Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iMac G4 with M1 chip: Success!!!

theMarble said:
Holy crap this is cool! Well done colbyjohn94! I have the fastest iMac G4 (see in signature) and it's surprisingly fast compared to other G4 based machines I own, but it sure doesn't have an M1 in it lol. Imagine an M1X Mac Mini in one of these.

How did wire up the display? Was it custom?
Click to expand...
Inside the gooseneck g4 is a standard (nearly) full sized male and female vga connector. The real question is…. DVD burner connected and working internally? That would be the cool trick…. 🙂 not super useful anymore yet fun.
 
The iMac G4 (much like the G4 Cube) were, imho, the most innovative and brilliant designs ever made. I’d love to see this done to a Cube.

In fact, I’d pay decent money to have a Mini transplanted into a G4 Cube case. I bet that could be a decent little business for someone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Andropov
venom600 said:
The iMac G4 (much like the G4 Cube) were, imho, the most innovative and brilliant designs ever made. I’d love to see this done to a Cube.

In fact, I’d pay decent money to have a Mini transplanted into a G4 Cube case. I bet that could be a decent little business for someone.
Click to expand...
The problem here, IMHO, is that the G4 Cube was as great of a design internally as it was externally. Transplanting a logic board with no replaceable components inside a G4 Cube would feel weird (to me). No such problem with the iMac G4, as it was a totally different concept.
 
colbyjohn94 said:
Hi everyone!

Not sure if anyone will care but this is one of the only places I can think to post about it besides twitter! I've been on a passion project these last few weeks and I finished it the other night and wanted to share (because I'm absolutely geeking about it!)

I decided to make my dream computer and figured out a way to put and M1 chip inside an iMac G4!!

I've always wanted the iMac G4 since I was a kid and I knew a few people made some hackintosh's with them but I didn't want that, I wanted a real Mac. I always thought about putting the Mac mini internals in it but with intel chips it wouldn't work for a couple reasons (size, heat/airflow). Well now with the M1 how thermally cool it runs, I thought I'd give it another shot!

Well I'm proud to say after a lot of frustrating weeks and reengineering of the G4 dome base, it was a success! I'm typing this on the updated G4 right now 🙂

I'm certainly not an engineer by any standard and went into the mod blind, not knowing what to expect. I reached out for some help during the process and I want to give special thanks to my friend Jeremiah, who put up with my frustrating @$$ on many sleepless nights as he helped work on this with me. Also thank you Pendleton115 (from twitter) who helped me through some of the technical questions I had throughout the wiring process and encouraged me to keep going. Lastly to DremelJunkie - who's blog helped me make this idea possible with the wiring process and all of his detailed mod outlines from 10 years ago and are still remarkably helpful!

I might be the only one to find this cool but I'm pretty proud of it because I had a vision to build my dream computer and to be able to use it as my daily driver now just brings a smile to my face!

I'll attach some pictures and if you guys want see a video I can post my Twitter! Let me know what you guys think and I'd love to know if anyone has tried anything similar!
Click to expand...
What a passion for the iMac G4! Too good to be true. Congratulations👍

Oh, I want to M1 it too.
 
colbyjohn94 said:
Hi everyone!

Not sure if anyone will care but this is one of the only places I can think to post about it besides twitter! I've been on a passion project these last few weeks and I finished it the other night and wanted to share (because I'm absolutely geeking about it!)

I decided to make my dream computer and figured out a way to put and M1 chip inside an iMac G4!!

I've always wanted the iMac G4 since I was a kid and I knew a few people made some hackintosh's with them but I didn't want that, I wanted a real Mac. I always thought about putting the Mac mini internals in it but with intel chips it wouldn't work for a couple reasons (size, heat/airflow). Well now with the M1 how thermally cool it runs, I thought I'd give it another shot!

Well I'm proud to say after a lot of frustrating weeks and reengineering of the G4 dome base, it was a success! I'm typing this on the updated G4 right now 🙂

I'm certainly not an engineer by any standard and went into the mod blind, not knowing what to expect. I reached out for some help during the process and I want to give special thanks to my friend Jeremiah, who put up with my frustrating @$$ on many sleepless nights as he helped work on this with me. Also thank you Pendleton115 (from twitter) who helped me through some of the technical questions I had throughout the wiring process and encouraged me to keep going. Lastly to DremelJunkie - who's blog helped me make this idea possible with the wiring process and all of his detailed mod outlines from 10 years ago and are still remarkably helpful!

I might be the only one to find this cool but I'm pretty proud of it because I had a vision to build my dream computer and to be able to use it as my daily driver now just brings a smile to my face!

I'll attach some pictures and if you guys want see a video I can post my Twitter! Let me know what you guys think and I'd love to know if anyone has tried anything similar!
Click to expand...
wowwww the G4 is my favorite computer!!!!!
 
venom600 said:
The iMac G4 (much like the G4 Cube) were, imho, the most innovative and brilliant designs ever made. I’d love to see this done to a Cube.

In fact, I’d pay decent money to have a Mini transplanted into a G4 Cube case. I bet that could be a decent little business for someone.
Click to expand...

A G4 Cube would certainly be a lot easier. But given the number of hours case modding takes. I think most would balk at the bill.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NoGood@Usernames
I was tempted to take my old 23” Apple Cinema Display and stuff a modern 4K panel in it. The display case is decently thick, and now you have me wondering if I could fit a M1 mini’s internals in there as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: turbineseaplane
Very interested in having some pictures of the inside ! To see how you positioned the motherboard and the power adapter.
I also modded an iMac G4, but with a 2014 Mac Mini, and I used the old motherboard to keep the original I/O. The only difference is the color of the USB connectors. I can use the Apple Pro speakers, 3 USB 3, Ethernet... I even wired the mic on the screen.

IMG_8137.jpg
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: TheStork, Xand&Roby, Ursus1968 and 9 others
PML7554 said:
Very interested in having some pictures of the inside ! To see how you positioned the motherboard and the power adapter.
I also modded an iMac G4, but with a 2014 Mac Mini, and I used the old motherboard to keep the original I/O. The only difference is the color of the USB connectors. I can use the Apple Pro speakers, 3 USB 3, Ethernet... I even wired the mic on the screen.

View attachment 1860170
Click to expand...
Have any pics of this install ?! Would love to see!
 
colbyjohn94 said:
I'll have to open it up again this weekend because I totally forgot to take a pic of the inside after I got it all placed on the bottom plate and ready to be put together. I was too eager to get it all working (and its was nearly midnight when it got finished lol)

I promise to open it back up and take some videos of the process I went through soon. I have another 17" that I was going to mod too after this one and maybe make it a little bit cleaner/streamline of a mod and less MacGyvered lol because aside from some parts a lot of this was made up as I went so the next one will be more streamlined hopefully!!

Link to my tweet with a video

There's my link to twitter so you can see it running and swiveling!! Sorry I don't have more videos yet, still got work during the day and this was my side project but will post some this weekend!
Click to expand...
Subscribed!! Thanks for sharing this! I wonder if the motherboard would fit into a 15" ??
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back