Macintosh Plus Mini Scale (Custom Built)

Hi Everyone,

Just thought Id share my most recent school project with you all, been working on it for a few months now ( whilst juggling A-Level, DT, Physics, Mechanics and ICT)

Not the kind of design I set out to achieve as I wanted it to be as true to the original Macintosh Plus as possible (but due to equipment restrictions the design began to drift away form that...), but in the end im quite happy with how it turned out.

I used a 3.5" screen that is intended for use in a car as a rear reversing monitor, I modified it to run off 5v USB power and AV video from the Raspberry Pi. Used the B revision of the Raspberry Pi. Quite a simple project really but the casing was a pain, tried 3D printing it but it wasn't up to the job so I had to resort to using the milling machine to make the front casing and then made the rear casing out of clear acrylic.

Hope you guys like it, leave me some suggestions for my next Raspberry Pi project!

Thanks

Alex

(Apologies if this is posted in the wrong forum, I just thought it fitted in because it was meant to be a replica of the Macintosh Plus)

bigeasy_uk said:

Nice one Alex, looks great. Have you tried out mini vmac on it?

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Thanks! Yeah I have, it works pretty well running Mac OS 7. I didn't get a chance to take any photos with it running mini vMac, I will upload some when I get home as it looks a lot more retro then. Was also looking for a small striped apple logo transfer and trying to work out the best way to write "Macintosh Plus" on the front.

This is the reason people refrain from posting things on the internet, yes I know it's not really anything near the beauty of the Macintosh Plus, but if you are going to criticise it be constructive and give me some suggestions.

I know that the clear acrylic kind of ruins it, but I literally had 2 hours to make the back casing, that included measuring it, producing the 2D design files and then laser cutting and assembling it. Whilst doing this Extended project, I have also juggled doing Physics, DT, Mechanics and ICT (A-levels, not sure what the equivalent is in different countries).

deluxeshredder said:

Not too bad for a first (?) attempt, but such classic designs should be reproduced with more attention to detail.

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Thanks, yeah it is a first attempt and I would have liked to have had it perfectly to scale with every little detail, but sadly this project was more about the 20'000 word accompaniment than the project itself.. Thank you for your constructive criticism tho

harrymatic said:

I really like this, especially the CNC milled front (MDF?). The whole thing is very neatly put together. It looks a bit top-heavy though, does it fall over easily?

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Thanks! The front is actually made out of a wood/plastic fibre board (cant remember its technical name) but it worked perfectly for milling. Surprisingly It doesn't fall over, some of the acrylic at the back is made out of 12mm which increases the weight at the back drastically, was thinking of adding another layer to the back to make it look slightly better proportioned.