In today of 4K displays (opens in new tab) and SSDs (opens in new tab) apparently able to warp pace, peering at your desktop through a 9 inch mono display screen could appear a bit… quaint… even when it was endorsed by Steve Jobs. Maker and all-round retro pc fanatic Dave Luna (opens in new tab), has taken the shell of the enduring Macintosh Traditional II (the tiny beige all-in-one from 1991, additionally offered because the Performa 200) and changed the insides with a Raspberry Pi to make one thing that merges the expertise of right this moment with that of the previous.
Referred to as the Paper Mac (opens in new tab), and described as an “abomination” by its creator, Luna’s accomplishment makes use of a Raspberry Pi 3 (opens in new tab) as its brains, and a 16-color grayscale e-ink display screen from Waveshare instead of the unique 512 x 342 pixel show. Relatively than truly booting into Apple’s System 7 on the Pi, which might be information in itself with out an emulator (opens in new tab), it makes use of customized software program to show a System-7-like setting (the cleverly named Psuedo7) on which it shows highlights from its proprietor’s Google Photographs stream.
Relatively than wrestle with the Google Photographs API, nonetheless, Luna got here up with a chic answer to getting the pictures to show. He took a Google Chromecast, and hooked up it to an HDMI seize card through an HDMI splitter that will strip HDCP from the sign. This card then plugs into the CSI interface on the Pi through an adapter, showing as a digicam. The Chromecast will be set to an ambient mode that shows images, which it pipes to the Pi, and ultimately seem on the e-ink display screen through some Python code that resizes it, converts it to black and white, and provides a body that appears like a System 7 window. It’s extraordinarily intelligent.
“I actually didn’t really feel like coping with Google Photographs API authentication, querying, and caching. There wasn’t something new or enjoyable to that course of for me,” writes Luna on his website. “As an alternative… the Chromecast would do the entire heavy lifting for picture administration, and I would study extra in regards to the digicam port which I would by no means used earlier than.”
The Paper Mac makes use of authentic Apple peripherals via an Arduino that converts the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) to USB, and makes traditional Macintosh noises via a set of USB-powered audio system contained in the case and a traditional audio pack from Steven Jay Cohen. Urgent the C key on the real Apple Adjustable Keyboard places it into clock mode, whereas different keys can take screenshots, or shut the machine down.
Luna’s different initiatives embody turning a Commodore 64 right into a USB keyboard, and making a docking station out of a Commodore Pet.
