when it must be delivered and give us a clue of how much you are willing to spend.
Perhaps the step after that would be for folks who feel competent enough for such a challenge to submit 'bids' for the work.
a third party company did make video adapters for the mac se, classic, and some others. they are just hard to find is all.
instead of using an lcd i would suggest doing what this guy did. he used an old black & white vga monitor.
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/mac-itx/
More like $320. Still expensive, but a little more reasonable.
The problem with that is there's only one DVI port. As in, you would be stuck with either that B&W display or mirroring at a pitifully low resolution at great cost.
It's a very different idea to just stick an already functional LCD monitor in the case and use it as the display. The warning we give people are about pulling a custom LCD out of a laptop and thinking they can just redo a few wires to get a VGA plug stuck on it. This is absolutely nothing of that sort. This hack is the way we would normally tell people how to do it, buy and already useful monitor that doesn't need to be modified and use that; rather than go through the pipe-dream of wanting to use the LCD out of their X brand X model laptop and wondering why nobody seems to have thought of just rewiring it to VGA. In at least 99.9% of the LCD panels that are out there, it'll cost more to convert it to use VGA in electronics and cables (if any company even bothered to make either for that panel!) than just buying an LCD monitor.
Which is why I think Cube motherboard hacks make a lot more sense at this point. I imagine that the mini is sending prices of used Cubes plummeting, and Cubes have the huge advantage (when it comes to these kinds of hacks) of being able to replace the video with a dual-head card, if one feels the need for a larger monitor at higher resolution ( I wouldn't, because that would ruin the all-in-one cuteness).
If the AE card slot is ever figured out so a PCI card could be used, putting a video card for either dual or triple display capability in would be trivial.
I realize you were looking for something to do with already owned hardware, but...
Personally, if your going to do a hack like this, I think you should go all the way. Design should be done to maximize space within the SE (and I think use an SE/30 box because it looks slightly neater in my opinion... then carefully stick a detail that reads"SE/47" or "SE/7A"-- as the SE/30 was named with the initials of "Special Edition" and the last two digits of the proc, the 68030, so this should be named with the last two characters from this proc, the 7447A).
Make a cluster box... rip those Mini mobos out, and put them in a row like blades...
How many mini mobos could fit across the bottom in a vertical setup?
btw, I wanted to do this, and put a post here somewhere, with the eMac mobo before I ever heard of the Mini, and the mobo is apparently based on that, so, nothing new in my desire to do this... but its such an expensive endeavour... but not impossibly expensive... but still, maybe I should post this under "Mac Mini Dreamz"
Use the AE slots as mini-PCI (assuming someone figures this out) to run gigabit connections within as a backbone, and TCP/IP over fw as a secondary connection.
Use the ATA bus to run all the internal HDs, and only use 100GB 2.5" drives (or the 60GB fast drives) in a large (yet mini) internal RAID array. The only thing I worry about in my design (idea) is that the HD's would all be sitting stacked and stuffed behind the LCD... maybe a lead plate will stop the video interference... (wait... would there be any? LCD is not like CRT!)
Make sure the flat screen doesn't take up as much space as the one in that hack... have it screwed in place somehow, right were the old crt was screwed in, and not resting on a pedistal... and use something from the fishtank hacks to make it look like its a crt (a flatscreen behind a plastic bevelled lens could be made to look like its a crt... if its done right, I bet).
Use the holes given... make it elegant.
And then. Let it just sit there most of the time, looking exactly like an SE/30, except for the new decal...
I just don't understand my own desire to do things like this... its just not rational... I have no idea what I would do with a mini cluster.
They do. I have four or five of the things, in two different brands, that are the same screen size and depth as an SE. None of the ones I have will do more than 640x480 though. They are mostly used with point-of-sale systems (computerised cash registers).
No need, I linked to your comment
Subscribe to Nuts and Volts magazine. Keep your eyes peeled for outfits selling surplus 9" VGA monitors. They're mostly used in POS terminals and ATMs. Some of the newer ones might be better than 640x480.
Well what do you know? I just plugged one in to my ATI Rage 128 and it does 800 x 600 at 56 or 60Hz. Brand is "Compucon". The others are unbranded. BTW I picked them up for about $AU 20 each. (~$US 16)
just as a side not the SE in the name actually stood for System Expandable i read it in an apple repair manual.