iMac G3 revival

Thanks to this thread, my cat now has a G3 iBed, a G4 eMac has been rebuilt and repurposed to run a couple of filemaker databases, just working out what to do with the other 4 G3 iMacs now (testing them would be a start).

Bloody fantastic work! Would love to do this to my trust old iMac G3 so I will be keeping an eye on this

My G5 just died so I will be Hackintoshing that this week, I love literally making a new computer. Did it with my old Xbox a couple years back

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXO8BJcak2M&feature=plcp

Arkious said:

ohh thats brilliant! my friend attempted it a few years back with a crystal xbox but he didnt have the ability to do it. Its worth the effort, its a shame the cd/dvd drive wouldnt fit, it would have been absolutely brilliant!

but very tidy work!

Thanks for your comments, im waiting till black friday now to see if i can nab a cheaper SSD. Before that im waiting for my refund from amazon before buying the next thing to get the screen work.

but will be a week or so before any more work on this project. im itching to finish it!

Click to expand...

Awesome stuff, I have a big parts list for my next project and it's gonna be about a months wages worth of gear to buy

Started a G5 Hackintosh build on the forum here

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1492614/

The easy (and expensive) iMac retrofit

Hi all

As a software guy, I can't help being impressed with all the hardware retrofit going on here -not up to that, so took the easy way out, as you will see if you read on...

My incentive was a wife whose favourite colour is red, and who would not give up her old Ruby iMac G3 for aesthetic reasons. Even minimal foresight told me that this could not last, so I had to start considering what to do to prepare for the inevitable demise of her favourite machine.

I got my hands on an old Bondi mac at a garage sale, and gutted it to see what was possible as retrofit. Anybody who takes one of these suckers apart must know how to discharge the CRT safely, and file through the socket to let air into the tube before disposal.

First priority was to get a 14 or 15 inch 4X3 monitor to replace the CRT, since they are disappearing into the third world (or landfill). I managed to snag a Dell monitor with a DVI interface.

The really easy (and expensive) part of the retrofit was to get a new 2011 Mac Mini as the processor. I did this because I'm no good at hardware, and could keep the Mac Mini in one piece for later reuse if the project didn't work out. I chose the 2011 because of the built in power supply, which avoids the problem of accommodating the power brick inside the case.

So, what to do with all that empty space that the CRT used to occupy? I got the notion that the woofer from Harman Kardon Soundsticks II might just squeeze in, and would make for an awesome sound system. It turned out to be a very tight fit, and I had to carve out the case under the handle a bit. The result is that the woofer sits in the case with its feet against the back of the flat screen, i.e. in your face, which becomes obvious when you crank 'er up. I left the tweeter sticks outside the case, as the volume control is a touch control on the right speaker, and I couldn't figure out how I could make that accessible from inside - so although the woofer is out of sight, the sticks are a bit of a giveaway that something is up with the sound system.

I considered adding a DVD drive to line up with the slot, but in these days of iTunes and OS upgrades via the web, it didn't seem necessary.

The day finally came when the Ruby iMac would no longer boot up, and I did the final retrofit. Not too different from the Bondi Mac, more plastic and less steel to cut.

Here is the final product, with original keyboard and mouse. It is still beautiful and red. And the sound is indeed awesome.

Oh, almost forgot. The iMac is sitting on a table made from a 1960's vintage hard disk platter reclaimed from a Control Data 808 Disk, for those old enough to remember what that stuff was like (e.g. hydraulic head activator, none of your wimpy voice coil stuff).

Cheers

You are a God! I wish I had something to this on, like a 1st gen iMac G5 20'' since they have the most space inside.

This is awesome! Are you going to hackintosh it or just leave it running windows?

Hackintosh it!!!!

Chapeaux bas sir!